Phillips: Classical liberalism – the basis of Western modernity – holds that all citizens must adhere to the overarching core of the culture, such as democracy, sexual equality and one law for all

Posted on January 13, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
The religious culture war comes to Israel
Melanie Phillips
January 1, 2023

At the root of the convulsions over Israel’s new government lies the secular world’s hatred and terror of religion. Put to one side, for now, the question of whether the hysterical predictions of extremism and the end of Israeli democracy are remotely likely to happen. Park the fact that we don’t yet know how this new government will behave, and whether the pledge made by returning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he will resist any extremist demands made by his religious allies is genuine or achievable. Point your periscope instead at Britain, a country whose ability even now to punch culturally well above its weight tends to be ignored by people in both America and Israel. READ MORE

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“Like Reagan Democrats once upon a time, these voters have already reshaped the political landscape in Florida. Can they do the same nationally in 2024?”

Posted on January 13, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

FREE PRESS
The Rise of the DeSantis Democrats
Olivia Reingold
December 19, 2022

…Williams is one of the DeSantis Democrats: Florida voters who, until recently, identified as Democrats but in November opted to reelect Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis—he who resisted the Covid lockdowns, tangled with Disney, and governed with a record budget surplus—in a landslide. It’s unclear how many DeSantis Democrats there are: DeSantis’ vote count jumped from roughly 4 million in 2018 to 4.6 million in 2022. Lots of those voters are presumably independents or Republicans who didn’t vote last time. READ MORE

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“The future of the global climate will be decided in Asia and Latin America, by poor people who couldn’t give a s–t about saving the planet”

Posted on January 13, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

NEW YORK POST
Comedian Konstantin Kisin blasts woke ‘brainwashing’ of young minds
Isabel Keane
January 19, 2023

A comedian’s searing take on how “woke culture” and climate activism has “gone too far” and “brainwashed” young minds has gone viral. “I’m tired of talking about woke culture. Free speech is not some right-week reframing of whatever — it’s the foundation of Western civilization,” Russian British comedian Konstantin Kisin recently told the Oxford Union Society. “We know that the way to improve the world is to work, is to create, is to build, and the problem with woke culture is that it has trained too many young minds like yours to forget about that,” he added. The video of the speech, posted to Kisin’s Twitter on Jan. 13, has been viewed over 9 million times as of Thursday. In it, he also discusses how many “woke” people suffer from climate anxiety — or fears over the consequences of climate change. READ MORE

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“One can’t predict if or when Israel will feel compelled to conduct a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities but — barring the Tehran regime’s collapse — its new government seems most uniquely geared to execute it”

Posted on January 12, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

NEW YORK POST
Israel is ready to strike Iran’s nuclear program if necessary — America must prepare to work with it
Michael Makovsky
January 11, 2023

Perhaps for the first time, an Israeli government is unified in its determination to prevent a nuclear Iran at all costs, presenting a truly credible military threat…Enter now the new government sworn in Dec. 29, headed by Netanyahu. His coalition has 64 out of 120 Knesset seats, one of the largest majorities in recent years. Its leaders form a solid wall of Iran hawks, including Defense Minister Yoav Galant, Mossad Director David Barnea, national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi — who recently predicted Netanyahu “will act” to “destroy the nuclear facilities in Iran” — and Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s closest aide and a recent colleague of mine, who firmly believes Israel’s top priority must be preventing a nuclear Iran. READ MORE

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The left’s hysterical talk about civil war is caused by the fear that their decades-old power grab is being undone

Posted on January 12, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Democracy must be restored to Israel
Caroline Glick
January 12, 2023

“For years now, Israel has seemed to me like a man sleepwalking toward a cliff. Now we’ve fallen from it.” So proclaimed author Hillel Halkin in a hysterical requiem for Israel published last week in The Jewish Review of Books. Halkin’s metaphorical cliff is the right-religious bloc’s electoral victory on Nov. 1, 2022 and the formation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s sixth government two weeks ago. Halkin explained to his concerned readers that it isn’t that Israel stopped being a democracy on Nov. 1. Far worse. On that day, Israel lost its soul. And Halkin identifies the culprit: Judaism. In language redolent with antisemitic tropes, Halkin blamed “Judaism” for destroying “Zionism,” which he argued, oddly, “sought to cure us” of Judaism’s “fantasies and delusions … only to become infected with them itself.” READ MORE

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Smotrich, a free-market enthusiast like Liberman and Netanyahu, said he plans to follow a similar barrier-blasting path to his predecessor

Posted on January 11, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Government unveils ’emergency’ economic plan to reduce utility, gas and tax hikes
Carrie Keller-Lynn
January 11, 2022

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced the government’s triage plan to combat the high cost of living on Wednesday evening, promising to freeze or reduce price hikes affecting core utilities, fuel and municipal property taxes. “These steps will immediately lower the monthly expenses of every household in Israel,” Netanyahu said, adding that because these are the basic expenses that affect the whole economy, reducing their costs would be like “putting sticks in the wheel of inflation,” which hit 5.3% at the end of 2022. READ MORE

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Perhaps unsurprisingly, the overwhelming majority of Arab citizens from over a dozen nations responded that they would oppose the recognition of Israel

Posted on January 6, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

JPOST
84% of Arabs oppose their country’s diplomatic recognition of Israel
Sam Halpern
January 5, 2023

An average of 84% of Arabs opposes diplomatic recognition of Israel by their countries, according to results from the soon-to-be-released 2022 Arab Opinion Index (AOI). The AOI is an annual series of opinion surveys conducted by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS). The Arab Center Washington DC (ACW) is an affiliate of the ACRPS. They released some early results of the AOI. The AOI surveyed Arabs in over a dozen Arab countries, asking participants various questions in face-to-face interviews. The survey included people from Algeria, Mauritania, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Libya, Iraq, Tunisia, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, Libya, and Saudi Arabia. READ MORE

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The Times articles coincided with a surge in violent antisemitic attacks “targeting the visibly Jewish in New York City — the ones targeted by the New York Times”

Posted on January 6, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

CAMERA BLOG
Antisemitism and The New York Times
Ricki Hollander
January 6, 2023

The New York Times seems to be on a journalistic crusade to discredit New York’s Orthodox Jewish communities, particularly Hasidic ones. The centerpiece of the NYT campaign is its “investigation” of wrongdoing in and by Hasidic schools, the results of which were initially described in a 6000-word article splashed across the newspaper’s front page on September 11, 2022. The article was not restricted to merely criticizing the education offered by these schools but implied that Hasidic and Orthodox Jews are diverting resources from worthier New York public school students in order to generously bankroll their own students – a serious, albeit unproven, allegation that fosters a sense of grievance against that community. READ MORE

ALGEMEINER A Letter to The Pulitzer Prize Committee: Don’t Give Award for New York Times Yeshiva Series Agudath Israel, which represents both hasidic and non-hasidic Orthodox Jews, said the Times has an “obsession with spreading misinformation and demonizing Orthodox and Hasidic Jews.” It said the Times had published 13 articles in three and a half months on the topic, “using its enormous megaphone to spread hate.” 

THE JEWISH VOICE Phyllis Chesler: The New York Times’ Orwellian obsession with Israel The Times’ anti-Israel and anti-Judaism bias extends far beyond headlines. While ignoring the alarming increase in antisemitic incidents and the escalation of physical attacks against visibly Orthodox Jews, primarily by African-American men, the Times instead chose to demonize Jews and Judaism.

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“The EU, in short, is encouraging the Palestinians not to return to the negotiating table with Israel”

Posted on January 6, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

GATESTONE
The European Union’s War on Israel
Bassam Tawil
January 9, 2023

The European Union (EU) argues that it respects democracy and shares with Israel the values of an open and democratic rule-of-law-based society. If that is true, then why does the EU not respect the decision by the Arabs and the Israelis to mutually come to the table to negotiate their own borders? Why is the EU secretly helping the Palestinians take over Area C of the West Bank through illegal construction? A confidential leaked document , composed by the EU mission in east Jerusalem, shows that the Europeans are actively working with, and on behalf of, the Palestinian Authority to take over Area C of the West Bank — although the area was clearly agreed on, by both Israel and the Palestinians, until further negotiations, to be under Israeli control. READ MORE

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“American historian Daniel Pipes recently visited Israel to meet with key people and also discuss his visions for Israel’s victory in its current conflict”

Posted on January 6, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

JPOST
How can Israel win the Palestinian conflict? Historian explains
Seth Frantzman
January 7, 2023

Daniel Pipes: A just resolution of the conflict requires the Palestinians to lose hope. Only when they give up their war goal of eliminating Israel will the conflict come to an end. Israel must win, and the Palestinians must lose. This argument may come as a surprise because it precisely contradicts the premise of the Oslo Accords, which promoted not victory but a notion of Palestinian hope and compromise. It theorized that nice apartments, late-model cars, fine schools and excellent medical care would vest the Palestinians in prosperity, de-radicalize them, and make them true partners for peace. But, nearly 30 years on, all polling and endless anecdotal evidence indicate that most Palestinians retain the fantasy of eliminating the Jewish state. READ MORE

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