“As the post-9/11 chapter closes, a new one begins, marked above all by the end of American deterrence and the eclipse of American power”

Posted on August 27, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

FEDERALIST
Our Defeat In Afghanistan Is Only The Beginning
by John Daniel Davidson
September 2, 2021

…As we learn more in the coming weeks and months about the fecklessness and deceit of the Biden administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal — including Biden’s appalling conversation with then-President Ashraf Ghani, urging him to “project a different picture” of the fight against the Taliban, “whether it is true or not” — every nation in the world will take note of what our promises are worth. Some of these developments will take decades to mature, but others will move rapidly. By the end of Biden’s term, assuming he’s able to see it through, we might well long for the days when all we had to worry about was our humiliation in Afghanistan. READ MORE

FDD Thomas Joscelyn: What We Know—and Don’t Know—About ISIS-K When the Islamic State declared its caliphate in Iraq and Syria in June 2014, its leaders immediately rejected the legitimacy of all other Muslim and jihadist authorities—including the Taliban. According to the Islamic State’s scheme, once its men set foot on the soil of any country or region, all Muslims in the vicinity owe their allegiance to its caliph. 

MELANIE PHILLIPS Biden’s contemptible speech Instead, the President insisted that the operation at Kabul airport was an “extraordinary success”. He implied that everything apart from the Afghan army’s collapse and the flight of the Afghan president had gone according to plan. He accepted no responsibility for any failings in the operation, which were all apparently the fault of others.

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In “The Sisters of Auschwitz,” a best seller in the Netherlands for more than two years, Roxane van Iperen writes about the way Janny and Lien Brilleslijper staged their own form of resistance

Posted on August 27, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

NEW YORK TIMES
How 2 Jewish Sisters Built a Cultural Oasis During World War II
by Nina Siegal
August 27, 2021

Midway through “The Sisters of Auschwitz,” Roxane van Iperen’s book on two Dutch Jewish sisters who aided dozens of people during World War II, there is a moment of merriment that one doesn’t usually expect from a Holocaust narrative. In a neighborhood “crawling with fascists,” she writes, the sisters, Janny and Lien Brilleslijper, organized a celebration of Yiddish culture at their countryside estate in Naarden, about 30 minutes from Amsterdam…How did this take place in 1943, during the most lethal phase of Jewish deportations from the Netherlands to extermination camps? READ MORE

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“A wave of refugees is washing up on Miami’s shores, only now it’s disgruntled New Yorkers, fleeing the city’s draconian COVID restrictions and pessimistic politics”

Posted on August 27, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

TABLET MAG
Miami’s New Diaspora
by Armin Rosen
August 31, 2021

…Glutted with former Gothamites, Miami is now one the best and most natural places to ruminate on the fate of New York, and on the meaning of its downward spiral during the pandemic. Tornelli said he realized that he was “at an impasse” back in New York—the opportunities for personal or professional growth had stalled. Quality of life had plunged. The interesting people were leaving…In Miami, you could have God’s own view and access to two swimming pools and a semiprivate elevator and a parking space, all for $4,000 a month, as Tornelli did. READ MORE

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“Military, defense minister believe a credible threat of an Israeli attack on Tehran’s nuclear facilities is only way US will be able to negotiate better deal with Islamic Republic”

Posted on August 20, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
As Bennett meets Biden, IDF ramps up plans for strike on Iran’s nuke program
by Judah Ari Gross
August 25, 2021

The Israel Defense Forces is working full tilt to develop its plans to strike Iran’s nuclear program in light of the Islamic Republic’s ongoing march toward the technology needed for an atomic weapon, and the stalled negotiations between Washington and Tehran on the matter, IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi told reporters this week. “The progress in the Iranian nuclear program has led the IDF to speed up its operational plans, and the defense budget that was recently approved is meant to address this,” Kohavi said, speaking to military correspondents ahead of the Jewish New Year. Defense Minister Benny Gantz issued a similar threat on Wednesday, telling foreign diplomats that Israel may have to take military action against Iran. READ MORE

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Prime Minister Naftali Bennett must make it clear to President Joe Biden that Israel will not allow the U.S. to reopen its Jerusalem consulate

Posted on August 20, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

UNITED WITH ISRAEL
10 Reasons Not to Reopen the US Consulate in Jerusalem
by Hillel Fendel and Chaim Silberstein
August 25, 2021

With Prime Minister Bennett set to meet with US President Biden this Thursday, it is critical to discuss the American intention to reopen a consulate in Jerusalem that will serve only Arabs – and undermine Israel’s sovereignty in its capital city. Three months ago, when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel and the PA, he declared that the Biden administration would reopen its consulate in Jerusalem. Until it was closed in 2019 by the Trump administration, following the opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem, the consulate had served as a de facto embassy for Arabs of the Palestinian Authority. Prime Minister Bennett must make it clear that Israel will absolutely oppose the consulate’s reopening. Here are ten reasons why. READ MORE

ISRAEL HAYOM Caroline Glick: Joe Biden’s catastrophic judgment Biden’s accusation that the Trump administration was responsible for the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is wrong on several counts. As former President Donald Trump and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, explained on Sunday and Monday, the agreement Trump reached with the Taliban was conditions-based. Since the Taliban breached the conditions, there is little reason to believe that Trump would have implemented the troop pullout.

TIMES OF ISRAEL Lee Smith: The Dream Palaces of the Americans Afghanistan belongs to the Taliban now, but the Washington elite still has Palestine as an object of its active fantasy life. Naftali Bennett would be wise to stick to the reality principle…Instead of nodding, smiling, and pretending to share the dream of peaceful democratic Palestinian statehood, Bennett could show true friendship to America by pointing to the example of Afghanistan. It’s clear no one in the American political establishment has yet internalized the lesson.

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“Thanks to the Biden administration, say the Arabs and Muslims, terrorist groups that want to wage jihad against the US and Israel and threaten the security and stability of many Arab countries have firmly increased their foothold in the Middle East”

Posted on August 20, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

GATESTONE
Arabs: Biden Brings Extremism, Terrorism Back to Life
by Khaled Abu Toameh
August 24, 2021

As the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas is celebrating the “defeat” of the United States in Afghanistan, the Arabs seem worried that they will be the ones to pay the price by being targeted by terrorist groups, including Islamic State and Al-Qaeda. Commenting on the withdrawal of US troops and the speedy Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, various Arab political analysts, writers and journalists said that they have no doubt that the region is headed toward a new era of extremism and terrorism. The Iranian-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) said that they were emboldened by the “defeat” of the US and have called for stepping up the fight against Israel. READ MORE

AL HURRA Ilan Berman: The Costs Of The Afghan Catastrophe By now, it’s beyond question that the Biden administration‘s hasty, uncoordinated withdrawal from Afghanistan is nothing short of a debacle. The rapidity with which U.S. forces pulled back in recent weeks helped empower a surge on the part of the Taliban, with dramatic results, while the lack of proper contingency plans to evacuate – or even to protect – vulnerable civilians have led to tragic scenes of mayhem and ongoing disorder. 

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“The alleged $500 million Hamas has stashed away would be sufficient to repair all physical damage incurred during the war as well as make up for the resulting economic losses”

Posted on August 20, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

ALGEMEINER
As media berate Israel, Hamas reportedly hiding enough funds to rebuild Gaza Strip
by Akiva Konigssveld
August 20, 2021

Leading German daily Die Welt has published an expose on Hamas’ secret foreign investment portfolio. According to documents obtained by the newspaper from Western intelligence sources, the US-designated terror group holds interests in some 40 international companies in the Middle East and North Africa, with an estimated value exceeding $500 million. “For years there were rumours about such a portfolio, which seem to be corroborated now by information found on a Hamas computer,” Clemens Wergin, Die Welt’s chief correspondent, noted on Twitter. READ MORE

JERUSALEM POST Hamas congratulates Taliban for ‘defeating’ US “We congratulate the Muslim Afghan people for the defeat of the American occupation on all Afghan lands,” Hamas said in a statement…”The demise of the American occupation and its allies proves that the resistance of the peoples, foremost of which is our struggling Palestinian people, will achieve victory.”

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Brooklyn, August 1991: “Within hours of the boy’s death, 250 rioters descended on a Jewish religious school and set its van on fire. Mobs marched through the streets shouting “death to the Jews,” smashing car windows, and beating Jewish pedestrians”

Posted on August 20, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

FREE BEACON
Anti-Police Policies and Antisemitism That Fueled Riots 30 Years Ago Are on the Rise Again
by Alana Goodman
August 19, 2021

Thirty years ago, antisemitic mobs plundered the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn for three days, chanting Nazi slogans, destroying Jewish homes and businesses, and lynching a young Jewish seminary student. On the night of Aug. 19, 1991, a 22-year-old Orthodox Jewish man named Yosef Lifsh lost control of his car and skidded onto the sidewalk, killing a seven-year-old black boy named Gavin Cato and injuring his seven-year-old cousin. Rumors quickly spread that Lifsh had been intoxicated and that a private Jewish community ambulance service had treated Lifsh while refusing to treat the injured children—claims that were later determined to be false. The neighborhood, which was majority black with a growing Orthodox Jewish minority, erupted in violence. READ MORE

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#BenjaminAnthony: “One teaching from Israel’s experience that must be internalized by all is that the policy of unilateral, territorial concession is unworthy of consideration”

Posted on August 20, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

MIRYAM INSTITUTE
Some democracies can withdraw. Israel is not one of them.
by Benjamin Anthony
August 17, 2021

…Many invoke the [Gaza] disengagement as evidence that Jewish populations in Judea and Samaria may also be uprooted in exchange for a viable peace. Such opinions ought to be viewed askance. They ignore the lessons of the past and of the present. Far more congruent with the consequences of the Gaza withdrawal is the realization that unilateral withdrawal has not and will not work. Repeating the errors of Gaza in Judea and Samaria will simply repeat and expand the list of crises Israel faces. It’s societal rift will deepen and likely turn violent. READ MORE

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Jew v Jew: “Larry David publicly snubbed former friend Alan Dershowitz because he represented Trump. But when politics becomes a religious culture war, it’s no laughing matter”

Posted on August 20, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Two Cranky Old Jews Symbolize Everything That’s Wrong With Our Political Culture
by Jonathan Tobin
August 22, 2021

Apparently, two elderly, wealthy Jewish men aren’t speaking to each other anymore. Who cares? In theory, no one ought to. But when the pair in question are television comedy star Larry David and former Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, and a chance meeting between them results in a public scene involving screaming at a popular spot on Martha’s Vineyard, it’s exactly the sort of thing that does get treated as a very big deal indeed. You may count yourself among those who have no interest in celebrity gossip. Just as likely, you may be among the many who either can’t stand or don’t think Larry David is funny. READ MORE

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