The stockpile of weapons-grade ammonium nitrate and the collateral damage it caused to the Beirut port may well have been earmarked for Israel

Posted on August 9, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Israel’s August 4 miracle
by Alex Traiman
August 9, 2020

Many of Israel’s modern military accomplishments have defied all odds and logic. Surprise victories in Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, Six-Day War in 1967 and Yom Kippur War in 1973 will forever stand among Israel’s most miraculous and unlikely historical achievements. This past week, Israel may have recorded another security miracle, but one unlikely to be entered into Israeli history books. The reason? It did not take place on Israeli soil, or at the hands of the Israeli military...While Israel and the rest of the international community have been offering humanitarian aid to Lebanon in the wake of one of the largest explosions since the Chernobyl nuclear reactor blew in 1986, the greatest aid to the people of Lebanon would be the complete disarmament and expulsion of Hezbollah. READ MORE

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Netanyahu’s comments on annexation delays “come as speculation is high that the country could be heading to a fourth round of elections”

Posted on August 9, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Netanyahu: US has kept me from annexing West Bank settlements
by Tovah Lazaroff
August 11, 2020

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blamed the US for his failure to annex West Bank settlements. “It was clear from the start that the application of sovereignty would be done only with agreement from the United States. Otherwise, I would have already done it a while ago,” Netanyahu said during an interview Monday with Channel 20. Similarly, “other prime ministers would also have done it,” he added. US President Donald “Trump is now busy with other things, and this [sovereignty] is not on the top of his mind,” Netanyahu said. “I hope that in the near future we will be able to advance recognition of the application of sovereignty as well as other diplomatic issues of importance to Israel.” READ MORE

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Although the country was unnamed, Iran has attempted several major cyber-attacks against Israel in recent months

Posted on August 9, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

ALGEMEINER
Israel Says It Thwarted Massive Cyber-Attack on Defense Industry
by Benjamin Kerstein
August 11, 2020

A massive cyber-attack on Israel’s defense industry was successfully thwarted, it was reported on Wednesday. The government cleared for publication that the attack was perpetrated by an international group of hackers known as “Lazarus,” which infiltrated the social network LinkedIn using fake profiles. The hackers then impersonated high-level employees of large international companies and approached their supposed “counterparts” in the Israeli defense industry, offering them jobs. When the Israeli employees responded, the hackers attempted to attack their computers and penetrate their companies’ networks. READ MORE

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“Jewish allegiance to Germany in the early days of the Third Reich is one of the great unrequited love stories of history”

Posted on August 9, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

TABLET MAG
The Jews Who Fought for Nazi Germany
by Ellen Feldman
August 4, 2020

What was the safest place for a Jew in Hitler’s Germany? A cellar or an attic? A forest? At home with a well-connected Aryan spouse? The answer was in Hitler’s military—in the Wehrmacht, the Kriegsmarine, or the Luftwaffe—at least until the tide of war turned and all three began to suffer staggering losses. Some said the Luftwaffe was the best bet because Goering protected his own. Whichever branch, wearing a uniform was like slipping into a coat of armor, or invisibility…According to Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers by Bryan Mark Rigg, thousands of full Jews and more than a hundred-thousand part-Jews joined the military of the Third Reich. The stories of these men and of the psychological as well as the physical hazards they endured altered the book I had originally set out to write. READ MORE

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“The more affluent and more established Israel’s Arab population has become, the stronger its Palestinian identification to the point of openly challenging the fundamental principles underpinning Israel’s existence”

Posted on August 9, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

MIDDLE EAST QUARTERLY
The Conundrum of Israeli-Arab Citizenship
by Mordechai Nisan
Summer 2020

Issued in the midst of a sustained attempt by the Palestinian Arabs to destroy it at birth, Israel’s 1948 declaration of independence urged them “to participate in the upbuilding of the state on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.” The invitation to these inveterate foes to be fellow citizens was based on the belief that once their aggression had been defeated, they would resign themselves to a minority status in the nascent Jewish state. Seventy-two years on, the fulfillment of this assumption seems as remote as ever. READ MORE

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“She masterminded the 2001 murder of my daughter and 14 others in the Sbarro pizzeria bombing. Not only is she still free, she’s a celebrity”

Posted on August 9, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
I wish others knew what I know about Malki’s killer
by Arnold Roth
August 9, 2020

This coming Sunday August 9, 2020, marks the completion of nineteen years since the stunningly heartless attack by a thuggery of Hamas terrorists on a pizzeria in the center of Jerusalem; a massacre directed explicitly at the many youngsters predictably found inside it, happily busy with getting lunch and with having fun on a school vacation afternoon. This was a midday attack at Jerusalem’s busiest intersection, the heart of Israel’s capital city. There’s no room to doubt that the strategic goal explicitly involved dead Jewish children – as many as could be murdered. The bomber herself said so and for the record. READ MORE

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“The Democrats’ 2020 platform is a return to the Obama policy of appeasement to Iran’s nuclear ambitions and to Iran’s plans for regional hegemony”

Posted on August 9, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

AMERICAN THINKER
The Democrats’ 2020 platform resurrects Obama’s hostility to Israel and appeasement of Iran
by Carol S. Greenwald
August 2, 2020

Democrats’ crowing that their 2020 platform on Israel is a victory for the moderates is disingenuous. The Democrat party’s 2020 platform is not pro-Israel. It is pro-Iran. The Democrat party’s platform promises to return to the Iran nuclear deal and rejects regime change “as the goal of U.S. policy toward Iran.” The opening statement of the platform stresses: “Democrats will call off the Trump Administration’s race to war with Iran and prioritize nuclear diplomacy, de-escalation and regional dialogue. Democrats believe the United States should not impose regime change on other countries and reject that as the goal of U.S policy towards Iran.” Translation: Obama’s appeasement of Iran’s nuclear and regional ambitions is back. READ MORE

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“Without a word of warning to residents or elected officials, the Department of Homeless Services, citing “emergency Covid powers,” in May moved more than 100 single men into the boutique Belnord Hotel on a quiet residential block of West 87th Street”

Posted on August 9, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

WALL STREET JOURNAL
‘Covid Powers’ Wreck My Neighborhood
by Julia Vitullo-Martin
August 12, 2020

For many years I’ve lived in par­adise—the Up­per West Side. We have con­vivial neigh­bors, beau­ti­ful build­ings, great sub­ways, ex­cel­lent the­ater and dance, fine li­braries and book­stores, won­der­ful restau­rants, pleas­ant mar­kets. There were prob­lems but we worked them out am­i­ca­bly. Then Covid-19 hit. The streets emp­tied as peo­ple shel­tered in place. Re­tail stores, al­ready hurt by on­line shop­ping, closed. Restau­rants were shut down. The city cut san­i­ta­tion pick­ups. Cops stopped walk­ing the beat. At the same time, va­grancy—a peren­nial prob­lem—seemed to in­crease, with pan­han­dlers on many cor­ners, and peo­ple with their be­long­ings oc­cu­py­ing space on the side­walks. READ MORE

NEW YORK POST Editorial Board: A mad rush for the exits as New York City goes down the tubes It’s not just a few Upper West Siders who are fleeing New York: Moving companies say they’re swamped with calls from residents looking to ditch the city — even though the COVID crisis has waned. One likely reason: The virus was but the last straw; New Yorkers are fed up with the shootings and lootings, homelessness on the streets, sub-par online schools, sky-high taxes and the sheer obliviousness of pols like Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo. On Sunday, The Post highlighted families who’ve given up on the Upper West Side — now teeming with junkies, the homeless, convicts and others — and are headed for greener pastures outside Gotham.

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Beirut protesters reportedly hanged Hezbollah leader Nasrallah and President of Lebanon Aoun in effigy

Posted on August 6, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Lebanon protesters storm ministry buildings over Beirut blast
by Reuters
August 8, 2020

Lebanese protesters stormed government ministries in Beirut and trashed the offices of the Association of Lebanese Banks on Saturday as shots rang out in increasingly angry demonstrations over this week’s devastating explosion. The protesters said their politicians should resign and be punished for negligence they say led to Tuesday’s blast, the biggest ever to hit Beirut, that killed 158 people and injured more than 6,000, compounding months of political and economic meltdown. A policeman was killed during the clashes, a spokesman said. READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL Israel TV: Hezbollah apparently wanted Beirut’s ammonium nitrate for Israel war Hezbollah apparently planned to use the ammonium nitrate stockpile that caused a massive bast at Beirut’s port this week against Israel in a “Third Lebanon War,” according to an unsourced assessment publicized on Israel’s Channel 13 Friday night. The report was broadcast hours after Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, gave a speech “categorically” denying that his group had stored any weapons or explosives at Beirut’s port, following the massive explosion there Tuesday that has claimed over 157 lives and wounded thousands. 

FREE BEACON Democrats Gutted Anti-Hezbollah Legislation Days Before Attack on Israel Just days before the Iranian-funded terror group Hezbollah waged a terrorist attack on Israel’s northern border, congressional Democrats gutted legislation that would have halted U.S. funding to the Lebanese military, which is almost entirely controlled by the terror group. Congress has been working on legislation that would slash millions in American taxpayer funding to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), which has long been under Hezbollah’s thumb. Republican lawmakers in both the House and Senate have been pushing to cut this funding for some time.

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DNC “platform on Israel and Palestine is a clear victory for those supporting return to mainstream Democratic policies of the past, a loss for progressives seeking more conditional support for Israel”

Posted on August 6, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

FOREIGN POLICY
Biden Bucks Progressives, Won’t Denounce Israeli Occupation
by Colum Lynch
August 6, 2020

In early July, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and other influential progressives were convinced that they had secured a critical concession from Joe Biden’s campaign: For the first time, the Democratic Party platform would assert that Palestinians had a right to live free of foreign “occupation,” a scarcely veiled reference to Israel. But days before a draft platform was released on July 15, the presumptive Democratic nominee personally weighed in, according to three sources familiar with the discussion, ordering his advisors not to include any reference to Israeli “occupation.” The decision, according to these sources, followed heavy last-minute lobbying by pro-Israel advocacy groups. READ MORE

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