Emails reveal State Dept employees should refer to historic Israel peace deals as ‘normalization agreements’

Posted on June 3, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

FREE BEACON
State Department Shuns Term ‘Abraham Accords’
by Adam Kredo
June 4, 2021

The Biden State Department discourages employees from referring to the historic peace agreements signed by Israel and its Arab neighbors by its official name, the Abraham Accords, according to one source with direct knowledge of the Biden administration’s internal decision-making process and emails reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. The name has also been erased from a wide array of official State Department communications as the new administration presses officials to refer to the Trump-era deals as “normalization agreements.” The Abraham Accords were brokered last year by the outgoing Trump administration and paved the way for Israel to make peace with traditional Arab foes, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and, later, other Muslim nations. READ MORE

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Google noted that the discovery of Bobb’s now-deleted 2007 blog post titled “If I Were a Jew” comes “at a time where we’ve seen an alarming increase in antisemitic attacks”

Posted on June 3, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

NEW YORK POST
Google reassigns diversity chief who wrote Jews have ‘an insatiable appetite for war’
by Will Feuer and Yaron Steinbuch
June 3, 2021

Google is removing its head of diversity strategy from his post — but keeping him in the company — after a 2007 blog post surfaced in which he wrote that Jews have “an insatiable appetite for war and killing,” and an “insensitivity” to people’s suffering. Kamau Bobb, whose bio still reads “Global Lead for Diversity Strategy and Research at Google,” “will no longer be part of our diversity team going forward and will focus on his STEM work,” Google said in a statement. READ MORE

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He then “slammed US support for Israel and claimed that Americans feel a “deep shame” about the actions of the Israeli government“

Posted on June 3, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

ALGEMEINER
British Actor Stephen Fry Praises ‘Brilliant’ Essay Calling Israel an Embarrassment to Jews
by Shiryn Ghermezian
June 3, 2021

Jewish British actor and comedian Stephen Fry shared on Thursday what he described as a “brilliant” essay that bashed Israel and described the country as an embarrassment to Jews. “It’s hard for me to think of the State of Israel as anything but a shanda fir di goyim … a Jew that embarrassed the Jews, and thus justified Gentile persecution and hate,” wrote 2020 Pulitzer Prize-winning author Benjamin Moser in an essay published on his Substack newsletter on Tuesday, titled “A trip to Hebron.” Fry posted on Twitter on Thursday a link to the essay and wrote, “This is quite brilliant, as Benjamin Moser so often is. Aside from being a wonderful piece of writing in itself, it has clarified so much for me.” READ MORE

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Kosher student athlete forced to eat pork

Posted on June 3, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

CLEVELAND 19 NEWS
Ohio football coaches allegedly force Jewish student to eat pork for missing practice
by Stephanie Czekalinski and Kelly Kennedy
June 2, 2021

A high school football coach was placed on administrative leave Wednesday after he reportedly forced a football player to violate the tenets of his religion by eating pork. The Canton City School district also suspended an additional seven other members of the high school football coaching staff. “I mean it just crosses a line on every level, it’s just wrong,” said the family’s attorney, Edward L. Gilbert. Coach Wattley Marcus and seven assistant coaches forced a McKinley High School football player to eat a pepperoni pizza after the 17-year-old student-athlete missed a weight lifting session on May 20, according to the family’s attorney Edward L. Gilbert. READ MORE

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“I don’t know if another Holocaust is possible in the US, but after what I’ve seen lately, I do believe that at some point Jews will no longer be welcome here”

Posted on June 3, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
America is over. I’m moving to Israel
by Rea Bochner
June 1, 2021

Last week, I watched John Oliver, one of America’s best-known comedy news hosts, take on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I’ve watched him many times before (the Joe Exotic episode is a favorite) and I’m a fan. But his maligning of Israel as a perpetrator of war crimes or his distortion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict horrified me. Because that was when I realized that everything I’d learned about Jewish History was true. I’m no expert on the subject, but after 15 years of self-study, I’ve drawn a few conclusions: The 3,000-plus-year existence of the Jewish people is essentially a stretch of pogroms, expulsions, rapes, mutilations, public burnings, forced conversions, vandalization of property, demonization in the press, kangaroo courts, and the largest systematized genocide in the history of mankind. Sure, we’ve had our peaceful stretches, but they were commercial breaks, not the regularly scheduled program. READ MORE

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Illinois continues to lose population: “Three biggest gainers in 2019 were Florida, Texas and Arizona. Florida was the biggest winner by far”

Posted on June 3, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

WIREPOINTS
New IRS migration data: Illinois third-biggest loser of people, biggest loser of incomes, to other states in 2019
by Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
June 3, 2021

A Wirepoints analysis of the Internal Revenue Service’s just-released 2019 migration data shows Illinois lost, on net, 82,000 residents to other states that year. The state ranked third-worst nationally for net resident losses, both in nominal terms and per capita Illinois’ tax base also took a hit as a result of that flight, losing a net $6 billion in taxable income (AGI) to other states. That, too, was the third-worst performance in the country. But when measured as a share of total income, Illinois’ losses were the nation’s worst…The census numbers reported Illinois was one of just three states nationally to lose population between 2010 and 2020. READ MORE

CHICAGO TRIB EDITORIAL BOARD Illinois Exodus: Our tax burden is 39% above the national average

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Bennett, Abbas finalize coalition deal. New governing coalition has been formed and is prepared to replace Netanyahu

Posted on May 30, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Lapid tells Rivlin: I have succeeded in forming coalition with Bennett
by Gil Hoffman
June 3, 2021

A new governing coalition has been formed and is prepared to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, opposition leader Yair Lapid officially informed President Reuven Rivlin and Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin late Wednesday night. “I commit to you Mr. President, that this government will work to serve all the citizens of Israel including those who aren’t members of it, will respect those who oppose it, and do everything in its power to unite all parts of Israeli society,” Lapid told Rivlin at 11:35 p.m. Yamina leader Naftali Bennett, Lapid and Ra’am (United Arab List) chairman Mansour Abbas signed an agreement at a meeting on Wednesday night at Ramat Gan’s Kfar Hamaccabiah Hotel, in the first coalition deal ever signed by an Arab party. READ MORE

ISRAEL HAYOM Anti-Netanyahu bloc announces deal on new gov’t This means that the so-called “change coalition”, which is based on left-wing parties as well as right-wing factions and lawmakers that had parted ways with Netanyahu, have – at least on paper – enough votes in the Knesset to win a plenum vote that would end the premiership of Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, who has been in power for more than 12 consecutive years on top of another three years in the 1990s.

JNS What does a Bennett-Lapid government mean? The new government will be unprecedented in its composition, consisting of seven parties spanning the entire Israeli political spectrum, plus the backing of an Arab party for the first time…”This looks to me like a car with four different wheels, and every wheel is going in a different direction,” said Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Mordechai Kedar. “The only thing they agree upon is the need to get rid of Netanyahu.”

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“Mideast experts say America is misreading the situation in the West Bank and Gaza, and using smoke and mirrors as it works to appease Iran and placate Israel”

Posted on May 30, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Former ambassador Oren: Biden administration’s re-entry to Iran deal ‘will lead to regional war’
by Israel Kasnett
June 1, 2021

If body language is any indicator, then last week’s meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken did not go as well as they intended during their joint press conference. While they openly discussed issues pertaining to Gaza and the Palestinians, it is without a doubt that in their earlier private meeting, they discussed the issue of Iran as well. Blinken’s remarks signal that the scolding and finger-wagging of the Obama administration is back after a four-year hiatus during the Trump administration. He admonished Israel over a looming Supreme Court ruling on a decades-long, insignificant real estate dispute in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood…READ MORE

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“Why do Palestinians have so many celebrities with hundreds of millions of followers on social media who strongly support them, while we in Israel don’t have even one?”

Posted on May 30, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

ALGEMEINER
The Deafening Silence of Jewish Celebrities on Israel
by Shmuley Boteach
May 25, 2021

For the past few days, we at the World Values Network, have been locked in an epic and global battle with media and singing superstar Dua Lipa. The British entertainer maligned Israel as an apartheid state, guilty of ethnic cleansing, and we responded with a full-page ad in last Saturday’s New York Times…An Israeli TV news magazine was interviewing me about the ad and the global reaction when they put this question to me: “Why do the Palestinians have so many celebrities with hundreds of millions of followers on social media who strongly support them, while we in Israel don’t have even one?” Good question. I didn’t have an answer. READ MORE

JNS Andrew Lappin: Why weren’t more organized voices supporting Israel? It’s time for our communal leaders to stop checking the boxes of platitudinous statements, and instead, vociferously call out anti-Semitism for what it is.

JERUSALEM POST Shmuley Boteach: Are US Jewish groups ashamed to support Israel? Let’s finally organize a Jewish march on DC for Israel. Let’s do it, God willing, in the next two weeks. Let’s stop with the excuses.

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“Israel would not be passive simply because the majority of the world was willing to look the other way on Iran’s nuclear program”

Posted on May 30, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
New Mossad chief hints at more assassinations, attacks against Iran
by Yonah Jeremy Bob
June 1, 2021

Incoming Mossad director David Barnea on Tuesday gave a threatening speech against Iran, alluding to potential future assassinations of its nuclear scientists and attacks on its nuclear facilities. “The Iranian [nuclear] program will continue to be met with the full power of the long arm of the Mossad,” Barnea said. “We are very familiar with the different components of the nuclear program and we are very familiar personally with the officials involved in it and also with the officials who direct them.” Though most of Barnea’s statements below were distributed to The Jerusalem Post and other outlets by the Prime Minister’s Office, the above veiled threat was reported by Yediot Aharonot. READ MORE

ASSOCIATED PRESS Iran’s largest warship catches fire, sinks in Gulf of Oman The largest warship in the Iranian navy caught fire and later sank Wednesday in the Gulf of Oman under unclear circumstances, the latest calamity to strike one of the country’s vessels in recent years amid tensions with the West.

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