“According to sources, another senior Hamas military commander was recently arrested on suspicion of collaborating with Israel”

JERUSALEM POST
Has Israel infiltrated Hamas’s military wing?
by Khaled Abu Toameh
July 11, 2020

A senior commander of Hamas’s military wing, Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades, has reportedly fled the Gaza Strip amid suspicions that he had been collaborating with Israel, Palestinian sources said on Saturday. The man, who headed Hamas’s commando frogman unit, fled the Strip aboard an IDF boat, the sources told the Palestinian news website Amad. They said that the senior Hamas commander took with him a laptop containing “dangerous classified information” about the group’s frogman unit, as well as sums of money and eavesdropping devices that were in his possession. READ MORE

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“Beinart is a smart guy; he knows that for his readers to buy his thesis, it is important that they not know very much”

TIMES OF ISRAEL
End the Jewish State? Let’s try some honesty, first
by Daniel Gordis
July 8, 2020

…About what do we [Peter Beinart and myself] agree? I share Peter’s deep frustration over the plight of Palestinian Arabs. I, too, worry about racism in Israeli society. I, too, want something big to change here. I also think that the status quo is not tenable for the long run. Yet we also disagree about a great deal. He thinks that Israeli ethnic cleansing of the West Bank is likely; I think (and pray) that is it essentially unthinkable. He discounts the threat of Palestinian terror; I suspect that, living in Jerusalem, it is more of an issue for me than it is for him on the Upper West Side. READ MORE

ALGEMEINER Peter Beinart’s One-State Call Earns Praise of Israel-Hater Linda Sarsour

TABLET MAG Benjamin Kirstein: The Jews of Privilege Peter Beinart thinks Jews don’t need Zionism. That’s because he’s never needed it himself…To a great extent, Beinart’s arguments are desperately boring, as the racist argument is as old as Zionism itself, and is repeated ad nauseum throughout the international media and institutions of higher education—but the basic points are worth reiterating. Beinart writes, “It’s time to abandon the traditional two-state solution and embrace the goal of equal rights for Jews and Palestinians. It’s time to imagine a Jewish home that is not a Jewish state.

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ESPN’s Max Kellerman is glad DeSean Jackson apologized for his comments, but would like to hear Jackson explain himself more

NEW YORK POST 94-year-old Holocaust survivor invites DeSean Jackson to tour Auschwitz A 94-year-old Holocaust survivor is inviting embattled Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson to visit Nazi death camps after Jackson shared anti-Semitic posts on Instagram.

NBC SPORTS Julian Edelman offers to take DeSean Jackson to Holocaust Memorial Museum As the NFL community continues to deal with Eagles receiver DeSean Jackson‘s anti-Semitic social-media post, Patriots receiver Julian Edelman has offered his thoughts. Edelman, who is Jewish, posted a video on social media addressing the situation, culminating in an invitation to Jackson to take a trip to the nation’s capital for a mutual effort in learning and understanding.

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J Street and If Not Now sign letter to Biden advocating for, among other things, defunding Pentagon

I24NEWS
J Street, If Not Now among groups urging Biden not to appoint BDS critics on security jobs
July 8, 2020

J Street and If Not Now, two left-leaning Jewish groups, were among the signatories of a letter to Joe Biden urging him not to appoint Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement critics to national security and foreign policy jobs. The letter, dated Tuesday, was signed by 31 advocacies and said Biden, as the presumptive Democratic nominee, had a chance to achieve a “fundamental re-envisioning of the United States’ role in the world.” To do so, however, he would have to get all the right people on key national security and foreign policy positions, the letter warned, offering some ideas as to what the selection criteria could be. READ MORE

JNS US Palestinians urge Biden, if elected, to overturn Trump’s pro-Israel policies Palestinian Americans have been pressuring Democratic Party presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden to shift U.S. policy in favor of the Palestinians if he wins the election in November, Reuters reported on Thursday. According to the report, one source said that the pressure campaign has not had any significant impact.

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US Justice Department: “Justice is overdue for the many victims of Iranian-supported terror”

ARAB NEWS
US court orders Iran to pay $879m to 1996 Khobar bombing survivors
July 10, 2020

A US federal court has held Iran responsible for the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia where US forces were housed, and ordered it to pay $879 million to survivors. The Khobar Towers was a housing complex in the eastern city of Alkhobar, near the Abdulaziz Air Base and Saudi Aramco’s headquarters in Dhahran, that housed American servicemen working on Operation Southern Watch. A truck bomb was detonated on June 25, 1996, near an eight-story building of the housing complex. It killed 19 US Air Force personnel and a Saudi national, wounding 498 others. READ MORE

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“She’s Trump-agnostic. You know, she praises him for the things that she likes and she attacks and she criticizes him for the things that she doesn’t, which is the way it should be”

JTA
Bethany Mandel will not be canceled
by Ron Kampeas
July 9, 2020

Bethany Mandel wasn’t unnerved back in May when people all over the world were decrying her as a “Grandma killer.” After all, the mother of four and rising star in the world of conservative thinkers had invited the moniker when she posted a cri de coeur on Twitter against what she saw as indiscriminate application of quarantine restrictions. “You can call me a Grandma killer,” Mandel wrote. “I’m not sacrificing my home, food on the table, all of our docs and dentists, every form of pleasure (museums, zoos, restaurants), all my kids’ teachers in order to make other people comfortable.” READ MORE

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“The response to the free speech petition has once again exposed the intolerance of the Left”

UNHERD
So much for the bravery of the Harper’s letter
by Douglas Murray
July 10, 2020

Earlier this week a group of 150 writers appended their names to an open letter published in Harper’s Magazine…The contents were, as at least one signatory admitted, fairly anodyne. The letter spoke of “the free exchange of information and ideas” and of how this constituted “the lifeblood of a liberal society”. It went on to criticise the current vogue for ‘cancelling’ people because of their expressed opinion, stating that “As writers we need a culture that leaves us room for experimentation, risk-taking, and even mistakes”…From the moment that the letter was published its critics were inadvertantly revealing why it needed to be written in the first place. READ MORE

Read the “controversial” Harper’s letter in defense of free speech, signers included a fairly diverse group: Martin Amis, Malcolm Gladwell, Salman Rushdie, J.K. Rowling, Fareed Zakaria, Matthew Yglesias, Noam Chomsky and Jonathan Haidt.

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“With threats from Tehran following blast at nuclear facility blamed on Jerusalem, Israel reportedly wanting to receive KC-46 Pegasuses, despite design problem, within 2 years”

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Amid Iran tensions, Israel said to ask US to speed up delivery of air refuelers
by TOI Staff and Agencies
July 8, 2020

Israel has asked the US Department of Defense to speed up delivery of its KC-46 Pegasus aerial refueling aircraft, as tensions rise with Iran. In March the US Department of Defense announced approval to sell new KC-46 Pegasus aerial refueling aircraft to Israel, with delivery expected in four years. However, Channel 12 news reported Wednesday that Israel has requested that the aircraft be delivered within two years. The report came amid an uptick in tensions with Iran, with Tehran on Tuesday calling for action against Israel following a recent blast at the Natanz nuclear facility that has been blamed on Jerusalem. READ MORE

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“Democratic senators submit an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, suggesting that none of the $3.8 billion in military aid to Israel would be used for advancing unilateral West Bank annexation”

HAARETZ
The Democrats’ New Policy That Could See Bernie and Biden Find Middle Ground on Aid to Israel
by Amir Tibon
July 6, 2020

The issue of U.S. military aid to Israel has divided the Democratic Party over the past year, but a new policy that could unite the party on this thorny issue has been presented over the weekend – to continue transferring assistance to Israel in the billions of dollars, but preventing it from using the funds to boost the settlement enterprise and advancing West Bank annexation. Politicians on the party’s left-wing, most notably Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, have called to condition or withhold the billions that Washington gives Israel in order to pressure it into ending the occupation of the West Bank. READ MORE

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“Egypt’s relationship with Israel has remained largely under the table and in the security realm”

JNS
Why Cairo has stayed (mostly) silent as Israel considers sovereignty
by Israel Kasnett
July 7, 2020

When Mossad chief Yossi Cohen flew to Egypt last week to meet with the head of Egypt’s General Intelligence Service Abbas Kamal and Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, he was likely confident that the meeting would go well. Unlike his visit with Jordan’s King Abdullah, also in late June, where Cohen heard more pushback against Israel’s plans to apply sovereignty to Judea and Samaria (Jordan has been highly vocal of its displeasure) Egypt has remained largely silent on the matter. READ MORE

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