Why #Jordan has not joined the #AbrahamAccords

Posted on December 23, 2022 by ArchitectGuy

WASHINGTON TIMES
Abdullah in the middle
Clifford May
December 21, 2022

Some years ago, a colleague and I were in Israel, in the home of a former member of the intelligence community who maintained his international connections. Before going into his kitchen to make coffee, he opened a fancy tin of dates that, he said, had been given to him the day before, in Amman, by King Abdullah II of Jordan. On the table next to the dates was a novel by Daniel Silva who had written an inscription on the title page (which I took the liberty to read). The author’s wife, Jamie Gangel, is a television reporter with whom I happen to be acquainted, so I emailed her, mentioning the book and the dates. “Whatever you do,” she replied, “don’t be the first to eat one.” READ MORE

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“The ADL is not a Jewish organization anymore. It’s a lucrative leftist group which provides bias insurance to schools”

Posted on December 23, 2022 by ArchitectGuy

ARUTZ SHEVA
Why the ADL Abandoned Antisemitism and Went Woke
Daniel Greenfield
December 20, 2022

In 2018, the ADL announced that it was no longer in the ‘kindness’ business. “Forget Kindness. Schools Need to Foster Social Justice,” Jinnie Spiegler, the ADL’s curriculum director, barked. By three years old, Spiegler claimed white children in America are already racists. Spiegler, an obsessive leftist with seemingly no Jewish interests, whose Twitter account promotes antisemitic leftists like AOC, Cori Bush, and Ilhan Omar, has a singular obsession. READ MORE

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The attacks on Musk for exposing the connections tell us just how much those on the left side of the political spectrum hate open discourse and transparency when it includes views they dislike.

Posted on December 23, 2022 by ArchitectGuy

REAL CLEAR POLITICS
The FBI Has No Business Trying to Suppress Free Speech
Professor Charles Lipson
December 27, 2022

We are beginning to find out just how bad it was. The FBI and other government agencies worked hand in glove with Twitter’s old management to suppress legitimate speech they didn’t like and shape a narrative they did. They did so repeatedly and secretly. So did the Biden presidential campaign and the Democratic National Campaign Committee. They institutionalized their close relations and communicated so often that Twitter executives could reply to their complaints with a single word: “handled.” We only learned how extensive this collusion was after Elon Musk bought the company. READ MORE

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“Although a date for the swearing-in is not immediately announced, Netanyahu is expected to return to power – as head of the most right-wing Israeli government ever to hold office – as early as next week”

Posted on December 22, 2022 by ArchitectGuy

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
Netanyahu announces formation of new government
Amir Ettinger, Yehuda Shlezinger and AP
December 22, 2022

Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu announced late Wednesday that he has successfully formed a new coalition, setting the stage for him to return to power as head of the most right-wing Israeli government ever to hold office. Netanyahu made the announcement in a phone call to President Isaac Herzog moments before a midnight deadline. His Likud party released a brief video clip of the smiling Netanyahu and a recording of the conversation. “I wanted to announce to you that thanks to the amazing public support we received in the elections, I have succeeded in forming a government that will take care of all the citizens of Israel,” Netanyahu said. READ MORE

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Dershowitz: “The Israeli Supreme Court may be the single best Supreme Court in the world”

Posted on December 22, 2022 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
DEBATE: Does the Supreme Court have too much power?
Caroline Glick
December 20, 2022

The incoming Netanyahu government’s intention to enact reforms of the legal systems to limit the powers of the Supreme Court has stirred up a lot of controversies. In this week’s episode of the “Caroline Glick Show,” Caroline Glick hosts a debate between two eminent jurists – Harvard’s Professor Alan Dershowitz and Bar Ilan’s Professor Avi Bell. While the two law professors disagree about the scope of the reforms required, they both agree that the power of the Court should be limited. According to Dershowitz however, “the Israeli legal system is one of the best in the world.”..The American professor expresses concern over the idea of overriding the decisions of the court by a simple 61-59 majority in the Knesset. READ MORE

GATESTONE Alan M. Dershowitz: Democracy in Israel Today’s Israel, like the US, is a deeply divided nation. Israel’s democratic system is based on a unicameral parliament, the Knesset, the members of which are chosen in an election based on nationwide proportional representation. Because no one single political party has ever in the country’s history won a majority of 61 out of 120 Knesset seats, multiple parties — including small ones — need to group together in a coalition to form the government.

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Walt Whitman High School (my alma mater) in Bethesda, MD is scene of walkout

Posted on December 22, 2022 by ArchitectGuy

ALGEMEINER
Maryland High School Students Stage Walkout to Protest Antisemitism
Dion J. Pierre
December 22, 2022

Students at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland staged a walkout on Thursday to protest antisemitism, a local ABC outlet reported on Thursday. On Saturday, “Jews not welcome” was graffitied on the school’s monument sign. The culprits have not yet been identified, and the incident has prompted alarm among students and staff at the school.  “The worst part about what happened to our sign is that the people who wrote it weren’t entirely wrong,” student Rachel Barold said to the hundreds of students who attended the demonstration, according to footage obtained by ABC 7. “Whitman and MCPS [Montgomery County Public Schools] hasn’t been a welcoming community to Jewish people for a long time, and this isn’t an issue that’s unique to MCPS, it’s an issue around the country and around the Earth.” READ MORE

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By March “Knesset to vote on legislation to eliminate the clause by which grandchildren of those who are Jewish according to Halacha can immediately immigrate to Israel”

Posted on December 22, 2022 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Netanyahu on a collision course with US Jewry, Biden, Arab allies
Tovah Lazaroff
December 22, 2022

Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to take office, and he already is on a collision course with both liberal American Jews and the Biden administration. Also add to them the European Union and Israel’s new-found allies in the Middle East under the Abraham Accords. On Thursday night, outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid warned that Netanyahu’s government “will be the first in the history of the state that the United States won’t view as its closest ally.” Reform and Conservative Jews, who are among the most influential leaders of American Jewry, “won’t see Israel as their second home,” he predicted. Lapid spoke after Netanyahu’s government partners published details of their coalition agreements that will be signed in the coming days. READ MORE

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“The State Department, which is named as a defendant in the suit, has formally determined in congressional notifications that the Palestinian government pays terrorists and incites violence against Israel”

Posted on December 22, 2022 by ArchitectGuy

FREE BEACON
Victims of Terrorism Sue Biden Admin for Sending Taxpayer Aid to Palestinians
Adam Kredo
December 20, 2022

Victims of Palestinian terror attacks are suing the Biden administration for awarding nearly half a billion dollars in U.S. taxpayer funds to the Palestinian government, which allegedly uses these funds to pay convicted terrorists and their families. The lawsuit, filed in federal court on Tuesday by American victims of Palestinian terror attacks and Rep. Ronny Jackson (R., Texas), alleges the Biden administration is in violation of federal law for resuming U.S. aid to the Palestinian government, according to a copy of the lawsuit exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The Trump administration froze these funds due to the Palestinian government’s financial support for terrorists as part of a program known as pay-to-slay. READ MORE

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“The failure of journalists, in particular, to grasp the ideological causes of the attacks on the Jewish state in 2000 helped to prevent a coherent understanding of the Islamist attacks on the United States and Europe that followed”

Posted on December 16, 2022 by ArchitectGuy

QUILLETTE
Islamist Terror; Journalistic Error
Jeffrey Herf
December 2, 2022

In “Can The Whole World” Be Wrong?,” Richard Landes, a historian of apocalyptic movements in medieval Europe, re-examines the reporting of Palestinian attacks on Israel, starting with the Second Intifada that began in September 2000. Principally, he looks at the ways in which postcolonial ideology and the intimidation of journalists have been used to obscure the links between Islamist ideology and terrorist practice, and how this process disfigures public discourse and understanding…Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran after the revolution of 1979, the publication of the Hamas Covenant in 1988, and al Qaeda’s declaration of jihad against Jews and Crusaders in 1998, the governments of the West’s liberal democracies have, with only a few exceptions, been reluctant to speak clearly about the causal connection between Islamist ideology and violence. READ MORE

JNS Phyllis Chesler: The history of the media intifada against Israel Historian Richard Landes’s new book shows how a war of lies and language endangers not only the Jewish state, but the West itself.

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“Tyrannical governments in China, Iran, Venezuela, and the West Bank and Gaza Strip murder, unjustly imprison, and violate the dignity and human rights of individuals every day, yet the Biden administration sees fit to crack down on Israel”

Posted on December 16, 2022 by ArchitectGuy

COMMENTARY
Why Is the FBI Investigating Israel?
Matthew Continetti
January 2023

…At the time of writing, no one knows the details of the FBI inquiry, or the identity of the official who authorized it, or how long it will go on before the U.S. government realizes its ineffectuality. What is known is that the anti-Israel gang successfully bullied an agency of the United States government into taking the extraordinary step of treating the military of the Jewish state as a criminal enterprise, with no consideration of the potential fallout in the Greater Middle East or the precedent that might be set for U.S. soldiers in future actions. READ MORE

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