#BretStephens: “Israel’s defenders seem intent on fighting their battles in the settings where they are most likely to lose: elite universities, prestige media outlets, and other venues where opinions tend to range from the left to the far left”

Posted on January 28, 2022 by ArchitectGuy

SAPIR
Israel Wins the War of Ideas
by Bret Stephens
Winter 2022

…Each of these arguments may be right on the merits, yet they rarely do more than preach to the converted. As for the unconverted, the best argument is that Israel is under no obligation to justify its existence to anybody, least of all those who despise it; that, like any democratic and sovereign nation, it has every right to do what it must to safeguard its vital interests and security; that it isn’t interested in winning popularity contests; and that sincere and constructive criticism is always welcome, but its policies won’t be swayed by those who fundamentally wish it ill. READ MORE

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“Rather than educating anyone about the threat of antisemitism, #ADL’s new Director of Jewish Outreach tells Jews they’re racists”

Posted on January 28, 2022 by ArchitectGuy

DAILY WIRE
ADL, Founded To Combat Anti-Semitism, Goes Woke, Changes Definition Of Racism
by Hank Berrien
January 30, 2022

The Anti-Defamation League, an international Jewish organization that is now headed by Jonathan Greenblatt, a former Obama administration official, has changed the definition of racism on its website to read, “The marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people.” As The Blaze reported, the definition previously stated, “Racism is the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another, that a person’s social and moral traits are predetermined by his or her inborn biological characteristics. Racial separatism is the belief, most of the time based on racism, that different races should remain segregated and apart from one another.” READ MORE

FRONT PAGE Daniel Greenfield: ADL Hires Director for Jewish Outreach Who Hates Jews “Jews have to be ok with Palestinians explaining why some turn to terrorism.”

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Denying Islamic terrorism is the real delusion

Posted on January 28, 2022 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
France’s Macron tries to reclassify Muslim terrorism as mental illness
by Daniel Greenfield
February 1, 2022

There’s hardly been a Muslim terrorist attack committed by a single perpetrator in Europe or America in the last five years that the authorities and the media haven’t tried to spin as mental illness. Both Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, the Syrian Muslim mass killer who shot up a Boulder supermarket, and Malik Faisal Akram, who took a Texas temple hostage to secure the release of “Lady Al Qaeda,” had their attacks blamed on mental illness. But France continues to lead the world in whitewashing Muslim terrorism as mental illness. When Sarah Halimi, a 65-year-old Jewish kindergarten director, was murdered by her Muslim neighbor while he shouted “Allahu Akbar,” the authorities gave him a pass because his pot smoking had supposedly brought on a “psychotic” episode. READ MORE

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IHRA definition of antisemitism “controversial” where it recognizes that double-standard criticism of Israel is actually Jew-hatred

Posted on January 27, 2022 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
UN head skirts adoption of IHRA antisemitism definition in Holocaust memorial speech
by Jacob Magid
January 27, 2022

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday skirted around announcing the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, which has been a key demand made by mainstream Jewish groups of governments and organizations around the world…More notably though, Guterres left out any mention of the more controversial “examples” of the IHRA definition, including anti-Israel criticism that it says can be defined as antisemitic. Critics of the definition argue that its examples will be used to quash legitimate criticism of Israel. READ MORE

JNS Ten US states move to recognize Holocaust Remembrance Day, adopt IHRA definition of anti-Semitism In recent weeks, 10 states have advanced a proclamation or executive orders acknowledging International Holocaust Remembrance Day with each proclamation officially recognizing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism. The states that have already issued proclamations include Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming and Nevada. 

Tbe IHRA definition of antisemitism

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“Attorney general who brought the charges against Netanyahu, Avichai Mandelblit, is due to leave office at month’s end, and both prosecution and defense see benefit in concluding the negotiations beforehand”

Posted on January 21, 2022 by ArchitectGuy

FDD
Possible Netanyahu Plea Deal Could Shake Up Israeli Politics
by Shany Mor
January 25, 2022

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is mulling a plea deal that would spare him prison time but likely bar him from politics for at least seven years. While still unlikely, such an agreement may have far-reaching implications for Israel’s current governing coalition. Netanyahu is currently on trial on charges of fraud, breach of trust, and bribery in three separate corruption cases that allege he made questionable public decisions in exchange for favors and gifts. Despite having dragged along for over five years, the legal process suddenly accelerated in the past two weeks, with Netanyahu, his lawyers, and his family actively pursuing and considering various plea options. READ MORE

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“The terrorist stopped me from being a parent, he shouldn’t stop me from being a grandparent”

Posted on January 21, 2022 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Bereaved families fight to use deceased child’s sperm to be grandparents
by Anna Ahronheim
January 25, 2022

Bereaved families who lost their sons during military service are fighting the state to allow them to become grandparents by using posthumously retrieved sperm from their child and a surrogate. A bill put forward by MK May Golan (Likud) that would allow bereaved parents to use the sperm of their dead children was voted down last summer by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation. However, lawmakers including MK Zvi Hauser (New Hope) are giving it a new push and are expected to bring it to a vote within a month…The bill will have an in-depth framework surrounding the issue and “strongly establishes that parents should be allowed to use semen for the continuity” of their child’s bloodline. READ MORE 

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“Many of the states promoting and supporting the establishment of the UN commission among the most ardent and prevailing human rights violators in the international community”

Posted on January 21, 2022 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM CENTER FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS
The UN Descent to its Deepest Depths of Hostility against Israel
by Alan Baker
January 23, 2022

The inherent, long-existing political hostility against the State of Israel within the United Nations, in general, and the U.N.’s Human Rights Council (UNHCR), in particular, comes as no surprise to anyone. However, the recent unprecedented decision to establish and finance an “ongoing, independent, international commission of inquiry” to function as a permanent “inquisition” or “kangaroo court” aimed solely against one state—Israel—to the exception of all other countries in the world, raises the fearful specter, reminiscent of times gone by, of unjustifiable persecution and discrimination. READ MORE

EMETONLINE Richard Kemp on The Soviet Origins of Palestinian Antisemitism

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“If you think the reason Israel gets so much support in Congress is the money and influence of the pro-Israel lobby, you might be surprised to learn that that lobby ranks 20th on the most recent list of congressional donors”

Posted on January 21, 2022 by ArchitectGuy

NEW YORK TIMES
What an Antisemite’s Fantasy Says About Jewish Reality
by Bret Stephens
January 21, 2022

A man travels 4,800 miles from the north of England to the heart of Texas. Once there, appearing to be homeless, he gains entry into a synagogue just before its Shabbat services. The rabbi welcomes him with a cup of tea. With a handgun, he takes the rabbi and others hostage for 11 hours while demanding the release of a convicted terrorist held in a nearby prison. He phones a prominent New York rabbi to help push for the terrorist’s release. A hostage reports him as saying, “I know President Biden will do things for the Jews.” A witness, who sees the drama unfold on a livestream, watches him “ranting about Jews and Israel” and saying he has chosen his target because “America only cares about Jewish lives.” READ MORE

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“In each case, except for the attacks in the synagogues in Pittsburgh and Poway, the assailants were Islamists and Palestinian terrorists”

Posted on January 21, 2022 by ArchitectGuy

WHITE ROSE
Woke Terrorism
by Thane Rosenbaum
January 22, 2022

…It goes without saying that other planned attacks—in an astounding number of different nations—have not gone so well. The law of averages when it comes to Jews confronted with those who wish them harm, generally, results in more harrowing crime scenes. Hostages rarely escape. It was true of the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics; and a wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer, killed and tossed overboard on the Achille Lauro cruise ship in 1985; two elderly women in Paris, Mireille Knoll stabbed and then torched in her apartment in 2018, and Sarah Halimi, thrown from her balcony in 2017; also in Paris, the slaughter of four Jews in a kosher market in 2015; and in 2006, the torture and murder of Ilan Halimi by an Islamist group properly named the Gang of Barbarians; the murder of a rabbi and three children at a Jewish day school in Toulouse in 2012; the bombing of the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires in 1994 leaving 300 wounded and 85 dead; and, of course, closer to home, the murder of 11 at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, and, a year later, the killing of one woman and serious injuries to three others in a synagogue in Poway, California. READ MORE

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Opening Jan. 27 at the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Chicago, ‘The Journey Back’ puts participants in the narrators’ shoes as they hear their tales of suffering and survival

Posted on January 21, 2022 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Holocaust survivors help viewers experience the camps firsthand, via virtual reality
by Cathryn J. Prince
January 27, 2022

Every morning inside the barracks, 599 women each tore a crumb from their small bread rations and gave it to 13-year-old Fritzie Fritzshall, hoping the extra nourishment would keep her alive one more day. In return, Fritzshall promised that if she survived Auschwitz she would tell their story. She kept her word. Fritzshall married and had a son and two grandchildren. She became a hairdresser and was a passionate Chicago Cubs fan. And she helped found the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Chicago, where she served as its president until she died last June at 91. Along the way, Fritzshall told her story and the story of the women to students and educators, politicians and journalists. READ MORE.  To purchase tickets click here

Personal aside here from ArchitectGuy: We were honored to have Fritzie in our home about 30 years ago when she helped us raise funds for the construction of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC

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