San Francisco: Whole Foods, Anthropologie, Old Navy, AmazonGo, Saks Off Fifth, and Office Depot have already fled the troubled neighborhood

Posted on August 11, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

DAILY MAIL
Gump’s San Francisco could close after 166 years due to dwindling foot traffic and homeless people harassing shoppers
Alex Hammer
August 16, 2023

The owner of one of San Francisco’s most storied department stores has warned this year could be its last due to spiraling crime and homelessness and has blamed the mayor and governor for failing to act. John Chachas, the owner of longtime luxury furnisher Gump’s, paid for a full-page ad in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle – the city’s most-read newspaper – to air a scathing open letter to Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor London Breed. In it, he accuses the politicians, as well as the city’s board of supervisors, of dereliction of duty, citing the rampant homelessness and thievery seen on the city’s streets. Chachas, 59, also said incidents of harassment and bumbling leadership that’s persisted since the pandemic could result in the 166-year-old store’s doors closing forever. READ MORE

Posted in Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

EVENT: BJBE Combating Antisemitism Task Force Presents Brooke Goldstein on 8/22

Posted on August 11, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

THE BJBE COMBATING ANTISEMITISM TASK FORCE PRESENTS BROOKE GOLDSTEIN
Tuesday, August 22nd | 7:00pm
1201 Lake Cook Rd, Deerfield, IL 60015

The BJBE Combating Antisemitism task force has invited Brooke Goldstein to speak at its inaugural event Tuesday, August 22nd at 7:00pm. Brooke is an award-winning filmmaker, author, and media personality who founded and runs The Lawfare Project, a nonprofit that provides pro bono legal services to protect the civil and human rights of the Jewish people worldwide. She is also the founder of #EndJewHatred, a grassroots Jewish civil rights movement.

For more information and to register, click here

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

Biden plan involves Iran releasing five Americans in exchange for the U.S. freeing a handful of imprisoned Iranians

Posted on August 10, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Iran transfers 5 Iranian-Americans from prison to house arrest in step toward deal for full release
Jon Gambrell and Matt Lee
August 10, 2023

Iran has moved five Iranian-Americans from prison to house arrest in exchange for billions of dollars frozen in South Korea, U.S. and Iranian officials said Thursday, as part of a tentative deal that follows months of heightened tensions between the two countries. Iranian officials at the United Nations told The Associated Press that the prisoner transfer marked “a significant initial step” in the implementation of the agreement, which is still being negotiated and could eventually lead to the full release of the Americans. Iran acknowledged that the deal involves $6 billion to $7 billion that were frozen as a result of sanctions. READ MORE

POLITICO Republicans slam Biden’s deal to free Americans in Iran as ‘appeasement’ Other Republicans voiced concerns over what Iran could do with the funds. In a statement, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the deal a “ransom” and a “craven act of appeasement,” warning that Iran would “use these ill-gotten gains to attack our troops, fund terrorism, and arm Russia.”

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

Glick: “Apparently, all a judge needs to rule the way he or she wants is to place themselves above the Knesset, the laws it passes and the government charged with executing them”

Posted on August 4, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Esther Hayut sets Israel on fire
Caroline Glick
August 4, 2023

Outgoing Supreme Court president Esther Hayut is playing the short game. She wants to clear her desk, finish the work she set out to achieve when she took over as Supreme Court head in late 2017 and let the chips fall where they may. Shortly before Hayut assumed office, she set out her judicial vision in an address before the Bar Association. The central challenge facing the court, she declared, was surmounting the rule of law. Comparing herself and her colleagues to God, she bloviated: “There’s a disadvantage that we flesh and blood judges have in comparison to the Creator of the Universe. Even in the situations where we understand fairly quickly the dilemma that brought the petitioners before us, it often happens that the solution we view as just and proper isn’t possible under the practice and requirements of law. READ MORE

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

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told The Atlantic magazine last year that the Kingdom sees Israel as ‘a potential ally’

Posted on August 4, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Israel-Saudi normalization deal could be worth the costs
David Weinberg
August 3, 2023

It is important to refute the many arguments being bandied about against a peace deal involving Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the United States. I think that the doubters and naysayers, as well as those who are actively trying to sabotage such an agreement, are wrong. Wrong about the chances for a deal (I think they are high), wrong about the risks of a deal (much lower than feared), and wrong about the worth of a peace breakthrough (much higher than imagined). The Saudis themselves seem keen on a deal. Faisal J. Abbas, editor in chief of the Saudi Arab News, wrote this week that Saudi normalization with Israel is eminently possible: “It is highly likely that such a deal might be possible.” READ MORE

AXIOS Israel’s Mossad chief secretly visited D.C. to discuss Biden’s Saudi initiative Mossad director David Barnea secretly visited Washington nearly two weeks ago for talks with senior White House and CIA officials about the Biden administration’s efforts to reach an agreement with Saudi Arabia that would include normalization between the kingdom and Israel, two U.S. sources told Axios.

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

“The real news here is that CUNY abhorrently and with impunity is now expanding this witch hunt for Jews who complain about antisemitism”

Posted on August 4, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

I24NEWS
CUNY probes 4 Jewish profs for ‘discrimination’ against BDS activists
August 7, 2023

An advocacy group Students and Faculty for Equality at the City University of New York (SAFE CUNY) reported on Sunday that four pro-Israel Jewish professors were under investigation for alleged “discrimination” against antisemites and BDS activists. “Four Zionist Jewish Professors who complained about antisemitism on their campuses have now been placed under investigation by CUNY for “discrimination” against BDS and radical Islamist antisemitic activists,” the group tweeted, adding that they “have all the details but cannot share yet.” READ MORE

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

Video surfaces…2,500 Jews were freed from a train to Theresienstadt in 1945

Posted on August 4, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

THE JC
Newly unearthed footage shows US soldiers saving Jews from Holocaust train
Hannah Gillott
August 2, 2023

Previously unseen footage has emerged of the liberation of 2,500 Jews from a death train en route to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The footage, taken 78 years ago by American soldiers, shows the “Miracle at Farsleben”, when US soldiers opened the doors, freeing the thousands of Jews inside. The clip was unearthed during documentary research by an American history teacher. Farlesben was the village at which the train stopped. READ MORE

Posted in Jewish | Tagged , | Leave a comment

“Like many others who carry water for terrorists, Rosenfeld attempts to portray the Palestinian Authority as merely a subcontractor for Israel”

Posted on August 4, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

CAMERA BLOG
Rolling Stone Jumps on Pro-Terrorist Bandwagon
Karen Bekker
August 3, 2023

Although they’re slightly late to the party, Rolling Stone seems to have gotten the memo that the latest trend in antisemitic agitation posing as journalism is glamourizing young Palestinian terrorists. A nearly 6000-word piece by Jesse Rosenfeld – who has previously written for +972, The Nation, and Al Jazeera – fails to inform readers of Palestinian rejectionism, payments of salaries to convicted terrorists, or the effect of terror on Israeli society. Instead, Rosenfeld portrays “Gen Z” terrorists as having no alternative but to take up arms against Israeli civilians: “‘Israel has left us no choice,’” he quotes his 22 year-old interview subject, a member of a Jenin-based terror cell, saying. “‘The occupation has proven that the more we are silent, the more it will take from us.’” READ MORE

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

Confining people in wretched conditions serves the interests of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in maintaining breeding grounds for terrorists

Posted on August 4, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
The real reason why there is still a refugee camp in Jenin
Mitchell Bard
August 7, 2023

In all the coverage of Israel’s operation to root out terrorists from the Jenin refugee camp, did anyone ask the question: Why is there a refugee camp in an area controlled by the Palestinians? The refugee camp has been a nest of terrorism for years but should not exist. The Jordanians first established it in 1953 to accommodate Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war after the government annexed the West Bank. Jordan’s 19-year occupation of the area, which generated none of the uproar associated with Israel’s “occupation,” was recognized by only two countries – Great Britain (which had aided in Jordan conquering the area the United Nations had allotted for an Arab state in its partition resolution of 1947) and Pakistan. READ MORE

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

The alleged distress of “pro-Palestinian” individuals and pressure groups has nothing to do with a genuine concern for the Palestinians — and everything to do with a racist hatred of Jews

Posted on August 4, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

GATESTONE
A Cry for Help from Palestinians
Bassam Tawil
August 4, 2023

On July 30, thousands of Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip took to the streets to protest harsh living conditions and a shortage of power and gas. The protests, held under the banner “We want to live!”, reflected growing discontent among the Palestinians against the Iranian-backed Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip through a violent and bloody coup in the summer of 2007. At the same time as the Palestinians were demonstrating in the Gaza Strip, armed clashes erupted in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, where at least 11 people were killed, including a senior Palestinian security official, and several others were injured. READ MORE

FDD Violence Among Palestinians in Lebanon Spurs Travel Advisories The United Arab Emirates (UAE) joined a growing list of countries on August 6 warning its citizens against traveling to Lebanon in the wake of clashes between Palestinian militant groups in Ayn al-Hilweh, the largest pocket of Palestinians claiming refugee status in the country…The alerts highlight the instability of Lebanon and its Palestinian population, as the country continues to struggle with a lack of a functioning government, a collapsed economy, and control by the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah.

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