“AIPAC privately telling officials it’s OK to condemn planned controversial West Bank move as long as they don’t push to limit US aid to Jewish state”

Posted on June 7, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
In first, AIPAC gives US lawmakers green light to criticize Israel on annexation
by Ron Kampeas
June 10, 2020

The leading pro-Israel lobby in the United States is telling US lawmakers that they are free to criticize Israel’s looming annexation plans — just as long as the criticism stops there…With anxiety pervading the US Jewish community ahead of that deadline, AIPAC faces a thorny question: Does it support Israel’s leadership at all costs, or does it draw a line on actions it believes endangers the Jewish state’s future? So far, the group has remained publicly silent. But in private, AIPAC is telling lawmakers that as long as they don’t push to limit the United States’ aid to Israel, they can criticize the annexation plan without risking future support from the lobby group.  READ MORE

JNS AIPAC cancels 2021 policy conference due to concerns about coronavirus “AIPAC will continue to find new and creative ways over the coming year for us to connect online and in person to advance the U.S.-Israel relationship,” said AIPAC president Betsy Berns Korn.

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“Applications for aliyah in the spring of the coronavirus are breaking records, as Jews in the Diaspora see Israel as a safe haven”

Posted on June 7, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
In an era of global uncertainty, record numbers of Jews seek to return ‘home’
by Deborah Fineblum
June 8, 2020

In a time of darkness, a time of pandemic, pandemonium and power struggles, a thin ray of light can be seen in the Jewish world. The results are in: In May, the number of North Americans applying to make aliyah was double what it was last year at this time (814 vs. 424). In fact, last month was the biggest ever in the 19-year history of Nefesh B’Nefesh, the nonprofit that with the help of Israel’s government and the Jewish Agency for Israel has already shepherded some 60,000 North American Jews to new homes in Israel. READ MORE

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“With Pompeo’s statement, the U.S. reversed previous policy, declared its support for Israeli life in historic Judea and Samaria and tacitly backed the assertion of Israeli sovereignty at any time”

Posted on June 7, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

NEWSWEEK
Trump is Better Than the Two-State Solution
by Yishai Fleisher
June 9, 2020

…With COVID-19 striking at the U.S. economy and riots breaking out in America’s cities, President Trump needs a win in Israel—not another headache. But the “Deal” is no panacea, it will not bring peace to the Middle East and it will not bring votes in November. Indeed, Trump’s evangelical Christian base was largely disappointed with the plan that called for an Arab state in the Holy Land. But there is another way. In November, prior to the release of the plan, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that “the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not, per se, inconsistent with international law.” READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL Netanyahu to initially annex 3 settlement blocs, not Jordan Valley — officials Ariel and Ma’ale Adumim don’t require much mapping, though Etzion Bloc is more complex, and Jerusalem thinks drawing out process may help curb friction with Jordan

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Quincy Institute article slams “Zionist influences” at New York Times including Bret Stephens and Bari Weiss

Posted on June 7, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

ALGEMEINER
Republican Senator Writes New York Times Op-Ed. Zionist Jews Get Blamed.
by Ira Stoll
June 7, 2020

Anti-Israel groups are pouncing on a controversy over an opinion piece by a Republican senator in the New York Times, scapegoating two openly Zionist editors there. The article by Senator Tom Cotton, headlined “Send in the Troops,” called for the deployment of the US military to quell what the article called an “orgy of violence,” and “rioters and looters” in American cities following the death in police custody of George Floyd…Anti-Israel groups are seizing on the flap to target the few openly Zionist editors at the Times, including [Adam] Rubenstein and Bari Weiss. READ MORE

REASON James Bennet’s Resignation Proves the Woke Scolds Are Taking Over The New York Times Bennet’s resignation was an instructive show of force from those Times staffers who want the paper to be more transparently progressive. Their successful strategy—describe their opposition to someone else’s speech as a matter of personal safety—is straight out of the woke left’s playbook. Dismayingly, we should expect to see this tactic deployed more frequently in the future.

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“Aaron Klein, former Breitbart journalist, hired by Netanyahu as strategic consultant”

Posted on June 7, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Netanyahu appoints controversial adviser who trashed Obama and Biden
by Gil Hoffman
June 8, 2020

…Aaron Klein, a former journalist for Breitbart, was hired by Netanyahu as a strategic and communications consultant for the Likud Party. “Klein left a full-time successful career as a reporter to help Israel, as it finds itself facing unprecedented challenges during the coronavirus pandemic, amid the international debate on the issue of applying sovereignty and other pressing matters,” a Likud source said. The Jerusalem-based Klein worked on strategy during the Likud’s campaign in the last election…Klein, 41, most recently served as Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter for Breitbart News, reporting last month on Biden’s involvement in what he termed the Russia collusion hoax. READ MORE

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“This “blame it on Israel” or “blame it on the Jews” bigotry is common throughout the world at demonstrations for legitimate causes”

Posted on June 7, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Exploiting the Floyd protests to demonize Israel
by Alan Dershowitz
June 8, 2020

As usual, anti-Israel extremists, especially some on the hard left, are trying to exploit the tragic and inexcusable death of George Floyd to level their typical baseless charges against Israel…The organization “Black Lives Matter,” which does much good, is not immune from this bigotry. Its own platform blames Israel for police violence against African Americans, and compares such violence to what it falsely calls the “genocide” of the Palestinian people. Many good people who support the organization are unaware of its gratuitous demonization of Israel, and would oppose such distractions from its core mission READ MORE

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“Efforts to link police brutality in the United States with the Israel Defense Forces maintaining security against Palestinian attacks have flooded the Internet and been used as propaganda by the BDS movement”

Posted on June 7, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Groups on both far-left and far-right co-opt Black Lives Matter movement to target Israel
by Sean Savage
June 9, 2020

…In particular, anti-Israel groups have been using the protests over the public murder of 46-year-old George Floyd in Minnesota by a police officer to target the Jewish state over past training programs set up between the United States and Israeli police departments. “This is where the Minneapolis Police Department learned their police brutality tactics from. israeli occupation terrorist soldiers (on the left) murder Palestinians on a daily basis. We must stop training our American police officers to be gestapo units. #GeorgeFloyd #Palestine.” tweeted Abbas Hamideh of the group Al-Awda, a pro-Palestinian BDS group. READ MORE

NEWSWEEK Paul Miller: BDS Is About Bigotry While the BDS campaign has had limited success, its advocates among professors and far-left student groups on college campuses have put targets on the backs of Jewish students and groups. “BDS is designed to incite hatred and inject divisiveness on campus, and it almost always results in the harassment of Jewish students,” explained Tammi Rossman-Benjamin to the Haym Salomon Center.

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“Thanks to tenured radicals, we are witnessing the retribalization of the world”

Posted on June 7, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

SPECTATOR US
How to destroy civilization
by Roger Kimball
June 3, 2020

…For decades now, our colleges and universities (and increasingly our grades schools) have been preaching a gospel of cultural self-hatred. America, according to this gospel, is evil. The country is inextricably racist and beholden to an irredeemably exploitative economic system. The latest retelling of this creation myth is the Pulitzer-Prize-winning ‘1619 Project’ whose fundamental message is that America was started as a ‘slavocracy.’ According to this malignant fantasy, the Revolutionary War was fought primarily ‘to protect the institution of slavery.’ At last count, elements of this disgusting bit of historical revisionism were being adopted in the curricula of some 4,000 school districts. READ MORE

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“Netanyahu said determined to move ahead with annexing parts of West Bank and is working on high-resolution maps, despite threat of EU sanctions, ambivalence from US”

Posted on June 4, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
German FM to make urgent visit to Israel to warn against annexation
by Staff
June 5, 2020

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas is reportedly set to come to Israel on Wednesday for an urgent visit to warn Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against annexing parts of the West Bank. Maas will warn Netanyahu that the move will harm Israel’s ties with the European Union and with Germany, despite the importance of the relationship to Berlin, according to a Friday Channel 13 report Friday…[Netanyahu] has repeatedly declared determination to unilaterally annex all the settlements and the Jordan Valley, a total of some 30 percent of the West Bank, provided he has American support. READ MORE

JERUSALEM POST Shtayyeh to EU: Impose sanctions on Israel, recognize Palestinian state Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has called on the European Union to impose sanctions on Israel to prevent it from extending its sovereignty to parts of the West Bank. He also called on the EU to recognize a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 lines, with east Jerusalem as its capital.

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“Major synagogues in the Los Angeles area have piously condemned racism, but not the hatred that defaced synagogues and schools”

Posted on June 4, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

SULTAN KNISH
The Los Angeles Pogrom That No Jewish Organization Will Talk About
by Daniel Greenfield
June 4, 2020

…One would think that the hateful vandalism of 8 Jewish institutions and a mob screaming slurs after trashing Jewish businesses would lead to some sort of meaningful response. But that would be the optimistic perspective of people who haven’t experienced the unmitigated level of cowardice and appeasement that comprises Jewish institutional life at virtually every level. In June, my inbox has been littered with missives from assorted Jewish organizations, institutions, and even, shamefully, synagogues, some good and some bad, wringing their hands over George Floyd’s death, and timidly condemning violent responses, while failing to mention the racist attacks on Jewish businesses and institutions by supporters of the anti-Semitic Black Lives Matter group. READ MORE

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