Backlash over allegations that former Secretary of State John Kerry may have provided Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif inside information on Israeli military operations has sparked calls for investigation

JNS
Former Israeli ambassadors say Kerry’s history of conflict with Israel lends weight to Iranian accusation
by Dmitriy Shapiro
April 29, 2021

John Kerry, who serves as U.S. special presidential envoy for climate in the Biden administration and was secretary of state during the Obama administration, continues to face a backlash over allegations that he may have provided Iranian foreign minister and nuclear negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif inside information on Israeli military operations. Three Republican members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee wrote a joint letter the U.S. State Department inspector general on Wednesday to demand an investigation into whether Kerry did indeed provide information, as Zarif claimed in a recording provided to The New York Times, the details of which were published in a story on Sunday. READ MORE

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“Tens of doctors undertook three simultaneous surgeries to save the life of Madchat Tapash, who was born with defects in his renal system and bladder”

ISRAEL 21C
Israeli doctors save life of Gaza child in complex surgery
by Nicky Blackburn
April 25, 2021

Doctors at the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa have saved the life of a 7-year-old boy from Gaza after performing a complex 11-hour medical procedure involving three simultaneous surgeries. Madchat Tapash was born with a defect in his renal system that caused life-threatening kidney failure and an improperly functioning bladder. To fix the problems, doctors at Rambam had to perform three different surgeries to reconstruct the boy’s bladder, implant a new kidney donated from his mother, Sumar, and connect the new kidney to the reconstructed bladder. READ MORE

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“University administrators do nothing or very little to address the pro-boycott activities of faculty, entire departments and student groups”

JNS
Noting and confronting anti-Semitism among the ‘educated’
by Kenneth Levin
April 27, 2021

A March 29 article in the online news magazine Tablet titled “Are Educated People More Anti-Semitic?” reported that a carefully crafted survey of Americans by authors Jay P. Greene, Albert Chang and Ian Kingsbury found that the more highly educated did exhibit a greater level of anti-Semitism. The authors note that this result runs contrary to the widely held assumption linking intolerance, including intolerance of Jews, to ignorance and viewing greater education as the solution…But this finding should hardly be surprising to anyone who has been paying attention. The authors note that the ADL Global 100 study reported higher levels of anti-Semitism among the educated compared to those less schooled within some Muslim populations and associated this with school systems that may explicitly teach hatred towards Jews. READ MORE

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“This problem, this abyss, this malaise at the heart of the republic’s democratic civilization, is something that we, the French people, must ponder and repair together”

TABLET MAG
The Metaphysics of the Sarah Halimi Affair
by Bernard-Henry Levy
April 29, 2021

The killing of Sarah Halimi is much more than a snippet of local news. It is a major event. Let’s review what happened. We have a murder of unimaginable savagery. We have a woman living alone, struck in the head, tortured, thrown from a window, killed. We have an act that everyone, starting with the judges, agrees was antisemitic. We have a killer, Kobili Traoré, known to be a radical Islamist, who attends a Salafist mosque, and who killed this mild-mannered and simple woman just because she wore a short wig and strove to serve God by observing His commandments. And we have a legal system that, upon the conclusion of a prosecution, an appeal, and a final ruling, found that the criminal, although guilty, was not responsible for his actions and therefore could not be condemned. READ MORE

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“Given the Biden administration’s latest moves, Israel needs to conceive and implement a strategy to bypass the US and achieve its goal of preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power”

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
Iran – where Biden and Israel’s legal fraternity converge
by Caroline Glick
April 30, 2021

…Like the Obama administration before it, the Biden administration is ideologically committed to realigning US policy towards Iran and away from Israel and the Sunni Arab states. And no facts will sway it from that course. So too, just as Kerry could not be trusted with classified information Israel shared with him and his Obama administration colleagues, so his colleagues in the Biden administration can be expected to misuse information Israel provides them about Iran. Facing this reality, in which the US – the most important strategic actor in the region – is now openly in Iran’s corner, Israel needs to conceive and implement a strategy to bypass the US and achieve its goal of preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power. READ MORE

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John Brennan–dispatcher of Predator drones and their Hellfire missiles–should understand that checkpoints are a non-violent even if unpleasant security measure”

CAMERA BLOG
John Brennan, “Drone Warrior,” laments that the Jews use checkpoints
by Gilead Ini
April 28, 2021

What motivated [John Brennan’s] confounding essay, which slams Israel’s checkpoints and security barrier but ignores the Palestinian violence that prompted them; that, conversely, celebrates a reduction in Palestinian violence but ignores that the barriers play a role in that reduction; that protests the lack of a Palestinian state but avoids acknowledging that Israel has offered such a state; and that criticizes the Israeli government for its increased ambivalence about a two-state solution, but suggests that the Palestinian government is ineffective because it doesn’t reject a two-state solution? Was the man who drew up “kill lists” for the most powerful army on earth really so shaken by the fictional portrayal of two trips through a checkpoint?  READ MORE

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The left hurls racist smears at #TimScott “in the name of today’s ‘anti-racist’ ideology”

SPECTATOR
Does ‘anti-racism’ also mean slurring black conservatives?
by Charles Lipson
April 29, 2021

he latest target for online mobs is South Carolina’s Republican senator Tim Scott. His ‘crime’ is apparently being a black conservative who gave a thoughtful televised response to President Biden’s address to a joint session of Congress. The mob responded by calling him ‘Uncle Tim’, a none-too-clever play on the old racial epithet, ‘Uncle Tom’. Twitter allowed that hashtag to trend. Scott has endured such insults before. So have all black conservatives. They shouldn’t have to stand alone in their response. Good people, including those who disagree sharply with conservatives, should stand with them. Slanders like these, left unanswered, degrade us all. Sen. Scott spoke because Republicans chose him to give the party’s official response to President Biden’s address. READ MORE

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“Until now, Orthodox synagogues in Israel have only appointed women to serve in positions of spiritual leadership alongside male rabbis, never by themselves”

JERUSALEM POST
1st ever woman spiritual leader of Orthodox synagogue appointed in Israel
by Jeremy Sharon
April 28, 2021

The Shirat Tamar Synagogue in Efrat has appointed Rabbanit Shira Marili Mirvis as its sole spiritual leader and halachic [Jewish law] authority, the first woman ever to serve in such a role in Israel. Until this week, Orthodox women have been appointed as spiritual leaders in Orthodox synagogues and in other communal positions of spiritual leadership, but always alongside a male rabbi. The appointment of Mirvis therefore represents a significant landmark for Orthodoxy in Israel. The role of women in positions of spiritual and halachic leadership has been advancing for many years but has stopped short of full communal leadership until now. READ MORE

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Despite Israel’s astonishing success against coronavirus, US State Department warns citizens against visiting the country due to a “high level of COVID-19”

WORLD ISRAEL NEWS
Israel fights back as State Department issues travel warning despite Covid success
by Paul Shindman
April 28, 2021

Israel is fighting back and telling Americans it’s safe to visit Israel, a Tourism Ministry official told World Israel News Wednesday, after the U.S. State Department issued a travel advisory about “a high level of COVID-19” in Israel, a warning that appeared detached from reality. On Tuesday, the State Department actually lowered its travel alert for Israel from level 4 to level 3, but at the same time advised Americans to “reconsider travel” due to “a high level of COVID-19 in the country” – even though Israel has been gaining accolades for its national vaccination campaign that has dropped infections to record low levels and allowed the economy to reopen. READ MORE

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“Mr. Biden seems to believe that his diplomatic ambitions in respect of Iran ought to trump — forgive the expression — Israel’s interests”

NEW YORK SUN
The Blame Israel First Policy
Editorial Board
April 26, 2021

Must Israel hold its fire against Iran in order to make it easier for President Biden to rejoin a nuclear deal that the Jewish state opposes? That is the question that is coming into focus in the wake of the explosion at the Natanz nuclear site and of what the Times is calling “shadowy naval skirmishes” in Mideast seas. Mr. Biden seems to think Israel is obligated to stand down while he pursues his appeasement of the ayatollahs. That question also confronts an Israeli security delegation that is due in Washington today to air its objections to an entente with Iran, with whom we’re in what are called “indirect talks” at Vienna. On Friday the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, was asked whether the delegation — led by the director of Israel’s legendary Mossad — is likely to change the administration’s position. “No,” she answered. READ MORE

MELANIE PHILLIPS Being played for suckers by Tehran Neither the Biden administration nor the British government yet grasps the imbecility of appeasement

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