Colonel (Res.) Zeev Raz wrote that if the Prime Minister acts undemocratically, he should be killed, citing a traditional Jewish law

Posted on February 3, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

ARUTZ SHEVA
Former senior Air Force officer hints at murdering Prime Minister
February 4, 2023

Colonel (Res.) Zeev Raz, one of the leaders of the anti-Netanyahu protest movement and a former fighter pilot, is seemingly calling to murder the Prime Minister on the charges of “rodef”, a traditional Jewish law that allows bystanders to preemptively kill a potential murderer..,Raz writes, “If a Prime Minister gets up and takes the authority of a dictator, that Prime Minister is a man of death, it’s that simple, together with his ministers and those who work with him. We also have to have the law of ‘rodef.’ “My rodef law states: If a man, Israeli or foreign, takes over my county and rules it undemocratically, there is an obligation to kill him. READ MORE

ISRAEL HAYOM Former pilot investigated over post calling for assassinating PM Amid public outrage and a rare rebuke by the Shin Ben security agency, former Israeli Air Force pilot Ze’ev Raz was interrogated by the Israel Police on Sunday over alleged incitement after posting online comments that suggested it was legitimate to kill Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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We need a way out of the judicial clash, not more angry rhetoric — a rejoinder to Gordis, Friedman and Klein-Halevi

Posted on February 3, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
We need a way out of the judicial clash, not more angry rhetoric
Gerald M Steinberg
February 3, 2023

I have a great deal of respect for Daniel Gordis, Matti Friedman and Yossi Klein-Halevi. Their contributions as articulate and passionate Zionist voices, standing against the chorus of ignorance and hate, are invaluable. But I strongly disagree with their “letter to Israel’s friends in North America.” Like most of the debate over the new government’s proposals to restructure Israel’s legal system, their rhetoric is dangerously over the top. Instead of contributing positively by suggesting possible paths out of this self-destructive cycle, they became part of it. And in contrast to adding their influential voices to the attempts by both sides to portray the other as entirely lacking in legitimacy, those who take this crisis seriously should begin by acknowledging and addressing real concerns. READ MORE

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Why is Israel under threat from a terrorist group for allowing Jews to pray at Judaism’s holiest site? Why is it okay for everyone else to pray there and not for Jews? And why do these Palestinian groups get away with making such threats?

Posted on February 3, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

COMMENTARY
Moshe Dayan’s Tragic Blunder
Meir Y. Soloveichik
February 2023

…The current contretemps, like all others concerning the Temple Mount, reveals that [Moshe] Dayan’s original decision was a terrible mistake, the worst in Israel’s history. Rather than pacifying Jewish–Muslim relations, the Dayan compromise instead encouraged Israel’s enemies to deny any Jewish rights of access to the Mount. The general’s decree was not only strategically misguided but also terribly unjust, as it has created a situation in which the only faith community in Israel that cannot fully access its most sacred site is made up of religious Jews. One can be a fierce critic of Ben-Gvir, or any other leader in the current government, and still understand that there is something profoundly wrong with the current situation. READ MORE

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Gallup’s 2022 World Happiness Report proves that while Israel is thriving, its enemies are among the world’s most miserable

Posted on February 3, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Amid the noise and hate, Israel is happy
Charles O. Kaufman
February 8, 2023

Israel, home to 53% of world Jewry, is a happy place. Yet you wouldn’t know it if you believed the headlines about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government or saw the latest anti-Israel resolution at the United Nations and the current wave of Jew-hatred propagated by American celebrities. After all, between the International Court of Justice, Whoopi Goldberg, Kyrie Irving and Kanye West, antisemitism appears to be off to a good start in 2023. Yet in the antisemitic worst of times, there are aspects of Israel that represent the best of times. The Startup Nation continues to innovate and flourish. The Abraham Accords continue to deliver positive security and global trade rewards. Israeli companies continue to make a massive impact on the quest to alleviate humanitarian disasters around the world. READ MORE

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Short YouTube explains why Israel’s judicial reform is long past due

Posted on February 3, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

A short explanation on how the judicial reforms in progress will address the anomalies of the Israeli system and bring Israel closer to the rest of the Western democracies. Video produced by the Kohelet Forum. For more information on the need for judicial reform, click here.

JNS
Economists’ warnings about judicial reform are overblown, analysts tell JNS
David Isaac
February 5, 2023

The Netanyahu government’s judicial reform plan has come under heavy fire since it was first announced on Jan. 4. Critics say it spells the end of Israel’s system of checks and balances and even the end of democracy. In the last week, a new argument has taken center stage, an economic one, according to which the reform threatens Israel’s financial well-being. However, analysts JNS spoke with said the warnings of economic collapse are without merit, and are based on political and not economic assumptions. Furthermore, the fear-mongering ignores the positive impact the reforms are likely to have on Israel’s economy, they said. READ MORE

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The Twitter account Omanis Against Normalization described the event as a “betrayal of the Palestinian cause and support for the tourist office of the occupying country”

Posted on February 3, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Omani blogger visits Israel, causing an uproar in the Arab world
Maariv Online
February 5, 2023

Arab social networks are in turmoil after the visit of the Omani blogger Asmaa Al-Shehhi to Israel. The blogger, who lives in the United Arab Emirates, posted videos on her Instagram account when she arrived at Ben Gurion Airport. In the video that caused an uproar, she filmed the entrance gate to the country where Israeli flags appeared and said that “the employees of the place were shocked when they first saw a passport from the Sultanate of Oman.” As a result, many Twitter users condemned it and saw it as “normalization” with Israel. READ MORE

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CAMERA: “Along with moral equivalence, an additional means of softening coverage of Palestinian terrorism is slapping on a headline using the euphemistic passive voice, thereby obscuring the perpetrator”

Posted on February 3, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

CAMERA
Terror in Jerusalem, Counter-Terror in Jenin, and False Moral Equivalency
Tamar Sternthal
January 29, 2023

One pathetic trick for covering up the morally indefensible nature of a fatal terror attack is to draw a false equivalence to deadly counter-terror activity. Attempting to explain away the horrific Palestinian terror attack on Israeli Jews outside a Jerusalem synagogue Shabbat evening, MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin excels at this morally bankrupt maneuver, tweeting: “Just a reminder, as the Western media now begins to urgently and extensively cover the attacks in Jerusalem, in which at least 8 Israelis were killed, that 30 Palestinians (9 on Thursday alone) who have been killed in 2023.”…[She] egregiously omits the key fact that at least seven of them were affiliated with designated terror organizations and violently clashed with Israeli troops engaged in a counter-terror operation. READ MORE

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The OIC’s influence at the UN is evident not only in its obsession with delegitimizing the State of Israel at every turn, but also in how it has harnessed the UN’s agencies to further a general Islamic fundamentalist agenda

Posted on February 3, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

GATESTONE
How ‘The Collective Voice of the Muslim World’ Weaponizes the UN against Israel
Bassam Tawil
February 6, 2023

It is already a tired truism to say that the United Nations has a distinctly anti-Israel bias. The US became exasperated with this laser-like focus and, in unequivocal condemnation of the agency, withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in 2018 and, for the same reason, from UNESCO the following year. Predictably, a UN Committee on the Status of Women resolution singled out Israel as the only state in the world to be condemned for violations of women’s rights, as well. How can such an overwhelming amount of time, paperwork and energy of the UN’s extensive agencies, professedly representing global interests, be so single-mindedly devoted to the censure of a single democratic state? READ MORE

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There are more than 100 pediatric gender clinics across the U.S. I worked at one. What’s happening to children is morally and medically appalling.

Posted on February 3, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

THE FREE PRESS
I Thought I Was Saving Trans Kids. Now I’m Blowing the Whistle.
Jamie Reed
February 9, 2023

I am a 42-year-old St. Louis native, a queer woman, and politically to the left of Bernie Sanders. My worldview has deeply shaped my career. I have spent my professional life providing counseling to vulnerable populations: children in foster care, sexual minorities, the poor. For almost four years, I worked at The Washington University School of Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases with teens and young adults who were HIV positive. Many of them were trans or otherwise gender nonconforming, and I could relate: Through childhood and adolescence, I did a lot of gender questioning myself. I’m now married to a transman, and together we are raising my two biological children from a previous marriage and three foster children we hope to adopt. READ MORE

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Congressional resolution: “Representative Omar, by her own words, has disqualified herself from serving on the Committee on Foreign Affairs”

Posted on February 2, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

REUTERS
Republicans oust Ilhan Omar from high-profile U.S. House committee
Patricia Zengerle and Richard Cowan
February 2, 2023

U.S. House of Representatives Republicans on Thursday ousted Democrat Ilhan Omar from a high-profile committee over remarks widely condemned as antisemitic, two years after Democrats removed two Republicans from committee assignments. The deeply divided House voted 218-211 along party lines to remove Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee with Republicans citing the 2019 remarks for which she later apologized. One Republican voted “present.” Omar, who arrived in the United States as a refugee from Somalia, is the only African-born member of Congress and one of the only Muslim women in the House. She was in line to be the top Democrat on the foreign affairs panel’s Africa subcommittee. READ MORE

NBC NEWS Rep. Ilhan Omar backs resolution recognizing Israel as a ‘legitimate’ ally as GOP moves to oust her from committee More than 30 House Democrats have signed on to a new resolution “recognizing Israel as America’s legitimate and democratic ally and condemning antisemitism.” The most notable among them: Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a Muslim American who has been a fierce critic of Israel and the Jewish lobby. Republicans ousted her from the Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday for what members of both parties said were antisemitic remarks.

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