“For now, events in the Gulf are being treated as “foreign news,” with Israelis chiefly concerned about the impact on flights, but that appears likely to change soon. And there is no denying it: Something is amiss in relations with the White House”

Posted on July 23, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
Netanyahu’s insistence offers a clear hint of what lies ahead
Amit Segal
July 23, 2026

“Call us when you’re serious,” US Secretary of State James Baker told the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in the early 1990s. Under the current Republican administration, with the current Likud prime minister, Washington is still answering the phone. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump are speaking, although no longer every day. Something has been amiss in relations between the White House and the Prime Minister’s Office since the war with Iran became more complicated. The president’s inner circle is smaller and more closed than in previous administrations, and gaining access to it has become increasingly difficult. The Americans are making it clear to the Israelis that they are running the war and that everything is fine, thank you very much. But it is evident to everyone that Israel is moving into the back seat. READ MORE

ISRAEL HAYOM Lilach Shoval: Israel eyes new targets, more aggressive strikes in next Iran campaign As of this writing, although several Israeli municipal authorities have decided to open public shelters, the IDF Home Front Command has not changed its instructions for civilians. But after the experience of the past year during Operation Rising Lion and Operation Roaring Lion, local authorities and the public alike are clearly reading the signs and understand that Israel may once again be heading toward another round of fighting with Iran. Israel has, in fact, dramatically raised its alert level since the beginning of the week. Until now, the level of readiness was considered “high.” The Israel Defense Forces are now at maximum readiness and prepared for any development at extremely short notice. In effect, the Israeli security establishment is ready to carry out any decision the political leadership may make. 

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Murray: “The mayor accused Israel’s leader of genocide and the maiming of children. And he wants to make an enemy of America’s closest ally”

Posted on July 21, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

FREE PRESS
Why Mamdani Is Targeting Netanyahu
Douglas Murray
July 22, 2026

Sometimes you wonder why a person went into politics. Other times, you know exactly why they did. For Zohran Mamdani, yesterday was a case of the latter. On Tuesday evening he released a two-minute video of himself, seated behind a desk, flanked by the flags of the United States and New York. He had arranged this posture—for posture it was—to announce a development in the case of Zohran Mamdani vs. Benjamin Netanyahu, otherwise known as Mamdani vs. the State of Israel. Attacks on Israel have been central to Mamdani’s political rise. He has spent his life marinating in postcolonial politics, Third Worldism, and anti-Zionism, and brings agitation, certainty, and ignorance to debates about the Middle East…Several things were obvious to any casual observer. The first is that the United Nations General Assembly occurs each September in New York. Therefore, there was always going to be an opportunity for a showdown. The second is that the mayor of New York does not have any right to run U.S. foreign policy out of Gracie Mansion. READ MORE

NEW YORK POST NYC attacker yelled ‘Allahu Akbar’ as he randomly stabbed two men near Central Park, according to victim, witnesses A deranged attacker yelling “Allahu Akbar” stabbed two men in separate attacks on the Upper West Side Thursday afternoon, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. Investigators were probing whether the suspect Raul Morales, 51, was motivated by hate..Morales, 51, allegedly jumped the first victim, a 57-year-old Asian man near West 84th Street and Central Park West, and stabbed him in the back with a knife at around 1:30 p.m., police and the sources said. The second victim, a 50-year-old man wearing a yarmulke, was attacked after leaving a synagogue at Amsterdam Avenue and West 86th Street, and stabbed in the torso with a screwdriver, according to cops and sources.

JNS Jonathan S. Tobin: The lies behind Mamdani’s Netanyahu stunt are the real threat It didn’t take a statement from President Donald Trump to ensure that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani isn’t going to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he arrives in Manhattan for the annual U.N. General Assembly meetings in September. Like all world leaders, Netanyahu is protected by the terms of the treaty by which the United States secured the placement of the world body in New York City in the years after the Second World War. Moreover, the United States is not a party to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, whose corrupt former chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, indicted the Israeli leader on false charges of having “intentionally and knowingly deprived” Gaza’s population of food, water, fuel and medicine in 2024. Khan resigned under fire because of a different issue entirely: accusations of sexual misconduct.

JEWISH INSIDER ‘Shame on you’: Mamdani’s viral anti-Netanyahu video sparks fear among Jewish groups A video New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani released late Tuesday night — in which the democratic socialist railed at length against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but confessed he couldn’t honor his campaign pledge to arrest him — triggered a wave of warnings from mainstream Jewish organizations that his singular focus on excoriating Israel from his official platforms places New Yorkers at risk. The mayor’s video, released on his office’s social media channels, ran with the tag “Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal” and denounced the Jewish state’s leader as “the architect of a horrific genocide…”

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“Herzog said it was his “dream” to see peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia and raised the possibility of direct negotiations supported by Washington”

Posted on July 20, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

THE MEDIA LINE
Rare Saudi-Israeli Media Contacts Re-emerge as Iran Strikes the Gulf
Giorgia Valente
July 21, 2026

Two unusual media appearances involving Saudi Arabia and Israel have revived questions about whether the countries are cautiously reopening channels as Iranian attacks place growing pressure on Gulf security. On July 16, Israeli President Isaac Herzog gave an exclusive interview to Al Arabiya English, telling the Saudi-based outlet that he wanted rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia and expressing respect for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman…Cyril Widdershoven, a geopolitical and energy analyst and senior adviser at Blue Water Strategy, views Herzog’s interview as a possible signal that Saudi-Israeli engagement is not completely off the table. “It was politically significant because of the platform, timing, and message,” Widdershoven told The Media Line. He said Al Arabiya is part of the Saudi media landscape and argued that giving Herzog a platform to discuss peace and praise the crown prince could have been intended to gauge public and regional reactions. READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL Trump says Saudi civilian nuclear pact is conditioned on normalization with Israel US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the agreement reached with Saudi Arabia for a civilian nuclear program would require Riyadh to normalize relations with Israel, prompting praise from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In a post on Truth Social, Trump insisted there would be “no enrichment of material,” meaning the deal wouldn’t grant Saudi Arabia the right to enrich uranium on its soil.

TIMES OF ISRAEL US confirms signing a nuclear cooperation pact with Saudi Arabia, to Israel’s alarm Trump administration releases few details about agreement, which paves way for construction of uranium enrichment facility that could eventually be converted to develop nuclear bombs

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“Today there are fewer Jews in all of Europe than there are Arab citizens of Israel. So much for Europe lecturing Israel about tolerance”

Posted on July 20, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

SUBSTACK
The Myth of the “Good Jew”
Yehuda Teitelbaum
June 24, 2026

…Once a society begins stigmatizing Jews, or even just one category of Jews, the writing is already on the wall. Assimilation has never provided lasting protection. Appeasement has never provided lasting protection. Explaining ourselves politely and hoping to be accepted as the “good ones” has never provided lasting protection. We are living through a dangerous moment. The United States, and perhaps Argentina, remain among the few places where Jews are not broadly stigmatized. But even that cannot be taken for granted. A 2023 Harvard-Harris poll found that two thirds of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 agreed that “Jews as a class are oppressors and should be treated as oppressors.” Those young people will shape the future of public opinion. READ MORE

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“In an interview with Joe Rogan, Vance accused the Jewish state of undermining his peace deal that had already fallen apart”

Posted on July 20, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

FREE PRESS
The Real Cause of J.D. Vance’s Failure in Iran
Batya Ungar-Sargon
July 16, 2026

Vice President J.D. Vance has found the real culprit behind the collapse of the Trump administration’s peace deal with Iran, for which he led negotiations. It’s not the lying mullahs who spent the past 40 years murdering Americans and lying to credulous Democrats about their peaceful intentions. It’s not the lying Iranian negotiators who told Vance and other U.S. negotiators that they were signing a deal in good faith, only to fire on commercial ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz a week later. Certainly, it wasn’t Vance himself, who told CNN’s Jake Tapper how “cool” it was to be making progress in talks with Iran’s leaders…No, the real culprit behind the collapse of Vance’s deal with Iran is conniving Israelis who used their shekels to pay influencers to character-assassinate the vice president, all for the crime of seeking peace. READ MORE

POLITICO Vance’s tough talk on Israel is alienating some Jewish GOP donors The vice president’s pugnacious defense of a ceasefire agreement with Iran that rattled Israeli diplomats — and his tough talk on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government — has damaged his standing with some pro-Israel GOP donors who have backed the party under President Donald Trump. “It’s hard to find any support for him at all in the Jewish community,” said Eric Levine, a prominent GOP fundraiser and board member of the Republican Jewish Coalition, a group aimed at strengthening ties between the Jewish community and party leaders. Levine was speaking for himself and not the coalition.

JPOST Micha Danzig: From silence to script: JD Vance stops tolerating antisemitic tropes, starts using them In January, I wrote that US Vice President JD Vance’s persistent refusal to confront antisemitism on the populist Right had to be treated as a primary concern, not a side issue. I argued that silence is a choice; that by declining to name what Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, and Candace Owens were doing when they rehabilitated Nick Fuentes and shrugged off Kanye West’s threats against Jews, Vance was not staying neutral. He was moving the line.

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A brilliant commentary on insufferable anti-Israel hypocrites (reposting this now that the paywall has been removed)

Posted on July 20, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

MORAL CLARITY
I went to an anti-Israel dinner party. It did not go as planned.
Nachum Kaplan
July 18, 2026

The dinner was being held in an immaculate apartment overlooking the city. The furniture was Scandinavian, the lighting was flattering, and the books had been arranged not alphabetically but morally. Edward Said sat beside Frantz Fanon. Judith Butler leaned against a large volume on de-colonising architecture. There were several books about Israel, none by Israelis, historians, military analysts, Arabic speakers, Hebrew speakers, or anyone who had recently burdened themselves with the region’s chronology. The apartment belonged to Oliver and Beatrice, who had invited 12 people for what they called “an evening of food, friendship and necessary conversation.” I had been included, I later realised, as the necessary conversation; the one in need of “education.” Beatrice greeted me at the door with the expression of a person welcoming a recently rehabilitated extremist. “We’re so glad you came,” she said, touching my arm. “We were worried you might feel uncomfortable.” READ MORE

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“The findings reinforce a widening age gap in American attitudes toward Israel: overwhelming support among older voters, but deep hostility among the youngest adults.”

Posted on July 20, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

ALGEMEINER
Poll: 60% of Young US Voters Side With Hamas Over Israel
Corey Walker
July 20, 2026

A majority of the youngest American voters say they support Hamas over Israel in the current conflict, exposing a dramatic generational divide even as nearly three-quarters of the electorate continues to side with the Jewish state. Sixty percent of registered voters aged 18–24 chose Hamas when asked whether they supported “more Israel or more Hamas,” according to the July Harvard CAPS-Harris poll. Just 40 percent selected Israel. No other age group favored the US-designated terrorist organization. Support for Israel rose steadily with age: 62 percent among voters aged 25–34, 67 percent among those 35–44, 77 percent among those 45–54, 80 percent among those 55–64, and 88 percent among voters 65 and older. READ MORE

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DSA: Abolish the Senate, destroy constitutional checks and balances, and eliminate the “carceral forces of the capitalist state”

Posted on July 19, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

CITY JOURNAL
The Democratic Socialists of America Just Adopted a Radical New Platform
Stu Smith
June 17, 2026

…DSA leadership added four amendments: one on “real democracy”—calling for the replacement of “the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress”—another on police and prison abolition, a provision explicitly naming Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state, and a ranked-choice voting section. The NPC passed two of these four amendments unanimously, while the “real democracy” provision prevailed by a razor-thin margin. “Workers Deserve More!” has revolutionary aspirations. It aims to “win the battle for democracy, draft a new constitution, and create a democratic socialist republic.” The document makes clear that achieving this vision would require “building a new society from the ground up,” accompanied by sweeping structural changes. READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL Adam Milstein: The DSA Is a Trojan Horse the Democratic Party Must Drive Out Nowhere is the DSA’s radicalism more dangerous than in its commitment to anti-Zionism. For the DSA, opposition to Israel’s existence is not a secondary foreign-policy debate; it is a litmus test anchored in its governing text. Analysts note that the DSA functions as a strict ideological enforcement mechanism: any candidate or member who deviates from its anti-Zionist platform or affirms Israel’s right to exist faces swift expulsion or denial of endorsement. Its platform explicitly names Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state, hardcoding anti-Zionism as a fundamental tenet. This hostility is a proxy for animus toward Western civilization and American global leadership.

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Ryan statement came after the New York congressman voted to cut off all U.S. aid to Israel

Posted on July 17, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

JEWISH INSIDER
Pat Ryan says he’ll refund AIPAC donors who ask following vote to end U.S. aid to Israel
Matthew Kassel
July 17, 2026

Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) said that he no longer wants AIPAC’s endorsement and would be “returning the funds” the group’s PAC had sent his campaign, following his vote on Wednesday, along with 102 other Democrats, to cut off all aid to Israel. The New York Democrat also said he would refund individual donors who had previously supported his campaign if they made the request. “I expect groups like AIPAC will not support me in my future elections and frankly, I don’t want their support,” he wrote in a social media post explaining his vote, saying he would no longer back $3.3 billion in annual military aid to “a corrupt and increasingly dangerous Netanyahu regime. READ MORE

JEWISH INSIDER AIPAC ends fundraising for endorsees who voted to cut off Israel aid Days after 104 members of Congress voted in favor of a measure that sought to end U.S. aid to Israel, AIPAC will no longer allow donations through its political action committee to 18 lawmakers it endorsed who voted in favor of the legislation. The group did not announce the change. But the endorsement page on AIPAC’s political giving portal — where supporters can donate to candidates who have been endorsed by AIPAC — removed the option for individuals to route money to those lawmakers.

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“The only coherent use of “genocide” to characterize events in the area is the genocide advocated by the Arab side, where Hamas calls in its charter for the annihilation of all the world’s Jews as a religious obligation”

Posted on July 17, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

GATESTONE
Mamdani Accidentally Offers Insight into the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Kenneth Levin
July 23, 2026

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s recently released map of ethnic enclaves in the city provides unintentional but instructive insight into the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. The map labels neighborhoods as “Little Palestine,” “Little Egypt,” and “Little Pakistan,” along with other ethnic identities. But absent is any acknowledgment of, for example, the city’s prominent and historic Italian, Irish, Jewish or Puerto Rican neighborhoods. Their history and prominence are simply erased.  The distinction given to recently arrived Muslim immigrant communities and the erasure of historic and important non-Muslim groups is virtually a carbon copy of the ludicrous claims by Palestinians and their supporters that the Palestinians should be acknowledged as the exclusive claimants of what is now Israel and that the Jews are recent foreign interlopers whose presence should be nullified and erased. READ MORE

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