ZOA documents errors and misinformation in Barack Obama’s “A Promised Land”

Posted on March 14, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

Zionist Organization of America
ZOA Letter to Publisher of Obama’s “A Promised Land” – Citing Numerous Anti-Israel Errors
March 3, 2021

We write on behalf of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), the oldest and one of the largest pro-Israel organizations in the U.S. The ZOA is a leader in fighting against antisemitism and anti-Israel bias wherever these problems arise.

Having received complaints from our supporters and conducting our own review, we are deeply concerned about the factual inaccuracies, material omissions and outright falsehoods contained in one of your recent publications – “A Promised Land” by former U.S. President Barack Obama. The many errors are serious and damaging. The book has already reached and influenced millions of readers and will impact many more. We expect that this book will be assigned reading in schools and at colleges and universities, affecting how young people and future leaders perceive Israel. Obama’s many factual errors and misleading statements will likely be repeated and quoted in articles and other books. As a result, millions of people will be misled into drawing false and negative conclusions about Jews and Israel. READ MORE

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“Empowering Iran will come at the expense of not only Saudi Arabia – but at the expense of Iraqis, Lebanese, Syrians and Yemenis”

Posted on March 14, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

THE INDEPENDENT
The whole of the Middle East will pay the price for Biden’s Iran appeasement policy
by Mohammed Khalid Alyahya
March 13, 2021

Since the Biden administration’s decision to reverse the designation of Yemen’s Houthi militia as a foreign terrorist organisation (FTO) on February 12, drones and ballistic missiles have targeted Saudi Arabia 48 times…At the heart of the Biden administration’s Middle East policy is a fallacy: that the region’s politics should be understood as a contest between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a conflict between two states that is also a sectarian struggle….Biden’s misconception leads to a number of erroneous ideas: that the United States can play a neutral, mediating role between Riyadh and Tehran; that by distancing itself from Saudi Arabia, it creates opportunities for regional stability and understanding; and that it is the Saudi role in Yemen – and not the Iranian role – that has perpetuated the conflict in that country. READ MORE

GATESTONE Attention President Biden: Yemen’s Houthi Rebels are Iranian-backed Terrorists US President Joe Biden has good reason to regret his hasty decision to remove the terrorist designation applied to the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen after they responded to his act of benevolence by unleashing a fresh wave of attacks in the Middle East.

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Parts of books of Nahum and Zechariah, world’s oldest woven basket, 6,000-year-old mummified child, Bar Kochba Revolt coins among stunning finds from daring Judean Desert rescue op

Posted on March 14, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Bible scroll fragments among dazzling artifacts found in Dead Sea Cave of Horror
by Amanda Borschel-Dan
March 16, 2021

In a stunningly rare discovery, dozens of 2,000-year-old biblical scroll fragments have been excavated from Judean Desert caves during a daring rescue operation. Most of the newly discovered scroll fragments — the first such finds in 60 years — are Greek translations of the books of Zechariah and Nahum from the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets, and are written in two scribal hands. Only the name of God is written in Hebrew in the texts. The fragments from the Prophets have been identified as coming from a larger scroll that was found in the 1950s, in the same “Cave of Horror” in Nahal Hever, which is some 80 meters (260 feet) below a cliff top. According to an Israel Antiquities Authority press release, the cave is “flanked by gorges and can only be reached by rappelling precariously down the sheer cliff.” READ MORE

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“Victory is no longer just a conceptual goal—it is the operational mission of the Israel Defense Forces. Now it must receive the backing of the political leadership”

Posted on March 14, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Dusty drawers or decisive wars: Israel’s new victory doctrine
by Gregg Roman
March 14, 2021

…Only months after assuming office, the General Staff of the IDF dedicated four days to a “Victory Seminar” convened by Kochavi. According to media reports, “the question was, and is, what is victory and who defines it.” Evolving out of these types of discussions came the “Victory Doctrine,” which has been subsequently adopted by the IDF. The new doctrine has, according to military commentators, changed the very definition of victory: “The maximum number of enemy capabilities destroyed in the shortest period of time and with the smallest possible number of casualties. The closer a result is to these parameters, the more decisive the victory,” explains JNS staff writer Yaakov Lappin, a research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. READ MORE

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Orthodox Jewish player Ryan Turell “averaging 26.0 points per game for Yeshiva, which is in the midst of a 37-game win streak, the NCAA’s longest”

Posted on March 14, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

LOS ANGELES TIMES
Next ‘Jewish Jordan’? Can L.A.’s Ryan Turell be the first Orthodox Jewish NBA player?
by Matt Giles
March 17, 2021

…Yeshiva coach Elliot Steinmetz had a simple enough pitch: to create a culture of Jewish athletic excellence. As Simcha Halpert, a senior guard on the 2020 squad that went 29-1, explained, “We set a trend of coming to Yeshiva for basketball and only for basketball. “I’ve talked to YU alumni, and they used to get demolished. I love wearing my kippah and have everyone call me ‘Jewboy’ when we walk into gyms, and they don’t realize they can’t beat us.” What makes Yeshiva so challenging is Steinmetz’s style of play, one mined from Bobby Knight’s Indiana playbook and tweaked to fit a brand of basketball in which player movement is paramount. READ MORE

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“Israel is no longer the “smiling socialism on earth” admired by European leftists”

Posted on March 14, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

MIDDLE EAST FORUM
Rafael Bardaji on Why Europe “Will Remain Hostile to Israel”
by Marilyn Stern
March 14, 2021

…According to [Rafael] Bardaji, three points of friction between the EU and Israel are prominent this year….Furthermore, “a state that is defined by religious belief – the state of the Jewish people” is seen as an “anachronism” given the “radical secularization of Europe.” The average European, ascribing to a “post-modern world,” cannot comprehend a people defined by a religion other than Islam surviving in the hostile environs of the Middle East. Further contributing to Europe’s hostility towards Israel is that it has evolved from its beginnings as a socialist experiment, which appealed to the left in Europe, to become the “pro-capitalist … start-up nation,” READ MORE

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#WSJ report says Israel targeted at least 12 vessels linked to Iran since 2019, marking a new front in conflict

Posted on March 11, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
US officials say Israel has hit many ships taking Iran oil, arms to Syria
by Staff
March 12, 2021

Israel has targeted at least 12 ships bound for Syria, most of them transporting Iranian oil, with mines and other weapons, according to a Thursday report. The attacks started in late 2019 and targeted both Iranian vessels, and other ships with Iranian cargo, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing “US and regional officials.” Some of the Israeli strikes, which took place in the Red Sea and other areas, targeted Iran-linked weapons shipments, the report said. The attacks did not sink the tankers, but forced at least two of the vessels to return to port in Iran. READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL Gantz: Israel did not cause the oil spill that polluted its beaches Defense minister dismisses speculation, in wake of WSJ report on IDF targeting Iranian tankers, that Israel inadvertently hit ship that spilled oil off Mediterranean coast

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“The Peace Railway,” backed by China, could be one of Israel’s most important geopolitical projects in the coming years.

Posted on March 11, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

GLOBES
Haifa Bay – Persian Gulf railway moves ahead
by Dubi Ben-Gedalyahu
March 8, 2021

Last week’s announcement by the Ministry of Transport that the rail link from “Haifa Bay to the Persian Gulf” was officially moving ahead in the National Planning Commission remained under the media radar. The idea of such a link was first raised in 2017 by the then Minister of Transport Israel Katz who has continued promoting the plan before international organizations in his brief stint as minister of foreign affairs under the name “The Peace Railway.”…Now the countries of the Middle East have discovered that rehabilitating their railways and integrating them into the overall plan of the Chinese government, opens up new trade opportunities connecting Europe, Asia and the Persian Gulf.READ MORE

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Maj.-Gen. Itzik Turgeman, head of the IDF Technological and Logistics Directorate, said that 81% of army personnel have either been vaccinated or recovered from the virus.

Posted on March 11, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Israeli military says its the first army in the world with herd immunity
by Udi Shaham
March 11, 2021

The IDF has become the first military in the world protected from COVID-19 with herd immunity due to a successful vaccine operation. Some 81% of the army personnel have either been vaccinated or recovered from the novel coronavirus, Maj.-Gen. Itzik Turgeman, head of the IDF Technological and Logistics Directorate, told reporters on Thursday. “We are at the end of the vaccination operation,” Turgeman said…Turgeman added that he estimates that the IDF will reach 85% immunity by next week. The IDF’s Medical Corp commander, Brig.-Col. Prof. Elon Glazberg, said that this achievement allows the IDF to start returning to its pre-corona routine. READ MORE

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“So malevolent and false are these claims that they make this Op-Ed in the Forward perhaps the most dishonest account of Israel’s vaccination program that has appeared in the mainstream, English-language press”

Posted on March 11, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

CAMERA BLOG
Forward Publishes Egregious Lie About Israeli Vaccinations
March 9, 2021

Sari Bashi says she is “dismayed” that Israel distributes and withholds COVID-19 vaccines according to ethnicity. This charge of ethnic discrimination is the central premise of her March 8 Op-Ed in the Forward, which argues that Jews, because they’re Jews, get the vaccine, while other ethnic groups, because they’re not, do not…The charge that Israel withholds live-saving resources from those who aren’t Jewish, moreover, not only echoes the ancient blood libel that accused Jews of the ritualistic killing of non-Jews, but also fuels the antisemitic slur that Jews care only about their own kind. In fact — and it is an uncontroversial fact — Israel vaccinates its citizens without regard to ethnicity. It vaccinates its Jews. It vaccinates members of the country’s large Arab minority, which numbers nearly two million. It vaccinates its Circassian and Samaritan citizens. And it vaccinates citizens of any other ethnicity. READ MORE

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