Israel has “annulled” the Oslo Accords, says P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas

Posted on May 17, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Abbas: PA no longer bound by agreements with Israel, US
by Daniel Siryoti, Shahar Klaiman and Dean Shmuel Elmas
May 20, 2020

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday that he was terminating all agreements with Israel and the United States over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to extend Israeli law to parts of Judea and Samaria under the aegis of the Trump peace plan. In a speech to Palestinian leaders in Ramallah, Abbas warned that Israel would have to assume responsibility for the civilian Palestinian population, currently exceeding 2 million people. “The Palestine Liberation Organization and the State of Palestine are absolved, as of today, of all the agreements and understandings with the American and Israeli governments and of all the obligations based on these understandings and agreements, including the security ones,” said Abbas…READ MORE

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US plan to remove troops from Sinai “has been met with opposition by both the State Department and the Israeli government”

Posted on May 17, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JEWISH INSIDER
Congress warns Trump about withdrawing U.S. troops from Sinai
by Jacob Kornbluh
May 18, 2020

A bipartisan group of members of Congress — led by Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Jim Risch (R-ID) and ranking member Bob Menendez (D-NJ) — are cautioning the Trump administration against withdrawing U.S. troops from the international peacekeeping force in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, calling the move “a grave mistake…The Wall Street Journal reported this month that Secretary of Defense Mark Esper is leading a push within the administration to end Washington’s decades-long participation in the Multinational Force and Observers group, which oversees the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in the Sinai. READ MORE

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Saudi Arabia: “Our Relations with Israel Are Warm, Have Gone Beyond Normalization”

Posted on May 17, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

MEMRI
Saudi Writer Abdulhameed Al-Ghobain: Saudis Care about National Interests, Not about the Palestinian Cause
from BBC Arabic
May 10, 2020

…Abdulhameed Al-Ghobain: “I am talking about public opinion. Today, the public is informed. There is a deluge [of opinions] against the Palestinian cause. It is no longer just public support for normalization and building ties with Israel. [Our] public has turned against the Palestinians in general. Unfortunately, the Palestinians have lost. The Palestinians have not contributed anything. We can say that they are emotional people whose behavior is governed by their feelings…”If you came to Saudi Arabia and conducted a survey – even among middle school and high school students – they will tell you that not only are they indifferent to the Palestinian cause, but the people in Saudi Arabia no longer care about Arabs as a whole. READ MORE

AL JAZEERA UAE’s Etihad makes first known flight to Israel An Etihad Airways plane flew from the capital of the United Arab Emirates into Israel on Tuesday to deliver coronavirus aid to the Palestinians, the airline said, marking the first known direct commercial flight between the two nations. The flight took place despite the UAE having no formal diplomatic ties with Israel, while there are no commercial flights between the two states.

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“In a region rife with adversaries, Israel considers Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite terrorist group, to be its toughest and most immediate threat”

Posted on May 17, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
20 years after withdrawal, Israel, Hezbollah brace for war
by AP and ILH staff
May 20, 2020

Twenty years after Israel withdrew from the security zone in southern Lebanon, the IDF and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist group are gearing up for a possible war that neither seems to want. Israeli troops are striking Hezbollah targets in neighboring Syria and drilling for what could be an invasion of Lebanon. Hezbollah is beefing up its own forces and threatening to invade Israel. The bitter enemies routinely exchange warnings and threats…During the 2006 war, the group launched some 4,000 rockets into Israel, most of them unguided projectiles with limited ranges. Today, Israeli officials say Hezbollah possesses some 130,000 rockets and missiles capable of striking virtually anywhere in Israel. READ MORE

TABLET MAG FDD’S Tony Badran: Lebanon’s Interwoven Fantasy Worlds All Lead to War With Israel How much should America pay to maintain the fraying fabric?

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Letter to IRS charges “senior executives and staff members at the Whitney had “knowingly engaged in conduct which was flagrantly at odds with the Whitney’s charitable purpose”

Posted on May 17, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

ALGEMEINER
Former Nazi Hunter Targeting Whitney Museum of Art in NYC Over ‘Capitulation’ to Anti-Israel Activists
by Staff
May 19, 2020

A former top official with the US Justice Department who hunted Nazi war criminals for two decades is spearheading a legal effort to strip the famed Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City of its tax-exempt status. The move follows a bitter row last year over the resignation of a board member, in which accusations of political bias and antisemitism played a decisive role….The individuals and groups that demanded [former Whitney Board Vice Chairman] Kanders’ resignation were “at the nexus of  widespread antisemitic, anti-capitalist and terrorism-connected movements.” Sher identified Amin Hussein — a Palestinian-American activist who founded the radical organization Decolonize This Place (DTP) — as the “chief agitator and ringleader” of the protests against Kanders…READ MORE

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“Palestinian media, government officials and activists have recycled these themes by placing coronavirus and Israel at the center of their delusions”

Posted on May 17, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

NEWSWEEK
Arab world delusions fuel #BDS campaign’s coronavirus conspiracies
by Samantha Mandeles
May 17, 2020

The past two months have seen an explosion of coronavirus-related anti-Zionist discourse from across the globe. Notably, proponents of the global “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)” campaign against Israel have lost no time in exploiting the outbreak to feed their obsessive vendetta. But BDS appropriation of coronavirus is only part of a larger effort—popular within the Arab and Muslim world—to incorporate coronavirus into pre-existing anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish ideologies. Jews have long been accused of producing or spreading diseases. Modern iterations of these charges include Nazi myths of the Jewish biological threat, Hamas’ assertions that “Zionists” use HIV-positive women to seduce and infect Arabs and the Iranian regime’s habit of terming Israel a “cancerous tumor.” READ MORE

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“All of the intersectional solidarity with enemies of Israel leads, of course, to hate for Israel, and, by extension, hate for Jews generally”

Posted on May 17, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JEWISH POLICY CENTER
How “Social Justice” Movement Defines Jews as Villains
by Philip Carl Salzman
Spring 2020

…Black Lives Matter officially sides with Palestinian Arabs against Israeli Jews, notwithstanding the centuries of Arab slaving in Africa, the selling and holding of black slaves in Arab countries today, and the fact that many Arabs are highly prejudiced against blacks, and refer to them in Arabic as abd (slave). Feminists have sided with the Palestinian Arabs, although Palestinian women are still treated to male supremacy, seclusion, and honor killings. LGBTQ groups also support Palestinians, although LGBT persons are commonly victimized in the Arab and Persian worlds, while only in Israel are LGBT persons accepted and safe. To mention this is called, by social justice activists, “pinkwashing” of Israeli “oppression.”READ MORE

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“Coronavirus ‘tipped over’ patients who would have died of other causes within year, says Shaare Zedek head Ofer Merin”

Posted on May 17, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Most people we lost to COVID were already near death — Jerusalem hospital chief
by Nathan Jeffay
May 20, 2020

A hospital chief said most COVID-19 patients who died at his institution had around a year’s life expectancy. “Coronavirus was the thing that tipped them over, but to be honest, for most of these patients who died here in Shaare Zedek, the chance is they had a year of life expectancy, not much more,” said Ofer Merin. Around 1 in 10 Israelis who have died from coronavirus succumbed at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, where Merin is director-general. Almost all of the institution’s fatalities were both elderly and had other diseases, he told The Times of Israel. READ MORE

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“Israel’s coalition government contemplates redrawing the country’s borders, with America’s blessing. Senior ex-diplomat Dore Gold gives the inside scoop on how and why the status quo may not last long”

Posted on May 14, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

TABLET MAG
Annexing the Jordan Valley
by Armin Rosen
May 14, 2020

… Another option would be to annex territory that prior talks haven’t succeeded in taking off the table, but whose strategic value might exceed the backlash risked by any change in the Israeli-Palestinian status quo. For annexation to make long-term sense, it would have to be territory whose permanent control is a demand shared across the Israeli political mainstream and which doesn’t have large Palestinian populations that have no desire to become Israeli. With obvious strategic significance, and a relatively small population that is more or less evenly divided between Jewish and Palestinian inhabitants, the Jordan Valley fits the bill on all counts. READ MORE

ISRAEL HAYOM Sarah Stern: Another approach to the Aristotelian Mean The Trump Plan envisions a Palestinian state and gives the Palestinians 70% of Judea and Samaria on which to create this state, giving only 30% to the Israelis, including the settlement blocs and the Jordan –Valley. This Plan departs radically from prior peace initiatives in that it would, in its words, “give the Palestinians the power to govern themselves, but not the power to threaten Israel.”

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Elaine Luria (D-VA) and Mike Gallagher (R-WI) spearhead House letter in defense of Israel at the ICC; Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Rob Portman (R-OH) lead Senate version

Posted on May 14, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Congress to Pompeo: ICC has no jurisdiction over disputed territories
by Omri Nahmias
May 14, 2020

A large, bipartisan group of 69 senators and 262 House representatives sent a letter on Wednesday to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, urging him to call on the International Criminal Court to halt its investigation regarding the US and Israel, saying it was politically motivated. The letter also mentions that neither the United States nor Israel are members of the ICC, arguing that the court had no jurisdiction in the case. “We are concerned that the court’s recent actions regarding the ‘Situation in Palestine’ have infused politics into the judicial process,” the letter reads. READ MORE

GATESTONE International Kangaroo Court to Investigate Israel for War Crimes The International Criminal Court (ICC) appears ready to begin an investigation of alleged war crimes committed by Israeli soldiers against Arab civilian citizens of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Fatou Bensouda, the ICC’s Chief Prosecutor, announced on April 30 that she would proceed with the investigation if the ICC’s pre-trial judges instruct her that she is on solid ground to launch the inquiry

TIMES OF ISRAEL Pompeo warns ICC of ‘consequences’ for potential war crimes probe of Israel US secretary stresses, ‘We do not believe the Palestinians qualify as a sovereign state,’ issues warning if court continues ‘illegitimate’ investigations

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