A Yom Hazikaron Reflection

Posted on April 20, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

MORNING MUSINGS
For Rachel Goldberg-Polin and the Rest of Us
Peter Himmelman
April 20, 2026

Driving to the dentist this morning was difficult. Not only was I dealing with a sore tooth and struggling to find a parking spot, I’d been listening to Rachel Goldberg-Polin on 60 Minutes, speaking about losing her only son, Hersh, to Hamas terrorists. It’s hard to find parking when your eyes are shedding tears on busy Wilshire Boulevard. It’s hard to be in the world when you’re listening to a woman who, with unearthly grace, indescribable dignity, and bottomless sorrow, is on national television attempting to express the inexpressible. Her composure feels like someone lifting the back of a pickup truck, without wincing, without a single complaint. How lucky we are to have her in our midst. She with her grief, she with her strength, she with her head held high, despite all odds. READ MORE

CBS NEWS: 60 MINUTES Rachel Goldberg-Polin: Learning how to live after the murder of her son In February 2025, Hamas released Israeli hostage Or Levy, who had spent time in a tunnel with Hersh. When Levy reunited with his family and his 3-year-old son, he learned his wife, Eynav, was killed in the attack. He was also told Hersh had been murdered. “It broke me. And I told my parents right away, ‘I want to meet their parents,'” Levy said. Levy met with Rachel and Jon five days after his release and told them their son wasn’t broken — he laughed, he smiled, and he repeated a mantra: “He who has a why can bear any how.” Levy credits that mantra with saving his life. It’s a phrase Hersh got from “Man’s Search for Meaning,” a 1946 memoir by concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl, who’d adapted a similar saying by Friedrich Nietzsche. To view 60 Minutes episode, click here

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“The Arab Case for Israel is the book that I would recommend above all others for anyone who sincerely wants to understand the entrenched conflict between Jews and Arabs in Israel”

Posted on April 20, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

JPOST
‘The Arab Case for Israel’: Explaining the conflict between Jews and Arabs
Abigail Klein Leichman
April 12, 2026

Attorney Alan Dershowitz’s bestselling 2003 book The Case for Israel was flawed from the get-go by the fact that its author is Jewish and American. This is a topic best handled by an insider – and not a Jew, but an Arab. An Arab with intellectual curiosity, integrity, courage, and journalistic expertise. Lebanese-Iraqi journalist and scholar Hussain Abdul-Hussain fits the bill…Raised in Beirut, Baghdad, and Baalbek, Abdul-Hussain witnessed Israeli airstrikes as a child, marched in anti-Israel protests as a young man, covered Middle East news for Beirut’s The Daily Star, and then plunged into rigorous research that blew his previous misconceptions out of the water. Abdul-Hussain’s case for Israel rests on decades of firsthand experience in the Arab world, years of work in Beirut, Kuwait, and Washington as a journalist and policy analyst – currently he’s a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies – and an authentic familiarity with the Arabic-speaking world, Hebrew source material, and Western attitudes toward the Middle East. READ MORE

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“By ignoring the ideological reality of Hamas and Hezbollah, Klein treats Israelis and Palestinians as props in a Western morality play rather than actors in a high-stakes struggle for survival”

Posted on April 19, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

FREE PRESS
Ezra Klein Doesn’t Understand Israel
Haviv Rettig Gur
April 17, 2026

…Because [Klein] misses the central point that any Westerner concerned for Palestinians must deal with: Any Israeli withdrawal from significant parts of the West Bank will almost certainly produce a Hamas takeover. This point is so widely believed by Israelis and Palestinians that we can safely ignore that “almost.” And a Hamas-run West Bank—16 times the size of Gaza, perched on mountains overlooking Israel’s main population centers, narrowing the country to nine miles wide at its vulnerable middle—would be catastrophic. It would endanger Israelis, sure, but it would be devastating to Palestinians. Because Hamas will not have changed from the version of itself that planned and launched the Gaza war and even now sees it as a success worthy of replication in the West Bank. If your analysis of the West Bank erases Palestinian politics and the certainty of the Hamas takeover suggested in every poll of Palestinians, then you aren’t discussing real people. You’re staging a morality play in your own mind. READ MORE

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“‘Lox and Loaded’ partnership comes as anxieties fuel interest in firearms”

Posted on April 19, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

THE FORWARD
A Jewish gun club teams up with the NRA, in pursuit of self-defense
Louis Keene
April 17, 2026

Capitalizing on heightened anxieties and surging Jewish interest in gun ownership, the National Rifle Association this week announced a partnership with a national Jewish gun club, in a move the mega gun lobby group says will help in the fight against antisemitism. “People are scared,” said Gayle Pearlstein, the Chicago firearms instructor who launched Lox & Loaded, the Jewish group the NRA is teaming with. “You can see it in their faces. People see history repeating itself.”…Many of those members, she said, are seniors — and quite a few are longtime gun skeptics turning to firearms for self-defense after personally experiencing antisemitism. READ MORE

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“Fishback has raised little money and is polling poorly, but his campaign appearances are attracting crowds of antizionist bigots openly hostile to Jews on college campuses across Florida”

Posted on April 17, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

AFTER OCTOBER 7
After Jewish Students Were Blocked From His Event at USF, Antizionist Gubernatorial Candidate James Fishback Set for FAU Appearance
Kevin Deutsch
April 17, 2026

James Fishback, the anti-Jewish, anti-Israel Florida gubernatorial candidate whose campaign has been defined by attacks on Jews, Zionists, and the Jewish state, is set to appear Monday night at Florida Atlantic University, bringing his racism to a campus with a large Jewish and pro-Israel student population. His appearance in Boca Raton comes days after a volatile event at the University of South Florida where Jewish students were blocked from attending and subjected to harassment…Fishback, who is popular among participants in the antizionist hate movement and the anti-Israel wing of the Republican Party, has repeatedly pushed the libel, “No American should die for Israel,” including writing it on a Marine reservist’s helmet…He has described the U.S.-Israel alliance as a “scam” and called pro-Israel advocacy “cringe and pathetic propaganda.” In attacking AIPAC, he has falsely referred to it as a “foreign lobbying group,” called its supporters “slaves,” and characterized its political spending as bribery. READ MORE

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This month marks 12 years curating posts as a news aggregator.

Posted on April 16, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

I’m breaking the proverbial fourth wall today. This blog now begins year twelve, begun in April 2014. Prior to then I’d been sharing articles via mass BCC emails but eventually ran afoul with GMail as they intermittently denied access due to volume. A friend suggested I explore news-blogging so I set up a WordPress site that is still live with content back to 2014 (including a search engine).

Shortly after the blog, I started with MailChimp, sending weekly summaries of that week’s stories. I’m honored to have assembled an impressive list of international readers and writers, including leaders in the pro-Israel community, government officials and others who share my affection for Israel. Many see these posts through MailChimp, but others follow the WordPress blog directly and receive an email each time a story is posted (see the blue banner link labeled “Follow ArchitectGuy on Israel” if you prefer that).

I post these stories because there’s an extreme shortage of reliable, fair and thoughtful reporting on Israel. And it’s clear that an informed public is vitally important as this ultimately influences public policy. This is why I’m here.

If you find this content interesting I hope you’ll consider sharing with friends and family. I’ll end with an ask: Help me add new readers (with their permission) at this link www.ReadArchitectGuy.us. Thanks again for  your support.

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Senior Israeli official: “United States now intends to actively lead efforts to disarm Hezbollah”

Posted on April 16, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

JPOST
US intends to lead Hezbollah disarmament, senior Israeli official tells ‘Post’
Amichai Stein
April 16, 2026

A senior Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post that, unlike in the past, the United States now intends to actively lead efforts to disarm Hezbollah and is prepared to use American resources to achieve this goal. “Trump wants this to happen, so this time the US  will be far more involved,” the official said. The official added that the current ceasefire terms are significantly better than those in November 2024, describing the situation as “much improved,” mainly because Hezbollah has suffered a substantial blow this time, including significant casualties, and because Israeli forces are present on the ground…The official emphasized that Israel will continue to act against any threat to civilians and soldiers, adding, “This is currently a ten-day ceasefire. For it to continue, the burden of proof lies with Lebanon and Hezbollah.” READ MORE

MIDDLE EAST FORUM Israel Won’t Stop in Lebanon Until Hezbollah Is Crushed Direct US-brokered talks between Israeli and Lebanese representatives are set to take place in Washington this week. The Israeli delegation will be headed by Yehiel Leiter, Jerusalem’s ambassador to the US. Lebanon will be represented by Nada Hamadeh, the Lebanese ambassador to Washington. The US State Department will host the negotiations. In his statement on Thursday announcing the talks, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu framed their purpose as ‘‌disarming Hezbollah and establishing peaceful ‌relations between ⁠Israel and ⁠Lebanon’. Lebanese prime minister Nawaf Salam, for his part, expressed his hope that Beirut should become a ‘demilitarised city’. 

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Oren: “Before Europe casts us off completely, perhaps we should separate first. It’s time, I maintain, to say goodbye”

Posted on April 16, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

CLARITY
Time to Say Goodbye
Michael Oren
April 16, 2026

This week, on Yom Hashoa, a friend told me a story I had never heard—how her father as a young Jew in Libya during World War II was arrested by the Italians and later, after the Nazis occupied Italy, marked for transport to Bergen-Belsen. An hour after hearing this story, while participating in a TV panel on the Holocaust, I learned that Italy’s right-wing prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, was halting her country’s defense agreement with Israel. Coming from one of Israel’s best and—after the electoral defeat of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán—last friends in Europe, Meloni’s announcement dealt a coup de grâce to Israel’s relations with the continent. It followed years of anti-Israel measures by most European governments, including the suspension of arms sales, expelling Israel from defense industry fairs, and the recognition of a Palestinian state. In virtually every European country, antisemitism has skyrocketed. READ MORE

ISRAEL HAYOM As the West morally rots, we stand with Israel  There is a specific kind of arrogance that only grows in places that have not seen a war in eighty years. The weekend revolutionaries in the West, chanting for liberation from a safe distance of four thousand miles, have lost any connection to reality. I am in Jerusalem because the Czech Republic still remembers what it means to be surrounded by those who want you erased from the map. Back in the day, when Israel was fighting the war for independence, we sent weapons. When the rest of the world looked away, Prague sent engines and iron. Fast forward to today, the situation remains the same. When other countries speak of punishing Israel for defending itself against brutal terrorism, we stand in line to defend the attacked nation. When other countries stop military shipments to Israel, Czech arms export to Israel grows. The Czech Republic stands with Israel because it is the only rational choice for a civilized nation. We are finished with the academic fantasies. Reality is back and we are ready to face it together.

AMERICAN THINKER Pope Leo XIV, the lamentably political pontiff Pope Leo XIV didn’t really have much to say about the Iranian mullahs and the IRGC murdering more than 40,000 of their own citizens in cold blood for daring to protest the regime. Or the hanging of people from lampposts. Or the butchering of them. He is, however, emphatically against the war that could potentially drive the mullahs from power and keep the madmen from acquiring nuclear weapons with which to “wipe Israel from the face of the Earth” and “destroy the Great Satan,” the latter being you and I…And, mind-bogglingly, he had nothing really to say about the ongoing genocide of Christians in Nigeria by Islamists. Even about the dozens upon dozens of men, women, and children who were slaughtered over Easter weekend while celebrating the Resurrection.

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“Critics of administration have predictably dismissed the reverse blockade move as a desperate effort to regain leverage over Tehran. In truth, the strategy is anything but spontaneous”

Posted on April 16, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

FORBES
Trump’s Hormuz Blockade Has Been Planned For Years
Ilan Berman
April 15, 2026

…A decade-and-a-half ago, while on a visit to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) in Tampa, Florida, I had a candid exchange with a senior military official deeply focused on the Iranian “file.” Even back then, the regime’s energy weapon loomed large in American strategic thinking. CENTCOM’s nightmare scenario, he told me, was not a complete closure of the Strait but a deliberate “narrowing” of it. Through tactics like minelaying, naval drills and the harassment of transiting vessels, Tehran could constrict the flow of oil through the Strait enough to cause a spike in global oil prices without ever presenting Washington with a clear casus belli. The planned countermove, however, was equally revealing. If Iran ever interfered with the Strait in a meaningful way, the official told me, the waterway would “remain closed – by us.” Such a response would accomplish two critical objectives: it would rob the Iranian regime of its most vital source of hard currency, and it would quickly turn every country relying on Gulf oil into a stakeholder in the containment of the Iranian regime. The logic was elegant. America had the ability to turn Iran’s greatest geographic advantage into a dangerous vulnerability. And that’s precisely what is happening now. READ MORE

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Sanders’ resolutions to stop bulldozer, bomb deliveries gain unprecedented Democratic support, demonstrating major shift in party’s approach toward Israel

Posted on April 16, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

COMMENTARY
Outlawing Israeli Self-Defense
Seth Mandel
April 16, 2026

Yesterday’s Senate vote on Israel highlighted the utter uselessness of the term “defensive weapons.” It also shows why pro-Israel good faith is no match for anti-Zionist opportunism, especially in an era saturated with political propaganda. Almost all Senate Democrats voted against the sale of bulldozers and anti-tunnel munitions to Israel. And the specifics here matter a great deal. Hamas’s battlefield innovations (and those of the wider net of Palestinian terrorist groups) have always been aimed at ballooning the death toll. Israel has been forced to innovate methods that would counteract Hamas’s ghoulish calculation. Casualty reduction is the reason Israel wants the weapons at issue in yesterday’s vote. They are not, however, defensive weapons. And because they are not defensive weapons, Israel’s congressional opponents have a better shot at killing the sale—a fact to which last night’s roll call readily attests. READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL US Senate foils effort to nix Israel arms sales, but record 85% of Democrats support the move The US Senate voted down a pair of resolutions to prevent sales of weapons and bulldozers to Israel on Wednesday, but an unprecedentedly overwhelming majority of Democrats joined the minority, demonstrating a substantive shift in the party’s approach toward Israel. Forty out of 47 Senate Democrats voted in favor of one of the resolutions to block a $295 million sale of bulldozers, which the initiative’s author, Senator Bernie Sanders, claimed would be used to demolish homes in the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon. Fifty-nine senators — mostly Republicans — voted against blocking the sale. Thirty-six Democrats backed another resolution aimed at blocking a $152 million sale of 1,000-pound bombs to the IDF, which Sanders argued would be used in Gaza and Lebanon. Sixty-three senators voted against blocking the sale.

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