“Many American Jews have simply stopped caring about both Israel and Judaism, a point that has not escaped the notice of the American elites. If Jews stop caring about themselves, nobody else will”

Posted on December 17, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

BEGIN SADAT CENTER FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES
US Election 2020: Most American Jews Don’t Care About Israel
By Lev Stesin
December 18, 2020

Post-US election number-crunching has revealed that somewhere between 70% and 75% of American Jews voted for Joe Biden despite President Donald Trump’s accomplishments on Israel’s behalf. This is not surprising, as all the major polls taken of American Jews show that they put Israel at the bottom of their list of political concerns. According to a 2020 study by the Ruderman Foundation, only 4% of American Jewish voters identify Israel as their first or second most important election issue. Some 43% prioritize health care, 28% prioritize the problem of gun violence, and 21% prioritize Social Security and Medicare. READ MORE

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Whatever EU’s Court of Justice claims, a clear decision was made today: “Jewish rights are now ranked behind animal rights and hunting”

Posted on December 17, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
The moment the Jew became a second-class citizen in Europe again
by Adam Brodsky
December 17, 2020

As director of public affairs at the European Jewish Association, I had our press release on the European Court ruling on Kosher slaughter in Belgium all prepared this morning. Our media team had it translated into French, Italian and German. I called the press office of the Court and had them send me the decision and statement the second it was announced. We were primed and ready. The problem was I had the wrong press release ready. We were wrong…We were wrong. The court backed a regulation banning the slaughter of livestock that have not been stunned, putting its idea of animal welfare above freedom of religion. READ MORE

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Pro-Israel Rep Kathleen Rice (NY-D) selected over AOC for seat on House Energy and Commerce Committee

Posted on December 17, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

POLITICO
Kathleen Rice beats out AOC for spot on coveted House committee
by Sarah Ferris and Heather Caygle
December 17, 2020

Rep. Kathleen Rice has captured a prized seat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee after a contentious showdown with fellow New Yorker, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Rice and Ocasio-Cortez have been battling behind the scenes for weeks to secure one of the few open seats on the exclusive committee, which oversees everything from health care policy to climate issues. Tensions spilled into the open Thursday in a private meeting of the Steering and Policy Committee, where Democrats were forced to choose between the two members in a tense — and awkward — secret ballot vote…The jockeying between the two New Yorkers has been the most closely watched contest within the Democratic caucus in recent weeks, carrying big implications for both policy and power in the next Congress. READ MORE

NEW YORK POST Pro-Israel progressive Ritchie Torres says he won’t join AOC’s ‘Squad’ He’s a progressive Democrat, but he won’t be signing up with the Squad. Ritchie Torres, going to Washington next month to represent the South Bronx in Congress, says you won’t see him paling around with Democratic Socialists — and cited his strong support for Israel as a primary distinction between them and true progressives like himself.

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“The UAE has been embracing a unique kind of tolerance that has translated into actions – not just the kind of talk of “diversity” one gets in the US or Europe, where Jews have to go to synagogue surrounded by security and armed guards”

Posted on December 17, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

MIDDLE EAST FORUM
The UAE’s Full-throttled Embrace of Religious Tolerance
by Seth Frantzman
December 12, 2020

The extraordinary scenes in Dubai that included Hanukkah celebrations are part of a historic and unprecedented process of embracing tolerance, coexistence and peace by the United Arab Emirates. It is happening simultaneously with a unique bursting forth of ties between Israel and the Emirates, and comes as flights began from Tel Aviv to Dubai, all of it years in the making…People say that although the changes seem fast, their overall foundation is the year of tolerance and the last decade of conscious national decisions to embark on this path. It is a path that is being gingerly embraced by other countries. Whether it is renovations of synagogues in Lebanon or Egypt, or more interest in Jewish history in Iraq and even Sudan, the discussion is happening. READ MORE

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What’s Wrong With The 1619 Project?

Posted on December 17, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

According to The 1619 Project, the Founding Fathers pushed for all that “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” stuff to protect their slave holdings. Independence from England? That was just a smoke screen. To them, everything that’s wrong with America is tied to her “original sin” of slavery: from segregation to traffic jams (yes—traffic jams!). For The 1619 Project authors, racism is not a part of the American experience; it is the American experience. Is this true? Let’s look at three of the project’s major claims…

Frederick Douglass vs. the 1619 Project

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The Biden administration has the chance to end the division between the parties about support for the Jewish state. Will they ?

Posted on December 17, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Can the bipartisan consensus on Israel be revived?
by Jonathan S. Tobin
December 17, 2020

One of the standard laments of the organized American Jewish world in recent years has been the decline and fall of the bipartisan consensus on Israel. This complaint is based on the notion that the default inclination of most Americans is support for the Jewish state, and that the only reason that politics has become part of the discussion about relations between the two nations is because of the bad will of some partisans who wish to distort the debate to advance their personal agendas at the expense of the best interests of Israel and its supporters. For the last two decades, the focus of most of these complaints has been on Republicans, who have been accused by Democrats of politicizing an issue that should be above partisan considerations. READ MORE

NEW YORK POST Obama trafficked in anti-Semitic tropes — lefty media didn’t notice The words leap out and grab you. Former President Barack Obama characterizes no other world leader in anything like the terms he reserves for former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. In his recent memoir, Obama tells us that Sarkozy is a “quarter Greek Jew…” Little wonder, too, that he is “all emotional outbursts and overblown rhetoric,” while his conversation, which reflects unbridled ambition and incessant pushiness, “swoops from flattery to bluster to genuine insight.”

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“Declaring a world first, Defense Ministry pits all three tiers of its system against various threats, demonstrating a ‘capability that currently only Israel has’”

Posted on December 13, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Israel stages major air defense drill, proving it can shoot down cruise missiles
by Judah Ari Gross
December 15, 2020

The Defense Ministry completed a major, unprecedented air defense exercise this month, which tested the abilities of the country’s three tiers of missile defense systems against a variety of aerial threats, officials said Tuesday. In the drill, which the ministry deemed a glowing success, the various air defense detection systems and batteries were required to communicate with one another and intercept several types of targets, including rockets, unmanned aerial vehicles and — critically — cruise missiles simultaneously. The exercise, made up of a series of trials, was focused primarily on testing the capabilities of a new version of the medium-range David’s Sling air defense system, which is currently under development, as well as new capabilities of the Iron Dome. READ MORE

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“Trump’s sundry Middle East peace deals are humiliating for his predecessors. Not only did they fail where Trump has succeeded, but they insisted that his achievements were impossible”

Posted on December 13, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

NEWSWEEK
Trump’s Legacy of Peace
by Caroline Glick
December 16, 2020

What for so long eluded presidents from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Barack Obama seems to have come effortlessly to President Donald Trump. In the space of just four months, together with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump has achieved four peace deals between Israel and Arab states—twice the number achieved by all his predecessors combined. Last Thursday, Trump announced Morocco has joined the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Sudan in the Abraham Accords normalization agreements with Israel. Three or four more Arab states are likely to join the circle of peace in Trump’s final weeks in office. Not only has Trump brought more peace to the Middle East, more comprehensively and faster than all of his predecessors combined, but he made it look easy. READ MORE

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“With the potential paradigm shift taking place in the Middle East, it is imperative for our children to be able to communicate and engage with Arabs in Israel and neighbors in the region”

Posted on December 13, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Cotler-Wunsh submits bill to promote Arabic language in Israeli schools
by Eliana Rudee
December 14, 2020

Knesset member Michal Cotler-Wunsh of the Blue and White Party submitted a bill in Israel’s Knesset to require Arabic-language studies. Proposed as an amendment to the law on public education, the bill would make it mandatory for Jewish schools in Israel to teach all students Arabic starting in elementary school and through the end of their studies. According to Cotler-Wunsh, the Arabic taught to Israeli students would include an emphasis on both the spoken and the written language, allowing them to understand and be able to communicate with their Arab neighbors in Israel and the region, and helping to bridge the cultural and language gaps that currently exist. READ MORE

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Amnesty International “shocked and horrified” that #Iran has hanged French journalist #RuhollahZam

Posted on December 13, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

REUTERS
Iran executes French-based dissident journalist captured last year
by Staff
December 12, 2020

Iranian dissident journalist Ruhollah Zam, who was convicted of fomenting violence during anti-government protests in 2017, was executed on Saturday, Iran’s state television reported. France reacted with anger to the hanging of the Paris-based journalist, which it called “barbaric and unacceptable” and said ran counter to Iran’s international obligations. Iran said on Tuesday its Supreme Court had upheld the death sentence against Zam, who was captured in 2019 after years of living in exile in France. His Amadnews feed had more than 1 million followers. READ MORE

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