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

Posted on July 9, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

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

Posted in Islam, Israel & Middle East, Politics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

“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”

Posted on July 9, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

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

Posted in Jewish, Politics | Tagged , | Leave a comment

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

Posted on July 9, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

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.

Posted in Israel & Middle East, Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

“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”

Posted on July 5, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

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

Posted in Islam, Israel & Middle East, Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

“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”

Posted on July 5, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

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

Posted in Israel & Middle East, Jewish, Politics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

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

Posted on July 5, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

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

Posted in Islam, Israel & Middle East, Jewish | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

United Airlines going nonstop Chicago-Tel Aviv

Posted on July 5, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
United Airlines to launch Tel Aviv-Chicago route in September
by Zachary Keyser
July 7, 2020

United Airlines said this week it was further expanding its international schedule in September by adding new nonstop flights between Chicago and Tel Aviv. The new direct charter route will be introduced in September of this year. “We are proud of this announcement which is reflected in the company’s expanding flight schedule and looking forward to offering our customers more flight options that will connect Israel and the United States,” said United Airlines Israel CEO Avi Friedman…The flights will depart from Tel Aviv en route to Chicago O’Hare on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Return flights are scheduled for Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays. READ MORE

JERUSALEM POST El Al flights to Chicago postponed indefinitely “We still don’t know when we will fly at all,” a company official said. It is still unknown when El Al will fly again despite a deal reached on Wednesday, but it is already clear that El Al’s flights to Chicago have been postponed indefinitely, sources at the company said.

JEWISH PRESS Israel Nationalizes El Al 17 years almost to the day following the 2003 privatization of Israel’s national carrier El Al, El Al’s board of directors decided on Monday afternoon to adopt the Finance Ministry’s rescue plan, according to which the company will receive a $250 million loan with a state-provided 75% loan guarantee, along with the issuance of $150 million shares to the general public. The state will pledge to buy the shares that the public will not buy, which would facilitate the de facto nationalization of the company.

Posted in Israel & Middle East, Politics | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

In other words, the term “anti-Semitism” was coined not to marginalize Jew hatred but to mainstream it

Posted on July 5, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

FORWARD
Since we’re debating labels, stop calling it anti-Semitism. It’s Jew hatred.
by Stephen D. Smith
July 7, 2020

…While the phenomenon of Jew hatred is inscribed in ancient texts, the term “anti-Semitism” is actually of relatively recent vintage, about as old as the telephone or the lightbulb. The German journalist Wilhelm Marr coined the term “anti-Semitism” in 1879 to give an air of modernity to long-embraced animosity toward the Jewish people. Earlier Germans were blunter: They called it “Judenhaas,” literally Jew-hatred. Wilhelm, himself a deeply anti-Jewish political agitator, sought a pseudo-scientific and therefore more palatable word. READ MORE

ALGEMEINER Public Campaign Launched to Remove Three-Hour Antisemitic Speech by Louis Farrakhan From YouTube A public campaign has been launched to persuade YouTube to remove a video of the notoriously antisemitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan’s July 4 address, in which he referred to Jews as “Satan” who should have their brains knocked out by the “stone of truth.” Farrakhan’s three-hour rant, titled “The Criterion,” was streamed live on YouTube and has so far garnered over 850,000 views.

Posted in Jewish, Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

“Zahra Haider continues to spread her one-sided, hateful, and dangerous views far and wide thanks to her position at ‘NowThis'”

Posted on July 5, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

STOPANTISEMITISM
Antisemite of the Week: Zahra Haider – The ‘NowThis’ Jew Hater
July 4, 2020

Zahra Haider is one of the leaders of the antisemitic Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a member of the notorious campus group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), and a supporter of convicted terrorists. What’s most concerning is that Haider produces content for NowThis, a widely popular social-media focused news group. She exploits the organization’s large reach to spread antisemitism and hatred of the Jewish state. From her defense of our previous Antisemites of the Week, Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, to her obsessive rants about the evil perils of Israel, Haider uses ‘NowThis’ to spread bigotry to millions of people. READ MORE

Posted in Islam, Israel & Middle East, Politics | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

“Most radical leftists believe this noxious legacy foretells our future and will continue unabated unless American politics is fundamentally overturned”

Posted on July 5, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

REAL CLEAR POLITICS
The Fierce Fight Over America’s Ideals and History
by Charles Lipson
July 6, 2020

Americans do more than tolerate calls to live up to our highest ideals. We embrace them. Martin Luther King knew that when he spoke at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. … So we have come to cash this check.” Honoring that check brings together Americans of all political stripes. Most think, rightly, that King’s dream is the American dream. They do not believe the dream itself is a fraud, an opiate for the masses. READ MORE

THE SPECTATOR Douglas Murray: The new inequality It is a strange habit, the American one of making talk-show hosts into preachers. There is no good reason, after all, why a comedian should be any kind of arbiter of morality or anything much else. Yet in America the court of public opinion accepts the right of the jester to preach the homily too. So it was that, in a period not short on ‘personal takes’ and celebrity messaging, one night in early June on his Late Late Show, James Corden delivered a teary monologue about race relations in America.

Posted in Politics | Leave a comment