…Despite Ben and Jerry’s self-serving and self-congratulatory claims, this is not a question of whether one can criticize Israel without being antisemitic. The principle they cite is not what is at stake. What is at stake is the right of the Jewish people to exist without harassment and hate, without having their state constantly threatened with annihilation, and without being told they are horrible people for defending themselves against the onslaught. Indeed, one may note that Ben and Jerry, throughout their praise of themselves as just, moral, and progressive, say absolutely nothing about the antisemitic pogrom that has recently erupted at the hands of precisely those they are aiding and abetting. READ MORE
…What didn’t make the top 10 was that 28% of those [American Jews] polled – and 38% of those under 40 – agreed with the statement that “Israel is an apartheid state”; 23% of those polled and 33% under 40 agreed that “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians”…If one-fourth of American Jews truly think – as this poll claims, but which some observers of the American Jewish community find hard to believe – that Israel is an apartheid state committing genocide against the Palestinians, then there is something woefully wrong. And what is wrong is with American Jewry, not with Israel. READ MORE
JERUSALEM CENTER FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS Dan Diker and Yechiel Leiter: The ‘Apartheid’ Poll and the Disinformation DiscoursePalestinian leadership has used Soviet-style disinformation to discredit, delegitimize, and demonize Israel beginning in the late 1960s, when PLO officials underwent military and political warfare training in Moscow and other Soviet satellite countries.
…The [Iranian] regime has two plans to avoid the wrath of the people—repression and sanctions relief. And the Biden administration is giving the Iranian regime every reason to believe that it can pull off both. In the not-so-distant past, Iranian dictator Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s decision to elevate Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi to serve as Iran’s next president beginning next month would have been greeted with stunned revulsion. Raisi is a sadistic mass murderer. He first rose to prominence in 1988, when he served as one of one four members of the “death commission” that was directly responsible for the execution of some 30,000 dissidents, including children. READ MORE
Ben & Jerry’s boycott of “Occupied Palestinian Territories” represents “a new form of terrorism,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Wednesday. “The boycott of Israel is a new sort of terrorism, economic terrorism,” the newly installed president said, according to a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “Terrorism tries to harm the citizens of Israel and the economy of Israel,” Herzog said. “We must oppose this boycott and terrorism in any form… It takes aim at the Israeli economy.” The comments come one day after Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warned the US company’s British owners, Unilever, that the ice cream maker’s boycott “is an action that has severe consequences” and said Israel could “take strong action.” READ MORE
JNS Will US anti-BDS laws cause financial meltdown for Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever?“By virtue of its wayward subsidiary, Unilever—a massive international conglomerate—risks potentially crushing financial consequences in terms of its ability to receive investments from, or do business with, the majority of U.S. states,” said Brooke Goldstein of the Lawfare Project.
NEWSWEEK Florida and Texas Threaten Sanctions Against Ben & Jerry’s Over Israel BoycottFlorida and Texas have both threatened sanctions against the ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s following the brand’s announcement of an upcoming boycott that will end sales of its product within Israel’s occupied Palestinian territories. Florida and Texas are two of 35 states that have passed laws or have executive orders that forbid companies and organizations from participating in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS).
By “popular demand” (aka Pro-Palestinian social media pressure) @benandjerrys announced their newest flavor of the month: Only Boycott the Jewish State‼️
The Department of Justice made a stunning announcement this week. Four Iranian nationals have been charged with plotting “to kidnap a Brooklyn journalist, author and human rights activist.” A fifth individual is facing related charges. The indictment doesn’t name the intended victim. But Masih Alinejad, a well-known human rights campaigner, quickly made it known that she was the target. Alinejad’s revelation was hardly surprising. She’s dedicated her life to exposing the horrors of the Iranian regime, refusing to bow to pressure even as Iranian authorities locked up and harassed her family members.READ MORE
Speaking at Christian’s United for Israel’s 2021 summit in Dallas on Monday, Sandra Hagee Parker, chair of the CUFI Action Fund and daughter of CUFI founder Pastor John Hagee, the organization’s advocacy wing, said with some force that the multiple polls indicating waning support for Israel among evangelicals are false...She said it was a fallacy that evangelical support is waning or that it is so closely tied to the Republican Party that their influence is waning with a Democratic administration and Democrats in charge of Congress. Nor, she said, is it weakened by Israel’s new government in the Knesset, which no longer is led by conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. READ MORE
A Palestinian singer has been arrested by Palestinian Authority security forces for performing in the settlement of Ariel. The singer, a resident of the West Bank village of Kafr ad-Dik, will be put on trial for allegedly promoting normalization with Israel. The singer was recently invited to perform at a party held by an Israeli factory for its Palestinian workers at the Ariel Industrial Park, Palestinian sources told The Jerusalem Post. “Contrary to the claims of the Palestinian Authority, settlers did not attend the party,” the sources said. “The party was organized by the factory owners for the Palestinian workers.” READ MORE
A prospective oral coronavirus vaccine is set to start clinical trials in Israel, and the developer believes it could help get vaccines to countries that are struggling to inoculate because of limited infrastructure. Oramed Pharmaceuticals has created a single-dose oral version of a prospective vaccine being developed by India-based Premas Biotech, and in March announced that it had successfully generated antibodies in pigs. It hopes that the Israeli-developed pill will be suitable as a simple initial vaccination, as it won’t need to be stored at low temperatures and eliminates the need to have professionals administering injections. READ MORE
…The political divide between left and right over a host of issues, including Israel and racial politics in the United States, has to some extent left the community too painfully divided to come together in any meaningful way. That makes the lesson the sages teach that the destruction of Jerusalem was caused not so much by the actions of outside foes but by sinat chinam—baseless hatred—among the tribe, which is all the more applicable on this Tisha B’Av. And coming after more than a year of the coronavirus pandemic, unexpected tragedies, war and a related surge in anti-Semitism, the need for more introspection and unity, and less blaming and shaming, remains greater than ever. READ MORE
ArchitectGuy on Israel 