“The claim that Israeli settlements are illegal was flimsy in 1978 and is ridiculous in 2019”

WALL STREET JOURNAL
Pompeo Busts the ‘Occupation’ Myth
by Eugene Kontorovich
Novenber 19, 2019

Is­raeli set­tle­ments in the West Bank do not vi­o­late in­ternational law. That is now Amer­i­ca’s of­fi­cial view, an­nounced Mon­day by Sec­re­tary of State Mike Pom­peo. The his­toric de­ci­sion re­pu­di­ates the con­clu­sions of a 1978 State De­part­ment mem­o­ran­dum. For decades, Israel’s detractors have appealed to consensus, asserting that settlements are illegal because the entire international community agrees they are illegal. As with Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, the Trump administration has refused to be cowed by a hollow consensus. By dissenting, the U.S. has destroyed both the consensus and the frail arguments that relied on it. READ MORE SUBSCRIPTION CONTENT

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“Approval of bill by Netanyahu comes following change in US stance regarding the legality of Israeli settlements in the West Bank”

JERUSALEM POST
Netanyahu approves Jordan Valley Annexation bill after US changes policy
by Lahav Harkov, Tovah Lazaroff
November 19, 2019

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave his approval on Tuesday to advance a bill that would have Israel apply sovereignty to the Jordan Valley, after the US State Department reversed its stance of viewing Israeli towns in Judea and Samaria as illegal. Netanyahu called US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s decision “historic” during a visit the day after the announcement to the Gush Etzion region. The UN and others condemned Pompeo’s statement. Likud MK Sharren Haskel proposed the annexation bill weeks ago, but decided to fast-track it in light of the change in US policy. READ MORE

From Jerusalem U, the first of a five-part series on The Israeli Settlements:

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“Trump’s extraordinary gesture of support for Israel and the rights of the Jewish people was evident in the historic statement. The US has rightly concluded that falsely calling settlements illegal is not helpful for peace”

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
Pompeo’s statement on Israeli settlements is a diplomatic turning point
by Caroline Glick
November 18, 2019

Monday will long be remembered as a turning point in Middle East history. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement Monday that Israeli settlements are not illegal per se is the most significant shift in U.S. Middle East policy in the past generation. Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s capital has been a matter of U.S. law since 1996. There was little interest in Washington in recent years in pressuring Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights. But the issue of the legality of Israeli settlements has been the defining issue of much of the international discourse on Israel for a generation. READ MORE

JNS Jewish, Israel-related groups react to US announcement on settlements The responses were characteristically similar, with conservative groups lauding the long-desired position and liberal entities against what they feel is placing an obstacle on peace.

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“U of Toronto Graduate Student Union opposes campus kosher food as ‘pro-Israel’”

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Are Jews welcome at the University of Toronto?
by Michael Saenger
November 18, 2019

On November 14, the University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union, a group to which I once belonged, declared that it would not support the availability of kosher food on campus, ostensibly because kosher food was requested by Hillel, which supports Israel…It is more with a sense of sadness than rage that I say that the Graduate Students’ Union’s decision is, simply put, a purely anti-Semitic gesture, with a reference to Israel operating as a weak and transparent excuse. READ MORE

COMMENTARY A New Strategy on Campus: Blame the Jews In a riveting and sad New York Times op-ed, Blake Flayton, a student at George Washington University and a “gay abortion rights advocate and environmentalist,” explained why his fellow progressives call him a “baby killer” and “apartheid enabler.” Like 95 percent of Jews, according to Gallup, the op-ed’s author has a “favorable” view of Israel.

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California Democrats vote down motion to send Israeli Jews back to the countries from which they were evicted

NEW YORK POST
Democrats to Israel: Go to Hell
by Karol Markowicz
November 17, 2019

Last week, Israel once again faced a barrage of rockets from Gaza while most of the mainstream Democratic candidates whistled and looked away. Candidates don’t have to comment on every event happening around the world, but the ­silence of much of the Democratic field feels like more than passing disinterest. And when Vice President Joe Biden offered even a bland message of support for Israel that would have been unremarkable a few years ago, he got massive pushback from the left on Twitter. READ MORE

JTA California Democrats vote down ‘highly flawed anti-Israel’ amendment to party platform California Democrats voted down an amendment to their party platform that called for the right of return for Palestinians and eliminated references to the two-state solution. The amendment presented Sunday at the state party’s fall convention also advocated for the return of the descendants of Jewish refugees in Israel to the countries from which they fled. The Democrats for Israel Los Angeles chapter said in a statement that it coordinated the efforts to defeat the “highly flawed anti-Israel” amendment.

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“Senior Israeli official reportedly describes ‘bewilderment and anger’ in Washington as elections and coalition wrangling fail to produce government”

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Trump said ‘frustrated’ with Netanyahu as deadlock delays peace plan
by Staff
November 17, 2019

Senior Israeli officials believe US President Donald Trump is “very disappointed” with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and frustrated that the ongoing political stalemate has significantly delayed the unveiling of Washington’s long-awaited Middle East peace plan, according to a report Sunday. Israel has been stuck in a political deadlock for some seven months, after two successive rounds of elections failed to produce a clear winner. US officials, who were reportedly readying to roll out the plan earlier this year, have said they are waiting until an Israeli government is formed to release the peace proposal. READ MORE

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“Chicagoans are about to learn how their mayor wants to meet the high costs of school district and City Hall spending”

CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Who will bear the burden of CTU’s generous new contract? Take a guess.
Editorial Board
November 18, 2019

Tapped-out Chicago taxpayers will not be surprised to learn there is no secret stash of money in the basement at Chicago Public Schools to pay for the expensive new teacher contract. Chicago Teachers Union officials earlier this year said the costs of a new contract would come from “rich people,” casino gambling, legalized marijuana and sports betting. Nope. Those revenues won’t cover the 16% pay raises and other promises. Money expected to be generated, eventually, from gambling and cannabis legalization would flow to the city budget, not the schools. The burden will be borne by rank-and-file middle-class taxpayers and property owners. Same as it ever was in Illinois. READ MORE

ILLINOIS POLICY Illinois pension costs skyrocketed by 500%, crowding out government services Since fiscal year 2000, after adjusting for inflation, state spending on education has grown by 21%. State spending on everything from child protection, state police, college aid for low-income students and more has fallen by nearly one-third during that time. State spending on pensions for government workers, meanwhile, grew by a whopping 501% – on top of a 127% increase in spending on health care costs for state workers.

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Deputy Defense Minister Avi Dichter: “Israel’s political and military leadership need to decide at a certain point to launch a campaign that will destroy the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza”

JNS
As Gaza ceasefire wobbles, a full-scale Israeli military incursion remains on the table
by Israel Kasnett
November 15, 2019

The ceasefire put into place on Thursday morning between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terror organization stood on shaky ground as terrorists violated it and launched a number of rockets from the Gaza Strip at Israel throughout the day, with Jerusalem refraining from responding. Skeptical Israelis see no end to the rocket fire, even if a temporary halt is reached. Some see an Israeli military ground incursion into Gaza as the only solution to finally wipe out the military capabilities of PIJ and Hamas, which would ultimately eliminate the terror threat that exists today against millions of innocent Israeli civilians. READ MORE

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“Until American progressives accept that the occupation is not the central issue for Israelis, we’re going to have a hard time reunifying the Jewish people”

TIMES OF ISRAEL
‘Occupation Über Alles’
by Daniel Gordis
November 15, 2019

We’re asking the wrong question about the occupation. “When will Israel end the occupation,” or more commonly among many American Jewish progressives, “What can we do to pressure Israel to end the occupation?” are the wrong questions. The right question lies emblazoned on the other side of that same coin: “When will the Palestinians declare an end to their desire to destroy Israel, so Israelis might be more willing to consider making territorial and security concessions?” As long as the Palestinians insist that they are committed to destroying Israel (see Article XIII in the Hamas Charter), why would any sane Israeli depart the West Bank without guarantees that Hamas will not take over that territory, too, turning it into another Gaza, with the results we saw this week? READ MORE

NEW YORK TIMES On the Frontlines of Progressive Anti-Semitism I am a young, gay, left-wing Jew. Yet I am called an “apartheid-enabler,” a “baby killer” and a “colonial apologist.”…As a sophomore at George Washington University, whose student government last year passed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions proposal, I now find myself pushed to the fringes of a movement I thought I was at the heart of, marginalized as someone suspicious at best and oppressive at worst. This is because I am a Zionist. It is because I, like 95 percent of American Jews, support Israel.

GW HATCHET Officials condemn, work to respond to anti-Semitic Snapchat video Officials are working to respond to what they called an “abhorrent social media video” in which a student called Jewish individuals “pieces of shit” on Snapchat. In the video – which was made public on Facebook Tuesday and officials said they obtained Sunday – an un-filmed individual appears to have asked the student, “What are we going to do to Israel?” The woman responded, “Bro, we’re going to fucking bomb Israel, bro. Fuck out of here, Jewish pieces of shit.”

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Israel: Take back your Iron Dome and replace it with an Iron Fist

ZEHUT INTERNATIONAL
Why I am AGAINST the Iron Dome
by Shmuel Sackett
November 14, 2019

…The Iron DOME has to be replaced with the Iron FIST. Instead of sitting and catching 86% of rockets shot at Israeli cities (according to official sources) the IDF needs to issue a simple, yet very powerful statement: Israel’s new system – the Iron Fist – automatically fires back 100 rockets for every one rocket that is fired at us. This is Day #1. Starting with Day #2 – the Iron Fist fires back 200 rockets and by Day #3 its 300-for-1 and so on. Furthermore, the rockets fired by the Iron Fist will not be towards empty fields and abandoned buildings but exactly to the same kind of areas where the enemy shot at us. READ MORE

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