“Fights break out in Ramallah on fourth day of protests over death of Nizar Banat in Palestinian Authority custody”

Posted on June 27, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

ALJAZEERA
Rival Palestinian groups clash at protest over activist’s death
June 27, 2021

Rival groups of Palestinians clashed in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday during a fourth day of protests over the death of Nizar Banat, an outspoken critic of the Palestinian Authority (PA) who died in PA custody. Nizar Banat, a 43-year-old activist from Hebron known for social media videos denouncing alleged corruption within the PA, died on Thursday after security forces stormed his house and violently arrested him. Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker, reporting from Ramallah, said fights broke out on Sunday between protesters calling for PA President Mahmoud Abbas to step down and a rival group demonstrating in support of the PA and Fatah, Abbas’s party that dominates the Palestinian Authority. READ MORE

ELDER OF ZIYON Fatah spinning furiously to justify attacking protesters Fatah is releasing statement after statement to deflect or justify the police brutally attacking protesters this weekend.

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Lapid: “Israel wants peace with its neighbors – with all its neighbors. We aren’t going anywhere. The Middle East is our home”

Posted on June 27, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

REUTERS
Inaugurating embassy in UAE, Israel tells region: ‘We’re here to stay’
by Lisa Barrington
June 30, 2021

Israel’s new foreign minister inaugurated its embassy in the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday and offered an olive branch to other former adversaries, saying: “We’re here to stay.” Yair Lapid’s two-day visit, in which he will open an Israeli consulate in Dubai on Wednesday, is the first to the Gulf state by an Israeli cabinet minister since the countries established ties last year. The trip is also an opportunity for the two-week-old Israeli government of Naftali Bennett, a nationalist who heads an improbable cross-partisan coalition, to make diplomatic inroads despite long-stymied talks with the Palestinians. READ MORE

ELDER OF ZIYON Kuwait seeks to strengthen boycott law to criminalize saying anything nice about Israel The proposed law prohibits all forms of dealing, normalization of ties, and conclusion of any agreements, protocols, and meetings of any nature with the Zionist entity or any its organizations around the world either directly or indirectly.

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Collapse of Champlain Tower South renders traditional practices for burying Jewish dead impossible to perform

Posted on June 27, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

JTA
For Jewish burial societies, Surfside disaster presents a grim and complex task
by Shira Hanau
June 25, 2021

Among Rabbi Mayer Berger’s first thoughts on seeing the 12 stories of the Champlain Tower South pancaked upon themselves: This is like Sept. 11. Then as now, destruction of unimaginable proportions claimed many lives without warning in a manner that rendered traditional practices for burying the Jewish dead impossible to perform. Those practices call for bodies to be buried as soon as possible following death after undergoing a purification ritual called tahara. But with both Jewish and non-Jewish victims, and bodies difficult or impossible to identify, catastrophes like 9/11 or what happened in Surfside, Florida, complicate the work of those who volunteer to carry out the traditional practices. READ MORE

NEW YORK POST Israeli army forms 3D images of fallen Florida condo to find victims The Israeli military has created an intricate set of three-dimensional mapping diagrams of the collapsed Florida condo building and the surrounding disaster site as part of its efforts to assist local authorities in finding victims in the rubble. The Israel Defense Forces provided The Post with various images of the remaining portion of the gutted Champlain Towers South in Surfside, where the death toll stood at 16 as of Wednesday afternoon.

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On Mel Brooks’ 95th birthday, a celebration of the man whose humor faced down death and made generations of Jews feel seen

Posted on June 27, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

TABLET MAG
The Funniest Jew on Earth
By Clayton Fox
June 27, 2021

Ask Americans—well, Jews, well, most Jews, well, some Jews—over the age of 60 who is the funniest man on Earth? The answer is “Mel Brooks.” Brooks is the last great Hollywood Jew and when he goes—kinahora not for another 25 years—something will die with him. He might be the last great American Jew, period, some cross between a Kishinev shochet and a Williamsburg ganif, with that voice so full of wryness that the mere anticipation of what it might next utter brings a smile to our lips and comfort to our hearts. It started in Europe, where the American-born Brooks followed his brothers into the army and ended up serving in the final advance on Germany in 1945. READ MORE

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#Canceled: A Black Jewish “inclusion” officers condemns antisemitism in a post, but forgets to include Islamophobia, so of course she must resign

Posted on June 27, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

NEWSWEEK
SCBWI Diversity Chief Resigns After Not Mentioning Islamophobia in Antisemitism Post
by Anders Anglesey
June 29, 2021

A Black Jewish inclusion officer at the world’s leading children’s book writer’s group has left her position after she did not mention Islamophobia in a post about rising cases of antisemitism. April Powers, previously Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer at the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), left her position following an outcry that she did not mention Islamophobia in her statement about the rise in crimes against Jews. The officer, who introduced herself as being Black and Jewish in a welcome video in June last year, shared the statement that said Jewish people have the right to live in safety. READ MORE

ALGEMEINER Actress Debra Messing Defends Former Officer at Children’s Book Authors Group Who Resigned Over Antisemitism Statement Row “April Powers must be given her job back,” tweeted the former “Will and Grace” star, who is Jewish. “This cannot go unchallenged. Condemning hate against Jews is NOT Islamophobic NOR Anti-Palestinian. If you think it is, you have a prejudice against Jews.”

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“They peddle lies and issue denials in “solidarity with the Palestinian people”

Posted on June 27, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

AMERICAN SPECTATOR
Academia’s Anti-Israel Propaganda Brainwashes Students
by A.J. Caschetta
June 25, 2021

Proof that groupthink reigns supreme in academia came last month as hundreds of academic departments released statements and thousands of individual professors signed open letters “in solidarity with the Palestinian people.” Following 11 days of war between Hamas and Israel, these shockingly unoriginal statements, which read like carbon copies of each other, do more than express support for Palestinians; they accuse Israel of being a “colonial settler state” and oppressing millions of peaceful people through a system of apartheid equally insidious as the original South African version. READ MORE

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A cautionary tale for all: “The Lebanese are living through a terrible economic experiment”

Posted on June 27, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

SPECTATOR
What happens when your currency collapses?
by Paul Wood
June 23, 2021

I’m a millionaire. A million in crisp, new bills is stacked up on the table in front of me. Unfortunately, it’s Lebanese lira and cost me about $75 a week ago. It’s already worth only $65, and by the time you read this, it will be worth even less. The Lebanese currency has lost more than 90 percent of its value over the past 18 months and is continuing its steady decline. It would be foolish to keep more than a few days’ spending money on hand, so everyone has a moneychanger. Mine is Mohammed, who pops round on his moped with ever-fatter stacks of notes with ever more zeros on them. The currency grows physically as it shrinks in value. He passes over a wad of cash and says, smiling: ‘Our leaders are stupid and corrupt.’ READ MORE

MEDIA LINE At Least 20 Injured in Violent Lebanese Protests Lebanon on Sunday continued its perilous spiral out of control as large clashes between protesters and police led to 20 injuries and ever-growing unrest. Demonstrators in Tripoli, desperate for fuel and basic supplies, tried to storm government buildings and the central bank, only to be repelled by security forces’ rubber bullets and stun grenades.

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Laser, “the latest Israeli advance in countering emerging drone threats”

Posted on June 24, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

THE NATIONAL INTEREST
Ba Bang: Israel Uses a Laser to Shoot Down a Drone
by Seth Frantzman
June 22, 2021

Israel’s Ministry of Defense completed its first-ever interception test using an airborne “high-power laser system” on June 21. “The Directorate of Defense Research and Development in the Ministry of Defense, together with Elbit Systems and the Israel Air Force, has successfully intercepted several UAVs using an airborne High-Power Laser Weapon System (HPL-WS),” the defense ministry said in a statement. “The UAVs were intercepted at various ranges and flight altitudes.” This is the latest Israeli advance in countering emerging drone threats. READ MORE

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State Department says reports of change in policy regarding the Golan Heights are ‘false’

Posted on June 24, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
US: No change to policy recognizing Israeli sovereignty on Golan
by Tovah Lazaroff
June 26, 2021

The United States rejected as “false” a claim by the Washington Free Beacon that it had “walked back” its recognition of Israeli sovereignty on the Golan Heights. “US policy regarding the Golan has not changed, and reports to the contrary are false,” the State Department tweeted under its Near Eastern Affairs account on Friday. It spoke up less than 24 hours after the Beacon published its report, which claimed that the US was rescinding the Golan sovereignty recognition granted Israel in 2018 under the Trump administration. READ MORE

J STREET J Street Welcomes Important House Letter Urging Biden Admin to Reverse Trump’s Damaging Israel/Palestine Policies J Street uploads a June 23 letter signed by 73 Democrats to President Biden recommending many actions regarding Israel including “Ensure that all relevant official U.S. documents and communications once again consistently refer to the status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as occupied”

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“We are stronger together. We’ll be around as long as it takes, supporting and in solidarity with this amazing community and people. Our friendship is solid and everlasting,” posted Israel Consul General to Miami Maor Elbaz-Starinsky

Posted on June 24, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
As South Florida grapples with loss, Jewish community props up first responders, family
by Faygie Levy Holt
June 25, 2021

…Hatzalah is currently mandating a shift schedule to allow its members to get some rest. “A lot of our people devote themselves to the community, and if we don’t limit their shift,” they will work day and night, said Andre Roitman, one of Hatzalah of South Florida’s coordinators. “We have 70 members in South Florida and are maintaining eight to 10 members at night and 20 to 25 responders during the day.” Roitman, who himself had been working 20 straight hours and has a missing friend in the building, said Hatzalah’s role has evolved over the last day and half, divided by phases. READ MORE

LOCAL 10 Israel sends help to Surfside’s Jewish community after building collapse Members of the Israel Defense Force’s Home Front Command search-and-rescue team traveled from the Middle Eastern country to work on finding survivors in the rubble of what is left of the 12-story building.

REUTERS Engineer had warned of structural damage before Florida building collapse A consultant had warned three years before the deadly collapse of a South Florida condominium building that there was evidence of “major structural damage” to the concrete slab below the pool deck and abundant cracking and crumbling in the underground parking garage, the New York Times reported early on Saturday.

SPECTATOR Charles Lipson: How cable news will inevitably politicize the Surfside building tragedy Nothing could be more predictable than media coverage of the catastrophic building collapse in Surfside, Florida. Cable news will feature it because the story is both shocking and eye-catching. Their obvious problem is that the cable channels have hours of air-time to fill and precious little real information, beyond dreadful pictures and interviews with bereaved friends and family and others who escaped the tragedy. 

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