US envoy Amos Hochstein visited Lebanon for talks with senior officials and will also speak with Israeli officials to see “if this is the right time” to try to resolve the border issue

Posted on September 7, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

REUTERS
US could help settle Lebanon, Israel border dispute, White House adviser says
August 31, 2023

The United States is exploring the possibility of resolving the long-standing border dispute between Lebanon and Israel, senior White House adviser Amos Hochstein said on Thursday at the end of a two-day visit to Lebanon. Hochstein said it was “natural” to look into the issue following the delineation in 2022 of the maritime border between the two countries, which paved the way for offshore exploration activities to begin on behalf of Lebanon last week. READ MORE

JPOST Hochstein’s mission: Solve Israel-Lebanon border crisis, reduce tensions Hochstein, who last year brokered a maritime border deal between Lebanon and Israel that paved the way for gas exploration in the area, said that he also plans to hear the Israeli view “and to make an assessment if this is the right time and if we have a window of opportunity to be able to achieve it.”

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Recognizing GOP support needed for Israel-Saudi Arabia deal to succeed, son-in-law and senator tell former president that this new normalization accord would be vindication of his Mideast policy

Posted on September 6, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Jared Kushner, Lindsey Graham push Trump to back Biden-brokered Saudi-Israel deal
September 6, 2023

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and former senior White House adviser Jared Kushner have encouraged former president Donald Trump to support his successor Joe Biden’s effort to broker a normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The type of defense pact that Riyadh is asking to sign with the US in exchange for normalizing ties with Israel will likely require Congressional approval and will need the support of at least some Republicans in a deeply divided Congress. Accordingly, vocal opposition from Trump could harm Biden’s chances of getting the bipartisan support he needs…READ MORE

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US prisoners held in Iran have been released, Iran has reportedly slowed down enrichment and even diluted some of its stockpiles, and still Benjamin Netanyahu is quiet

Posted on September 6, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

JPOST
Why is Israel silent on the looming Iran deal?
Yaakov Katz
August 31, 2023

…All indications are that the United States under President Joe Biden is close to reaching an interim deal – or at the very least some sort of unwritten understanding – with Iran that would see Tehran scale back its uranium enrichment in exchange for billions of dollars. US prisoners held in Iran have been released, Iran has reportedly slowed down enrichment and even diluted some of its stockpiles, and still Netanyahu is quiet. Yes, his office put out a statement a couple of weeks ago after the prisoner release was announced, but it was a written statement and was nothing compared to the way the prime minister used to speak about Iran in the past… Netanyahu needs Biden to close a normalization deal with [Saudi Arabia] and if he starts fighting with the president over Iran, that could turn the president off from wanting to help advance Israel’s ties in the Middle East. READ MORE

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A rare cache of weapons from the Roman period found stashed away in a cave in the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve

Posted on September 6, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

ARUTZ SHEVA
Four Roman swords, nearly 2,000 years old, found in Judean Desert
September 6, 2023

A sensational find in the Judean Desert: a cache of four 1,900-year-old, excellently preserved Roman swords and a shafted weapon were discovered in a crevice in a cave in the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve. It appears that the weapons were hidden by the Judean rebels, after they were seized from the Roman army as booty. “Finding a single sword is rare—so four? It’s a dream! We rubbed our eyes to believe it,” say the researchers. The rare weapons were exhibited for the first time at a press conference that took place Wednesday morning with Eli Escusido, the Director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, and the researchers. READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL Crack unit of rock-climbing archaeologists claims success in curbing antiquities theft Six years into wide-scale Judean Desert cave survey operation, few Dead Sea Scrolls fragments are found. But the Land of Israel’s historical picture is ever more in focus, says IAA

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The distinction between hating Jews and hating Israel is bogus

Posted on September 2, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Israelophobia is the newest form of the oldest hatred
Melanie Phillips
August 31, 2023

Antisemitism is a rotten term for the “longest hatred” that targets the Jewish people. For a start, there is no such thing as “semitism” to be “anti.” The word “antisemitism” was invented by a 19th-century Jew-hater, Wilhelm Marr, who wanted to invest this prejudice with the spurious characteristic of race in order to appeal to a society that increasingly defined itself in scientific terms. Today, with Jew-hatred having reached unprecedented global levels, the inadequacies of “antisemitism” are becoming ever more manifest. Many wrongly believe that it’s just another form of racism. Few understand that it’s a uniquely paranoid, deranged and murderous mindset. READ MORE

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On September 28, Israel’s Supreme Court is expected to rule in favor of a petition from the far-left Movement for Quality Government to overturn the November 1, 2022 elections

Posted on September 2, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

CAROLINE GLICK BLOG
Will Israeli Democracy Survive the Court?
Caroline Glick
September 1, 2023

…In January, MQG [Movement for Quality Government] petitioned the Supreme Court asking the justices to ban newly sworn in Netanyahu from serving in office. MQG argued that with all due respect to the 2.4 million Israelis who voted for Netanyahu, as a criminal defendant, Netanyahu is legally “incapacitated” from performing his duties in office and therefore, the Supreme Court should order the Attorney General Gali Baharav Miara to declare Netanyahu “incapacitated “and oust him from power. MQG’s petition was ridiculous on its face. The Supreme Court ruled in an 11-0 judgment in March 2020 that Netanyahu may serve as Prime Minister while standing trial. Basic Law: The Government, stipulates that a Prime Minister can only be compelled to leave office if he has been convicted of criminal charges, and even then, only after he has exhausted all appeals. READ MORE

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The settlement comes after years in which officials around Jackson have been accused of trying to push out Orthodox residents

Posted on September 2, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

JTA
NJ township will pay $575,000 to settle lawsuit alleging discrimination against Orthodox Jews
Jackie Hajdenberg
August 29, 2023

New Jersey’s Jackson Township has settled a state lawsuit alleging that it used local ordinances to discriminate against Orthodox Jews, after settling both a federal complaint and a private lawsuit based on similar claims. In the settlement with the state attorney general, Jackson Township will pay $575,000 in penalties and restitution funds, repeal the ordinances that allegedly target Orthodox Jews and adopt new policies and procedures that protect religious freedom. It will also form a multicultural committee composed of residents that will meet quarterly to combat discrimination, and local officials will undergo anti-discrimination training. READ MORE

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In one of the movie’s memorable scenes, Meir and Kissinger engage in a battle of wills over the Israeli prime minister’s kitchen table, with Meir forcing the exhausted diplomat to eat borscht

Posted on September 2, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Helen Mirren plays Golda Meir in a new biopic about the Israeli prime minister
Sean Durns
August 25, 2023

A decade before the rise of U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Israel had its own “Iron Lady,” Golda Meir, a 75-year-old grandmother more famous for her chicken soup recipes than wielding weaponry yet who led the country through its biggest military challenge 50 years ago when Egyptian and Syrian forces invaded during the Yom Kippur holiday. And her life is now told on screen in Guy Nattiv’s new film Golda. Helen Mirren stars as Meir, and Liev Schreiber portrays Henry Kissinger, the U.S. secretary of state often, but not always, at odds with the Israeli prime minister. This is by a wide margin the best portrayal of the Israeli premier put to film, easily surpassing Ingrid Bergman’s 1982 movie A Woman Called Golda, among others. The film is dark and somber. READ MORE

JPOST Egypt wanted a limited war, Mossad reveals in declassified Yom Kippur docs The Mossad on Thursday initiated its own declassification of history for the first time, relating to before, during, and after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. As part of a ceremony conducted by Mossad Director David Barnea, and with a number of former Mossad chiefs and senior officials in attendance, the spy agency released a book called Some day, when it can be revealed. The title is taken from a statement made by then-prime minister Golda Meir to then-Mossad chief Zvi Zamir. 

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ADL has no moral standing to dictate appropriate speech

Posted on September 2, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

THE FEDERALIST
Elon Musk’s Legal Threats Aside, The ADL Doesn’t Speak For Jews
David Harsanyi
September 6, 2023

Elon Musk has threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League for some $22 billion over its slandering of him as an antisemite, which he alleges has tanked X’s advertising revenue. “Based on what we’ve heard from advertisers, ADL seems to be responsible for most of our revenue loss,” Musk says…The ADL isn’t a “Jewish” organization in any genuine ethnic or theological sense. Its primary mission is no longer to stop the defamation of Jews. The ADL’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, a former Barack Obama appointee, has created a partisan leftist social justice outfit. And its primary goal these days is cynically using the organization’s historical position to advance often illiberal, completely irreligious, leftist ideas. One of the ways it does this is by dishonestly framing an endorsement of free expression as an endorsement of the things people say using free expression, including antisemitism. That’s what it has done with Musk. READ MORE

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Obama evaded the Nation of Islam leader’s core antisemitic ideology.

Posted on August 31, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Obama’s non-responses to black antisemitism
Eunice G. Pollack
August 27, 2023

In his 2017 book Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama and a Tablet interview this month, historian David Garrow revealed that Obama refused to take a stand against black antisemitism in the late 1980s when, as a Loyola University professor put it at the time, “virulent antisemitism has gripped Chicago’s black community.” Andrew Greeley, a Chicago priest and author, warned, “If I were Jewish, I would be terrified.” In 1988, the press reported that Steve Cokely, a “favorite aide” of the acting mayor Eugene Sawyer, had given a series of talks to followers of the Nation of Islam (NOI) in which he alleged that Jewish doctors were injecting black babies with AIDS, which Jews had invented. After Sawyer fired him, black student organizations hosted Cokely, who inverted the Holocaust, claiming that Jews were “building gas chambers to kill blacks.” READ MORE

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