Chicago’s leaders have surrendered to vandals

Posted on August 16, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

CITY JOURNAL
When Authority Vanishes
by John O. McGinnis
August 14, 2020

Riding in trucks and U-Hauls, vandals came to downtown Chicago on Sunday. They jammed streets around the Magnificent Mile, home of the city’s most important shopping district. They came prepared with tools like crowbars to pry open gates and take all the merchandise that they could pack. It was a strike directed at the heart of the city. While the vandals were organized, the police were not. Earlier in the day, a policeman had returned fire and wounded a suspect. False rumors spread that the suspect was an unarmed juvenile. Crowds gathered; social media lit up with menace. But the police did not deploy in force until looters flooded into places with the most valuable goods. READ MORE

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“Third-ever peace treaty between Israel and an Arab state includes embassies, direct flights; agreement “suspends” annexation, but Netanyahu says: “I will never give up on our right to our land”

Posted on August 13, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Israel, UAE reach historic peace deal: ‘We can make a wonderful future’
by Lahav Harkov, Omri Nahmias
August 13, 2020

Israel and the UAE agreed to full normalization of relations in a phone call with US President Donald Trump on Thursday, marking the first peace treaty between Israel and an Arab country in 25 years. Israel agreed to suspend its planned extension of sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria to facilitate relations with the UAE and potentially other Arab and Muslim countries. The agreement will include establishing embassies and exchanging ambassadors, investments into the Israeli economy, trade, direct flights between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi, an investment in Israeli efforts to develop a coronavirus vaccine…and cooperation in matters of energy and water. READ MORE

THE HILL Richard Grenell: Israel-UAE breakthrough proves Trump’s critics wrong — again For nearly four years, Washington foreign policy experts and Obama administration alumni warned that the Trump administration was jeopardizing any prospects for Middle East peace…With such a grim record of prediction, Thursday’s historic announcement that the U.S. brokered a normalization agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates – the first Gulf Arab state to announce formal relations with the Jewish State – has the D.C. establishment with its tail between its legs once again.

WALL STREET JOURNAL Editorial Board: Trump’s Mideast Breakthrough The Israel-UAE accord discredits Obama’s regional vision…Re­call that man­darins of Obama for­eign pol­icy said mov­ing the U.S. Em­bassy to Jerusalem would cause an Arab back­lash. In fact, it is be­ing fol­lowed by some of the clos­est Arab-U.S.-Is­raeli co­op­er­a­tion on record. Larger strate­gic re­al­i­ties in the Mid­dle East are more im­por­tant and are dri­ving this change.

COMMENTARY Noah Rothman: There Is No Going Back In a momentous announcement on Thursday, President Donald Trump revealed that Israel and the United Arab Emirates had agreed to the reestablishment of diplomatic relations. This is not merely a dramatic victory for the region’s peace-loving peoples but a political coup for the Trump administration, though they must share this success with their predecessors in the Obama White House. If the 44th President’s efforts to isolate Israel and reconfigure geopolitics in the Middle East hadn’t backfired so spectacularly, none of this would be happening.

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“Lebanon has no independent “national institutions” that can serve as counterweights against Iran’s Hezbollah, the most powerful terrorist organization in the world”

Posted on August 13, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

NEWSWEEK
Lebanon: Hezbollah’s Potemkin Village
by Caroline Glick
August 12, 2020

…Aside from the despair, there is nothing new about the protests or the calls for Hezbollah and Iran to be chased from Lebanon. For nearly a year before the outbreak of COVID-19, millions of Lebanese protested throughout the country with the same demands. The U.S., and the world governments now lining up to fund Lebanon’s reconstruction and relief, should listen to the cries of the Lebanese people. The LAF is not the solution to Lebanon’s problems. As a front company for Lebanon, like the port, it is a façade for Hezbollah’s power. It is hard to see a happy end to Lebanon’s problems. But the first step towards rationally coping with them is for the U.S. and its allies to recognize the truth revealed last Tuesday. READ MORE

REUTERS Seismic data suggests string of blasts preceded Beirut explosion: Israeli analyst Seismological data suggests that six blasts preceded the Beirut port explosion, the last of them a combustion of fireworks that apparently set off a warehouse full of ammonium nitrate, an Israeli analyst said on Thursday. The six blasts were at 11-second intervals during the Aug. 4 incident, with the main explosion following the last by around 43 seconds, Boaz Hayoun of Israel’s Tamar Group told Reuters.

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With a wide-open field of nine candidates to succeed Democrat Rep. Joe Kennedy, some fear that a split of the pro-Israel/Jewish vote could let a pro-BDS candidate enter Congress

Posted on August 13, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Could a congressional candidate win in New England’s largest Jewish district?
by Sean Savage and Jackson Richman
August 14, 2020

The Democratic Party has undergone a shift in recent years, with a number of longtime incumbents falling to progressive upstarts. In heavily blue Massachusetts, the race to succeed Democrat Rep. Joe Kennedy (who is running for Senate) has become somewhat of a free-for-all featuring candidates ranging from a Jewish former U.S. Marine captain with a Republican history, a suburban mother fed up with President Donald Trump, to a progressive former Planned Parenthood senior leader and a Democratic socialist. However, the campaign of Ihssane Leckey, Democratic Socialist who has endorsed the BDS movement, is making many Jewish/pro-Israel observers in Massachusetts’s 4th District nervous. READ MORE

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“Raytheon Missiles and Defense and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems announce plans to build Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system in the US”

Posted on August 13, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

NATIONAL INTEREST
America Will Build Israel’s Iron Dome Missile Defense System
by Seth Frantzman
August 10, 2020

Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system has been instrumental in defending Israel against thousands of Hamas rockets and other threats over the last decade. It has fundamentally changed the way Israel wages war, providing the home front protection and giving the armed forces and political leadership time to consider a response confident that they have an air defense umbrella. Now the U.S. Army is testing the system and a new joint venture between Israeli and U.S. companies to build the system in America will see the missiles take to new heights on the world stage. READ MORE

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NYT redefines antisemitism “conveniently allowing them to promote the antisemitic BDS Movement against Israel”

Posted on August 13, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

CLARION PROJECT
NY Times Decides Int’l Accepted Definition of Antisemitism is ‘Disputed’
by Meira Svirsky
August 12, 2020

To promote its tacit support of the antisemitic Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) Movement against the state of Israel, The New York Times recently decided that the internationally accepted definition of antisemitism is “disputed.” That definition, which is crucial to fighting antisemitism worldwide — and particularly on U.S. college campuses — was penned by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and adopted by the U.S. State Department as well as 34 other nations (including 25 of the 27 European Union members). READ MORE

STANDWITHUS StandWithUs Welcomes Facebook Action on Antisemitism; Will Monitor Progress & Advise The StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Department was pleased to receive an encouraging response from Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, to a detailed letter we sent the Facebook Board of Directors stating ways for them to toughen their policy against Antisemitism on Facebook. This week we joined dozens of partner organizations in a campaign initiated by the Gila and Adam Milstein Foundation to ensure that the international standard definition of Antisemitism – known as the IHRA definition – forms the core of their policy to define and remove antisemitic content from the social media platform.

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#KamalaHarris‘s New Chief of Staff Praised Democrats for Boycotting #AIPAC Conference

Posted on August 13, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

BREITBART
Kamala Harris‘s Chief of Staff Praised Democrats for Boycotting Pro-Israel Conference
by Joel Pollak
August 14, 2020

Karine Jean-Pierre, the new chief of staff for Kamala Harris as Joe Biden’s running mate, praised Democrats in 2019 for boycotting the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference, an annual pro-Israel gathering. As a report in the Jewish News Syndicate notes, Jean-Pierre wrote an op-ed in Newsweek arguing that supporting the pro-Israel group was the “antithesis” of being “progressive”: “You cannot call yourself a progressive while continuing to associate yourself with an organization like AIPAC that has often been the antithesis of what it means to be progressive.” READ MORE

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“Nothing says, “We protest racial injustice” like burning down the corner grocery or smashing windows to grab boxes of expensive Nikes”

Posted on August 13, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

REAL CLEAR POLITICS
The Fiasco of ‘Go Ahead, Break Our Windows’ Policing
by Charles Lipson
August 13, 2020

After looters struck downtown Chicago on Sunday night, officials literally raised the bridges to prevent rioting hordes from roaming so easily. They also blocked road access and stopped public transit. So, we have come to this: a major American city is replicating the strategy of medieval castles: flood the moats and raise the drawbridges. All that is missing are crenelated battlements and Welsh longbowmen. In Portland, officials aren’t even raising the drawbridges. After more than 70 nights of rioting, Mayor Ted Wheeler’s strategy seems to be, “If you insist on doing this, we might write a strong letter.” READ MORE

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Illinois Democrats and Republicans agree: Madigan must go

Posted on August 13, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

MEDIUM
A Call for New Leadership for the Democratic Party of Illinois
ILDem Leaders for New Leadership
August 11, 2020

We come from across Illinois; from Bloomington to Rockford and from Carbondale to Chicago. We are or were elected officials, Democratic Party officials, or Democratic candidates. We represent the socioeconomic and geographic diversity that is the true strength of the Democratic Party of Illinois, and today we echo the call for new leadership for our party and for the Illinois House…We urge Michael Madigan to do right by the people of Illinois and step down from his roles as Speaker and as Chair of the Democratic Party of Illinois. READ MORE

CENTER SQUARE Attorneys seek to remove Madigan as head of Democratic Party of Illinois as part of civil RICO suit A group of attorneys who filed a civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act [RICO] case against House Speaker Michael Madigan and ComEd want to remove the speaker from power. Prosecutors sometimes use RICO in cases involving the mob. One of the attorneys who brought a civil RICO lawsuit in federal court against Madigan and ComEd seeking $450 million said that jury trial could take years. But they are looking for more immediate steps against Madigan in the weeks ahead.

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IDF says warplanes, tanks, helicopters hit terror sites after airborne devices spark over 80 fires in recent days

Posted on August 9, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Israel strikes Hamas targets in Gaza amid spate of balloon-borne arson attacks
by Staff and Aaron Boxerman
August 13, 2020

Israel attacked targets in the Gaza Strip in the early hours of Thursday morning in response to a spate of balloon-borne arson and explosive devices launched from the Strip into Israel in recent days. The Israel Defense Forces said that Israeli warplanes, combat helicopters and tanks hit a number of targets belonging to the Hamas terror group. “During the attack, military facilities of Hamas’s naval force, underground infrastructure and observation posts belonging to the Hamas terror group were attacked,” the IDF said in a statement. READ MORE

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