“Asked why the series is so popular, co-creator Avi Issacharoff noted that a large amount of the show’s dialogue is in Arabic”

Posted on April 19, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

ALGEMEINER
Latest Season of Israeli TV Series ‘Fauda’ Becomes Massive Hit in Arab World
by Benjamin Kerstein
April 22, 2020

The Israeli television series “Fauda” is already a global hit, but in a remarkable turn of events, its third season has now become the most-watched show in the Arab world. According to Israel’s Channel 13, the intense series, which depicts the activities of an Israeli undecover anti-terror squad, is the most-watched Netflix program in Lebanon, sixth in Jordan and third in the United Arab Emirates. Television viewing around the world is at an all-time high at the moment because millions of people are confined to their homes due to the coronavirus pandemic. READ MORE

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Thomas Friedman “seldom missed an opportunity to highlight criticism of the Jewish state, especially from Israelis who insisted that its “occupation” was immoral”

Posted on April 19, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Thomas Friedman’s political fantasy
by Jerold S. Auerbach
April 17, 2020

In a recent New York Times column (April 7), Thomas Friedman listed his preferred choices for various posts in a Joe Biden administration. Among those serving in his fantasy government would be Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), the pro-Palestinian leftist whose uninformed and invariably hostile comments about Israel have verged on anti-Semitism, as ambassador to the United Nations…Growing up in “a rather typical middle-class American Jewish family,” Friedman identified himself as a “three-day-a-year” Jew until the Six-Day War ignited “my Jewish identity.” After three summers as a kibbutz volunteer, he conceded, his identification with Israel had become “insufferable.” READ MORE

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Perhaps coming to your town: “National Guard’s raison d’être is not policing a domestic populace. Striking the requisite balance will be a tremendous challenge, undertaken beneath an intensive media glare”

Posted on April 19, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

SECURITY MAGAZINE
Can the National Guard Protect America?
by Benjamin Anthony, Cade Spivey, and Richard Kemp
April 18, 2020

…While some have been dismissive of the role of the [National][Guard, the continuation of life without a paycheck may well result in events that hammer home the seriousness of the security task at hand. A 2018 federal survey noted that approximately 40 percent of Americans lack the financial means to weather an emergency expense of more than $400. Given that businesses have already been closed or negatively impacted for weeks, and that American workers have been furloughed — industry by industry — those 40 percent are already far beyond the $400 watermark of a financial crisis. In fact, they are already drowning. READ MORE

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“President Trump and Senator McConnell may be tempted to tell the Democratic states, like Illinois, to get lost. Mr. Stoll offers an alternative approach — using the sudden federal financial leverage “to demand policy reforms that would diminish the long-term structural dysfunctionality” of the mendicant states”

Posted on April 19, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

NEW YORK SUN
State Bailouts: ‘Beyond Galling,’ ‘Shameless,’ Too
Editorial Board
April 20, 2020

The drama of profligate states using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to seek federal bailouts to paper over long-term mismanagement has finally found a Pavarotti — the editorial board of Chicago Tribune. It uncorked this morning an editorial calling pleas for as much as $40 billion in federal lucre for Illinois “shameless,” “dishonest,” “beyond galling.” And it was just getting tuned up. We share the Tribune’s sentiments, not only in respect of Illinois but New York as well. And not just those two. “Every member of Congress should carefully scrutinize pleas from states whose unbalanced budgets, embarrassing credit ratings and vastly underfunded pension systems predated virus outbreak,” the Tribune reckons. READ MORE

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Netanyahu announces easing of health restrictions

Posted on April 16, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Coronavirus: Regulations eased up, certain stores reallowed to open
by Rossella Tercatin, Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman and Tzvi Joffre
April 18, 2020

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Saturday night a partial release of the restrictive measures imposed by the government to contrast the coronavirus outbreak. Among other, Netanyahu announced that certain type of stores facing the street will be able to open, sports activities up to 500 meters will be allowed and praying with a quorum in open spaces up ten people keeping a distance of two meters from each other will also be permitted again…Among stores that can open are electronics, furniture, house supplies and computer, as long as they are accessible from the streets and not in closed spaces and as long as they abide by the guidelines. READ MORE

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“The prominence of Arabs in Israel’s health system reflects an effort by many to move into the mainstream, despite decades of discrimination and marginalization”

Posted on April 16, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
In Israeli war on coronavirus, Arab doctors rush to the front
by Joshua Mitnick
April 16, 2020

…Though Arab doctors, nurses, and pharmacists have over the past decade become a familiar presence at Israeli hospitals and state-supported HMO clinics, the pandemic has shone Arab Israeli citizens in a new light: as essential foot soldiers and field commanders in the country’s struggle against the virus. That elevated stature comes, ironically, at a particularly fraught moment in Arab-Jewish political relations. Even as Arab Israelis, one-fifth of the population, have strengthened their parliamentary representation via a new alliance, the Joint List, they repeatedly have been the objects of hostile campaign rhetoric from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. READ MORE

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A battle to acquire failing UK Jewish newspapers

Posted on April 16, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Rival bids submitted for UK’s two bankrupt Jewish newspapers
by Staff
April 17, 2020

Rival bids have been submitted for Britain’s two major Jewish publications — the Jewish Chronicle and the Jewish News — which announced last week that they were going into liquidation as the coronavirus hit them financially. The Kessler Foundation, a charitable trust that has owned the Jewish Chronicle since 1984, submitted an offer to liquidators earlier this week to acquire the assets of both publications and run them as a single publication…However, on Thursday, a rival bid was filed for the papers by a consortium of political strategists, bankers and broadcasters who vowed to invest millions of pounds over the next five years, the Financial Times reported. READ MORE

TABLET MAG Canada’s Lost Jewish Voice The coronavirus has claimed another victim: Canadian Jewry’s sole national publication, The Canadian Jewish News. On April 3, CJN President Elizabeth Wolfe released a statement informing the community of the paper’s closure.

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“The fact that Biden would embrace J Street’s endorsement suggests he is pivoting to the left, not the center — at the cost of whatever pro-Israel views he once may have had”

Posted on April 16, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

BREITBART
Joe Biden Celebrates Endorsement by J Street, Soros-backed Israel Critics
by Joel B. Pollak
April 17, 2020

J Street offered Biden its first-ever presidential endorsement, citing his opposition to Israeli settlements and his work in negotiating the Iran nuclear deal. J Street noted that it “intends to raise over $1 million for the campaign by Election Day.” Biden told the Daily Beast that he was “honored to have earned J Street’s first-ever presidential endorsement,” adding that the group has “an unyielding dedication to the survival and security of Israel” — a statement that ignores J Street’s controversial record. READ MORE

FREE BEACON Soros-Funded Muslim Group Associated With Homophobia, Terrorist Defenders Endorses Biden A George Soros-backed Muslim group, which cohosts a conference that in recent years drew speakers who called homosexuality a “disease” and defended terrorist groups, announced its endorsement of Joe Biden for president. Emgage, which bills itself as the largest Muslim PAC in the country, on Thursday announced it would switch its endorsement from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) to Biden.

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Democrats and Republicans join on pro Israel initiative

Posted on April 16, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

BREAKING ISRAEL NEWS
Cruz Looks to Replace America’s Medical Reliance on China with Israel
by David Sidman
April 17, 2020

Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Chris Coons (D-DE) are launching a bipartisan effort to ween the U.S off of medical reliance on China and replace it, at least partially, with Israel. More specifically, the two senators have launched the initiative to mitigate the coronavirus pandemic in America. Both members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are also seeking $12 million in order to “enhance partnerships between companies in the United States and Israel to develop innovative medical projects aimed at detecting, treating, and curing COVID-19.” READ MORE

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“Daughter of Muriel and David Cohen, an American WWII veteran, says the couple chose not to be separated after her mom tested positive for virus: ‘They were always together’”

Posted on April 16, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Jewish liberator of Nazi camp, wife of 78 years die hours apart
by Associated Press
April 16, 2020

A World War II veteran and his wife of nearly eight decades who had tested positive for COVID-19 died together on the same day. David and Muriel Cohen died within hours of each other at a Longmeadow nursing home on April 10. Muriel, 97, had tested positive for the virus and David, 102, had been sick but his test results came back negative. The couple decided to remain together even as the Jewish Nursing Home tried to transfer residents who were infected to a separate unit. READ MORE

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