#UMich Prof #CheneyLippold “wears his loyalty to BDS as a badge of honor, an academic in favor of shutting down academic choices”

Posted on September 23, 2018 by

DETROIT FREE PRESS
Michigan professor let politics dictate student’s education
by Mitch Albom
September 23, 2018

The request was simple. Happens all the time. A University of Michigan student who planned to study a semester abroad asked one of her professors for a recommendation letter. He was willing to do it. And then he changed his mind. Not because she wasn’t a good student. Not because of what she wanted to study. But because of where she wanted to study: Israel.  “As you may know, many university departments have pledged an academic boycott against Israel in support of Palestinians living in Palestine,” wrote John Cheney-Lippold…“for reasons of these politics, I must rescind my offer to write your letter.” READ MORE

Posted in Israel & Middle East, Politics | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

“Today’s liberal Judaism may or may not have struck the right balance between tradition and change; but that’s a conversation worth having”

Posted on September 23, 2018 by

MOSAIC MAG
Jack Wertheimer’s Critique of American Synagogues is On-Target—and Woefully Off
by Elliot Cosgrove
September 17, 2018

…Wertheimer is right in his warning that if a synagogue seeks always to “meet people where they are” and “be all things to all people,” then at a certain point that synagogue will cease to stand for anything. Not every choice can or should find sanction within the Jewish community; not every liberal value is a Jewish value; and no synagogue, especially in New York where there are so many to choose from, should seek to accommodate everybody. A good synagogue—and there are many good synagogues—must define its mission, which means setting boundaries, which by definition means it cannot be all things to all people…READ MORE

Posted in Jewish | Leave a comment

“No one should be surprised that attitudes towards the administration’s pro-Israel policies reflect partisan loyalties”

Posted on September 23, 2018 by

JNS
Trump shouldn’t expect any gratitude from American Jewry
by Jonathan S. Tobin
September 21, 2018

According to various reports, including a published paper by the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump “has not hidden its frustration” that its “pro-Israel steps … have not been met with appropriate recognition and gratitude from many American Jews.” That the notoriously thin-skinned president would be sore about the fact that most American Jews aren’t cheering his policies, especially the long sought move of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, is hardly surprising. READ MORE

Posted in Israel & Middle East, Jewish | Tagged | Leave a comment

“Iranian officials had originally blamed the US and Israel for being behind the attack, though a later consensus emerged that local Arab separatists carried out the assault”

Posted on September 22, 2018 by

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Despite hostility, US ‘stands with Iranians’ after attack on military parade
by Staff and AFP
September 23, 2018

The US strongly condemned an attack on a military parade in Iran that killed at least 29 people Saturday, briefly putting aside its harsh enmity with Tehran. Despite the Trump administration’s touchy relations with Iran, the State Department said that “the United States condemns all acts of terrorism and the loss of any innocent lives.” “We stand with the Iranian people against the scourge of radical Islamic terrorism and express our sympathy to them at this terrible time,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said. READ MORE

Posted in Islam, Israel & Middle East | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

NYT expert Tom Friedman “still writes as if he was uniquely positioned to speak truth to both sides and the world is hanging on his every word”

Posted on September 22, 2018 by

JNS
When experts ignore the truth about the Palestinians
by Jonathan S. Tobin
September 20, 2018

…Friedman thinks that Trump should listen to him and get to work “twisting everyone’s arms” or else stick to “building condos and golf courses.” If peace on those terms were possible, Trump would probably do just that. But he isn’t willing to make the same mistakes as the last four presidents, who thought that Friedman knew what he was talking about. Which just goes to show that even though Friedman knows a lot more about the subject than Trump, the president’s instinctual distrust of experts like the famed columnist is actually pretty smart. READ MORE

CBN NEWS Arafat Hoped Israelis Would ‘Flee Like Rats’ after Oslo Abd Al-Bari Atwan, editor of Rai Al-Yawm, an online Arabic-language website, said then PLO leader Yasser Arafat hoped the agreement would send Israeli Jews fleeing “like rats abandoning a sinking ship,” MEMRI reported. According to Atwan, Arafat didn’t believe in the accord he signed on the White House lawn in 1993, instead hoping it would pave the way “to bring the PLO and the resistance back to Palestine.”

Posted in Israel & Middle East, Jewish | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Jerusalem-Ben Gurion Airport high speed train begins service on Tuesday

Posted on September 22, 2018 by

YAHOO
Netanyahu tests Israeli fast train from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv
by AFP
September 2018

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tested Israel’s new high-speed train from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv on Thursday, but much work remains before it is fully operational. Netanyahu joined Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz on the ride from a newly built train station in Jerusalem’s city centre to Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv. That portion of the route is due to open on Tuesday, but trains will not yet be able to reach Tel Aviv itself or other locations. Travelling at speeds up to 160 kilometres (100 miles) per hour, the ride from central Jerusalem to the airport will take 21 minutes — half the time it takes to drive there in normal traffic…READ MORE

JERUSALEM POST Overdue and incomplete: High-speed Jerusalem rail opens partially Seventeen years after construction began on the high-speed railway line from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Transportation Minister Israel Katz will officially inaugurate the long-awaited route on Thursday – or, more precisely, part of it.

Posted in Israel & Middle East | Leave a comment

“The movement of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, the de-funding of UNRWA, the closing of the #PLO mission in DC, all demonstrate an awareness that Abbas and his allies are unworthy of the trust they gained through the Oslo Accords”

Posted on September 21, 2018 by

MIDDLE EAST FORUM
Has the State Department Finally Given up on Its Palestinian Fantasies?
by A.J. Caschetta
September 20, 2018

After President Trump’s futile attempts to forge a deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, many in the Trump administration now appear to recognize that the PA is not really interested in peace at all. Although the diplomatic corps has been reluctant to walk away from its longstanding investment in the PA, the annual assessment of world terrorism released today by the State Department suggests that it, too, is finally coming around. READ MORE

Posted in Israel & Middle East | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment