Three main parties are leading the Hamas-Israel mediation efforts: Egypt, Qatar and the UN

Posted on March 12, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

THE HILL
Palestinian Islamists disrupt an attempted truce in Gaza
by Eitan Dangot
March 11, 2020

While Israel attempted to achieve quiet in the lead-up to the March 2 elections, Hamas, with a strategic interest in pausing the fighting, also sought quiet to improve living standards in Gaza. But the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) torpedoed this attempt. The escalation that erupted between the PIJ and Israel in February is characteristic of the PIJ’s recent efforts to disrupt calm in Gaza. Hamas has determined that a truce can boost its regional standing in the Middle East and enable it to find support beyond its traditional, more radical allies. At the same time, a ceasefire enables Hamas to build up its resources and prepare for further developments in the West Bank…READ MORE

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“Founded in 1869, The Standard Club was long a who’s who of Chicago Jewish business leaders”

Posted on March 12, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

CHICAGO TRIBUNE
The Standard Club, long the social nexus for Chicago’s Jewish leaders, is closing May 1 amid financial struggles
by Robert Channick
March 5, 2020

For more than 150 years, The Standard Club has been the social nexus for Chicago’s Jewish elite, hosting everything from business lunches to weddings at the members-only downtown institution. But times have changed. Facing dwindling membership and usage, the financially challenged club announced this week it is selling its storied building and closing May 1. “Unfortunately, the club has recently faced challenging business circumstances similar to those that have faced many urban private clubs in terms of membership, usage and revenue,” The Standard Club said in a statement Wednesday. “The board has come to the very difficult decision that club operations are no longer sustainable.” READ MORE

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“When Israel first started pulling up the drawbridges, it was taking the most extreme measures in the West to contain COVID-19”

Posted on March 12, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Is Israel at the forefront of coronavirus measures?
by Lahav Harkov
March 13, 2020

…After the government announced it was stopping flights from China, there was talk about adverse diplomatic effects. China is very sensitive to its image in the world, and as a result, Israel made efforts to show that its problem was with the virus, not all of China. Those efforts included a video, produced by the Foreign Ministry, of Israelis saying that they stand with the Chinese in this difficult time; it was such a success that major Chinese newspapers and official TV channels reported on it. Israeli aid organizations also tried to send supplies to Wuhan, where COVID-19 first broke out. READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL All leisure venues closing as Netanyahu urges Israel: Adjust to new way of life Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and government officials on Saturday announced a shutdown of all leisure businesses and activities throughout the country, with the premier pressing upon the public the need to “adopt a new way of life” for the coming weeks and possibly months as the country deals with the new coronavirus — and particularly underlining a guiding principle of individuals maintaining a distance of at least two meters from others at all times.

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“A Trump-Biden matchup will give voters a choice between two different visions of relations with Israel, the Palestinians and Iran”

Posted on March 12, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Biden’s revival means a return to Obama’s Middle East policies
by Jonathan S. Tobin
March 11, 2020

…Biden has sounded more supportive of Israel than his boss or most of his 2020 Democratic competitors. But the former vice president also remains an enthusiastic supporter of Obama’s efforts to pressure the Jewish state into concessions that the majority of its people have rejected as irresponsible and a danger to their security. Biden opposes Trump’s efforts to end Obama’s policy of more “daylight” between the United States and Israel, such as the move of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the recognition of the Golan Heights as Israeli territory and the effort to force the Palestinian Authority to stop funding terrorism. READ MORE

JEWISH INSIDER The distinguished gentleman from Ra’anana: The congressman who now calls Israel home Former Florida Rep. Peter Deutsch (D) has been out of Congress for 15 years — but he has plenty of views on his former colleague Bernie Sanders… “Sanders would just be absolutely horrific for the world,” he said. “As a person, he’s a lovely person,” Deutsch said, though he’s “just as ornery as he always seems.”

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“With 500 dead, #Iran to empty the streets, check all 80 million people for virus”

Posted on March 12, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

NATIONAL REVIEW
Will Iran’s Regime Survive Coronavirus?
by Ilan Berman
March 12, 2020

Soaring inflation. Deepening domestic discontent. An expanding environmental crisis. Even before the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in recent weeks, the Iranian regime was struggling under the weight of domestic problems that increasingly threatened to undermine the integrity of the Islamic Republic. With the advent of COVID-19, however, matters have become much, much worse for the Iranian regime — so much so that it isn’t unreasonable to think that the Iranian regime could buckle under the weight of its own internal contradictions. That’s because, for Iran’s ayatollahs, coronavirus represents a true “black swan” event. READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL With 500 dead, Iran to empty the streets, check all 80 million people for virus Top general announces: ‘Over next 10 days, entire nation will be monitored via cyberspace, by phone and, if necessary, in person; those suspected of being ill will be identified’ Iran said Friday the security forces will clear the streets nationwide within 24 hours so all citizens can be checked for coronavirus — its toughest measure yet to combat the outbreak. The COVID-19 epidemic in Iran — a nation of more than 80 million people — has now claimed over 500 lives and infected more than 11,000. 

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This just in from the Social Science Research Network: When Starbucks announced that people were welcome to loiter, their paying customers didn’t really appreciate it

Posted on March 12, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

POWERLINE
Starbucks Learns the Cost of Virtue-Signaling
by Steven Hayward
March 9, 2020

…In May 2018, in response to protests, Starbucks changed its policies nationwide to allow anybody to sit in their stores and use the bathroom without making a purchase. Using a large panel of anonymized cellphone location data, we estimate that the policy led to a 7.3% decline in store attendance at Starbucks locations relative to other nearby coffee shops and restaurants….The policy also affected the intensive margin of demand: remaining customers spent 4.1% less time in Starbucks relative to nearby coffee shops after the policy enactment. Wealthier customers reduced their visits more, but black and white customers were equally deterred. READ MORE

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The tyranny of the majority

Posted on March 12, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

THE AMERICAN INTEREST
Political Correctness Threatens American Higher Education
by Professor Michael Mandelbaum
February 28, 2020

…Besides violating the spirit (and perhaps in some cases the letter) of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the suppression of speech subverts the two basic missions of the university. One of them is the discovery and production of knowledge, which requires free inquiry. The other is the education of students. At its best, this involves what the great sociologist David Riesman called “deprovincialization”—taking the individual beyond the boundaries of the familiar and exposing him or her to ideas, customs, and beliefs previously unknown and sometimes disorienting when first encountered. READ MORE

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In case you don’t have enough data on coronavirus, here’s a minute-by-minute dashboard to fixate on

Posted on March 8, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

NO CAMELS
Top Israeli doctors guide those under Coronavirus quarantine on diet, health–and staying sane
by Simona Shemer
March 11, 2020

Dr. Ishay Lev, a Jerusalem-based family physician with more than 15 years of experience, recently gave an interactive online video presentation to a Chinese audience about the correlation between smoking and the novel coronavirus. Speaking in English with simultaneous Chinese translation, he offered a scientific explanation based on his medical expertise on the dangers of smoking, given the significant correlating factor between smoking and the severity of the virus. Also, Lev’s audience was in quarantine. Dr. Lev is one of some 100 Israeli doctors taking part in an initiative established by Innonation, an Israeli innovation organization that specializes in cross-border projects, to help Chinese residents quarantined because of coronavirus. READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL Updated every minute, 17-year-old whiz kid’s coronavirus site used by millions A self-taught computer maven from Seattle, Avi Schiffmann uses web scraping technology to accurately report on developing pandemic, while fighting misinformation and panic. A Jewish teenager from the Seattle area has built a website that is keeping the world updated on the COVID-19 pandemic as it spreads. The website, ncov2019.live, has been visited by 12 million people since it launched in late December. CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE nCoV2019.LIVE WEBSITE

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Squad member Rashida Tlaib speaks at conference with keychain swag calling “for the destruction of Israel and its replacement with Palestine”

Posted on March 8, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Rashida Tlaib Speaks at Event Promoting the Destruction of Israel
by Daniel Swindell
March 8, 2020

Last Saturday, Rashida Tlaib spoke in St. Louis for American Muslims for Palestine. I live in Missouri, so I protested her talk. I stood in front of the building with a neon pink sign that read, “Rashida Tlaib is an Anti-Semite.” I was not able to hear Tlaib’s presentation, because I wasn’t going to pay 50 dollars to hear her speak. But before the event started, I went inside and took all of their handouts. American Muslims for Palestine also gave out a keychain with the map of Israel removed and replaced with the words, “Jerusalem is the Capital of Palestine.” READ MORE

FREE BEACON Tlaib Pictured in T-Shirt That Erases Israel Off the Map

MEDIAITE Speaker at Sanders Rally Once Said ISIS Acts As Arm of ‘Zionists,’ Bernie is Honorable ‘Even Though He is a Jew Imam Sayed Hassan al-Qazwini, who spoke at a Bernie Sanders rally this week, has said that ISIS is “somehow connected to Israel” and acts as an “arm” of “Zionists,” and on another occasion described Bernie as an “honorable man, even though he is a Jew.” Qazwini spoke at a Dearborn, Michigan rally on Saturday, one of several speakers to precede Sanders. He decried President Donald Trump’s promotion of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, and praised Sanders in colorful terms.

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Israel’s new two-week isolation requirement applies to both Israelis and foreign travelers alike

Posted on March 8, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Two-week isolation ordered for all who enter Israel
by Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman
March 10, 2020

All people entering Israel from abroad will be required to spend 14 days in home isolation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday. The measure became effective at 8 p.m. Monday night. “After a day of complex discussions, we have made a decision: Whoever arrives in Israel from abroad will enter quarantine for 14 days,” Netanyahu said in a video statement Monday as 50 Israelis were diagnosed with coronavirus. “This is a difficult decision but it is essential to maintaining public health, which takes precedence over everything. The message came less than an hour after Israel’s Health Ministry announced that three more people were diagnosed with coronavirus…READ MORE

DANSDEALS.COM El Al Delaying Launch Of Chicago And Tokyo Flights, Expands Flight Change Waiver, Extends Elite Status The launch of service to Chicago will be delayed until 6/28. The launch of service to Dusseldorf will be delayed until 7/3. The launch of service to Tokyo will be delayed until 8/29. El Al plans to continue flying United States, Canada, Europe and Africa, but flights will be based on demand. Flight reductions will be determined in the near future.

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