The long-discussed visa waiver for Israelis traveling to the US now looks likely to be passed sometime in this year after many months of speculation and negotiation

Posted on July 19, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Israel to allow Palestinian Americans entry in bid for US visa-free access
Reuters, Tovah Lazaroff
July 20, 2023

Palestinian Americans living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip can enter Israel including through Ben Gurion airport as part of a policy change Israel announced on Wednesday night in a bid to secure visa-free access for Israelis to the United States. Washington has blocked Israel’s longstanding bid to join the US Visa Waiver Program (VWP) over differential treatment for some US citizens, and officials said the US will monitor the implementation of the changes over a six-week period. US Ambassador Thomas Nides and Israeli Ambassador Michael Herzog signed the “reciprocity agreement” which set in motion a pilot program based on the new policy. READ MORE

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Reuters: “Netanyahu returned to power more than six months ago, but Biden had pointedly declined to issue an invitation until long after most Israeli prime ministers would have made the visit”

Posted on July 17, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

REUTERS
Biden invites Israel’s Netanyahu to US after lengthy delay
Emily Rose and Steve Holland
July 17, 2023

U.S. President Joe Biden, after a lengthy delay, on Monday invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the United States for an official visit later this year, the White House and prime minister’s office said. Biden had held off extending the invitation out of concern about a judicial overhaul undertaken by Netanyahu and his right-wing government as well as Israel’s expansion of settlements on the occupied West Bank. Biden extended the invitation during a phone call between the two leaders, a day ahead of a visit to Washington by Israeli President Isaac Herzog. The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate have invited Herzog, whose position as head of state is mostly ceremonial, to address a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday, but some members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus have signaled that they might not attend the event. READ MORE

JNS Kenneth Levin: Biden decries antisemitism yet funds it A serious fight against Jew-hatred will require another president and another administration….On May 25, President Joe Biden announced a plan to combat antisemitism and declared that “the venom and violence of antisemitism will not be the story of our time.” Yet Biden is underwriting antisemitism.

NEW YORK POST Biden’s Bibi hatred endangers national security The 75th anniversary of the strong, historically unbreakable bond between the United States and Israel is being celebrated this year. Unfortunately, the occasion is marred by President Joe Biden’s personal animus towards Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which is weakening our relationship with the only democracy in the Middle East.

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The Oppenheimers never went to a synagogue or had a bar mitzvah for their son; instead, they aligned themselves with the Ethical Culture Society, an offshoot of Reform Judaism that rejected religious creed in favor of secular humanism and rationalism

Posted on July 17, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
The Jewish story behind Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer,’ explained
Shira Li Bartov
July 20, 2023

Friday is not just “Barbie” release day — moviegoers are also planning to fill theaters across the United States to see Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” biopic. Many hope it will answer a question that has long divided Americans and the country’s understanding of its history: Who exactly was J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb Oppenheimer’s name has become “a metaphor for mass death beneath a mushroom cloud,” in the words of Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, whose 2005 book “American Prometheus” was adapted into Nolan’s film. But to fully understand the physicist, biographers have looked for clues in his belief system — an ethical code grounded in science and rationality, a fiery sense of justice and a lifelong ambivalence toward his own Jewish heritage. READ MORE

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“When Arafat initiated his terror war and Barak failed to respond strongly, public opinion turned definitively against Barak. He retained the support of less than a third of the Knesset, with no mandate to pursue negotiations”

Posted on July 17, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
How Arafat saved Israel from Ehud Barak
Kenneth Levin
July 19, 2023

On June 19, the Israel State Archives released material showing that during Dec. 2000 negotiations, then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak was prepared to give up Israeli sovereignty over parts of the Old City of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. At the Camp David talks five months earlier, Barak had already offered the Palestinian Authority control over territories that went far beyond what most Israeli military strategists believed the nation could give up and still retain defensible borders. U.S. envoy Dennis Ross, who was involved in all the relevant discussions, later stated, “Barak’s government … formally accepted ideas that would effectively divide East Jerusalem, end the IDF’s presence in the Jordan Valley, and produce a Palestinian state in roughly 97 percent of the West Bank [as well as all of Gaza].” Ross added that Barak agreed to give up the Temple Mount as well. READ MORE

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Israeli doctors reattach head of Palestinian boy after bike accident — those genocidal Israeli child-killers are at it again

Posted on July 14, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Hadassah surgeons reattach boy’s head to his neck after internal decapitation
Renee Ghert-Zand
5 July 2023

In an extremely rare and complex operation, Hadassah Medical Center surgeons have reattached a 12-year-old boy’s head to his neck after a serious accident in which he was hit by a car while riding his bicycle, the Jerusalem hospital announced on Wednesday. Suleiman Hassan, a Palestinian from the West Bank, was airlifted to Hadassah hospital’s trauma unit in Ein Kerem, where it was determined that the ligaments holding the posterior base of his skull were severely damaged, leaving it detached from the top vertebrae of his spine. The condition, bilateral atlanto occipital joint dislocation, is commonly known as internal or orthopedic decapitation. READ MORE

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“The violent attacks by Mohamad Barakat and Dahir Adan may surprise people who still think of Fargo, North Dakota as quintessentially American. Refugee resettlement has changed that”

Posted on July 14, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

SULTAN KNISH
The Islamization of North Dakota
Daniel Greenfield
July 20, 2023

Three blocks from where Mohamad Barakat opened fire on police officers and firefighters, the Islamic Society of Fargo-Moorhead squats across from a school bus company. Nearby are other elements of the new enclave like the Somali Community Development group which offers English and citizenship classes and the Al Hamdi Restaurant from whose vicinity an eyewitness reported hearing the shots that took the life of one police officer and wounded two others. READ MORE

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A “TERF” is a radical feminist leftist who recognizes the material reality of sex. And that can get you canceled — just ask author J.K. Rowling

Posted on July 14, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

FAIR
What is a TERF and Why it Matters in Today’s Political Climate
Kara Dansky
July 10, 2023

…Finally, it is common to characterize TERFs as being essentially conservative or “right-wing reactionaries.” This is not accurate either. Radical feminists generally come from the political Left and typically have very traditional liberal values. Most American radical feminists are either Democrats or Greens, or they have become independents in the past few years because they are tired of the Democratic Party’s embrace of “gender identity” (among other things). I know of no radical feminists who are Republicans and of no Republicans who claim to be radical feminists. READ MORE

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Celebrated Israel-hater and antisemite Ilhan Omar (D-MN) to boycott Herzog’s upcoming address to Congress

Posted on July 13, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Ilhan Omar: ‘No way in hell’ attending Herzog speech to Congress
Lahav Harkov
July 13, 2023

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rep. Jamaal Bowman will not attend the joint address to both houses of the US Congress by President Herzog next week, they said on Thursday. “There is no way in hell I am attending the joint session address from a president whose country has banned me and denied Rashida Tlaib the ability to see her grandma,” Omar wrote in a lengthy Twitter thread that was partly in all-capital letters. The Congresswoman referred to a 2019 decision not to let her and her colleague from Michigan into Israel under a law allowing the government to bar the entry of advocates of boycotting the Jewish State. The organization that planned their trip, Miftah, includes members that supported terrorism against Israel. The NGO published the blood libel on its website, in an article claiming that Jews use the blood of Christians in their Passover rituals. READ MORE

BREITBART Biden Tries Dividing Israeli Leaders: Invites Herzog, Snubs Netanyahu President Joe Biden extended a formal invitation Thursday to Israel’s ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, to visit the White House next Tuesday — while continuing to snub Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Biden has refused to grant Netanyahu the customary invitation given to all Israeli prime ministers to visit the White House ever since Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition swept parliamentary elections last November.

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Israelis are defending themselves against Tehran’s foreign legions

Posted on July 13, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACY
Iran’s shadow war
Clifford May
July 12, 2023

Israelis battled Palestinians in the northern West Bank last week. That’s what most media reported and it’s true as far as it goes. But here’s a more accurate description of reality: Israeli troops battled the Islamic Republic of Iran’s foreign legions in the northern West Bank last week. Tehran is adept at using proxies to fight its wars: Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shia militias in Iraq, Houthi rebels in Yemen. Islamic Jihad, a wholly owned subsidiary of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has mainly operated in Gaza, in association with Hamas, the designated terrorist entity that rules Gaza. Hamas also receives arms, money, and instruction from Iran, and now operates in Lebanon as well. Recently, however, both Islamic Jihad and Hamas have been increasing their presence in the West Bank, a territory that, under the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority is responsible to govern. READ MORE

GATESTONE Bassam Tawil: Iran’s Plan To Drive Jews Out of ‘Palestine’ Iran’s mullahs are seeking to create a situation where Jews no longer feel safe in their own country and are forced to leave Israel. To achieve this goal, the mullahs have instructed their Palestinian terror proxies, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), to step up their campaign of terrorism against Israel and Jews.

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An evangelical Christian from South Carolina has become the most effective actor in the fight against BDS

Posted on July 12, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Meet the non-Jewish judge spearheading the fight against BDS in the US
Caroline Glick
July 11, 2023

Caroline’s guest on “The Caroline Glick Show” this week has demonstrated that the most unlikely people can make a massive difference. For two decades, South Carolina Circuit Court Judge Alan Clemmons served as a lawmaker in the South Carolina state legislature. In 2011, angered by then-President Barack Obama’s call for Israel to withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines and by Obama’s claim that the Jews were “occupiers” of the biblical homeland of the Jewish people, Clemmons drafted a resolution recognizing Israel’s right to the Land of Israel. READ MORE

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