“Netanyahu had the best chance to form a government,” Rivlin said in a speech alongside the prime minister.

Posted on September 25, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Rivlin gives Netanyahu mandate to form government
by Gil Hoffman
September 26, 2019

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been given the chance to form a government for the sixth time on Wednesday, after succeeding in his five terms in office but not having the opportunity to do so following the April election. President Reuven Rivlin formally gave Netanyahu four weeks to form the government, after a meeting at the President’s Residence with Blue and White leader Benny Gantz failed to bring about a breakthrough. The deadline will be October 24…A Channel 12 poll broadcast Wednesday night found that the public prefers Netanyahu go first in a rotation with Gantz. READ MORE

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If Gantz “becomes prime minister, American Jews will have some cause to celebrate”

Posted on September 24, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

NEW YORK TIMES
Benny Gantz Can’t Heal the Rift Between U.S. Jews and Israel
by Daniel Gordis
September 23, 2019

…But contrary to conventional wisdom, I believe that any new Israeli prime minister might ultimately make matters worse between Israel and American Jews. That’s because American Jews will discover that some of the policies they detested and associated with Netanyahu are actually supported by a wide spectrum of Israelis. What they thought they disliked about Netanyahu they may find that they dislike about Israel itself. READ MORE

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“As Israeli frustration mounts about violence coming out of Gaza, the idea of a ground invasion, and once and for all to finish with Hamas aggression, becomes more appealing”

Posted on September 23, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

WASHINGTON TIMES
Should Israel Invade Gaza?
by Daniel Pipes
September 23, 2019

...Attitudes toward Gaza are in flux. Efraim Inbar, the strategist who heads the Jerusalem Institute for Security Studies, for years advocated “mowing the grass” as “Israel’s strategy for protracted intractable conflict.” By this, he advocated an occasional reminder to Hamas’ rulers and other Gazans of Israel’s overwhelming power...But Mr. Inbar recently recognized the high costs of this passivity and now calls for a “restricted ground invasion” of the territory: Why? Because “a short-term ground operation will bring better results than Israel’s activity thus far [i.e., mowing the lawn]. We need to maneuver inside enemy territory, locate them, and destroy them, or tie the hands of its members.” READ MORE

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Israel to play baseball in 2020 Olympics “where it will face powerhouse teams such as the United States, Japan, and the Dominican Republic”

Posted on September 23, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

NBC SPORTS
Israel is first nation to qualify for 2020 Olympic baseball tournament
by Olympic Talk
September 22, 2019

Israel’s baseball team, which captivated at the 2017 World Baseball Classic, is headed to its first Olympics next summer. Israel won a joint European-African tournament to become the first nation to qualify for baseball’s return to the Games after the sport was voted off the program after Beijing 2008…Four more countries will qualify — two at the global Premier12 in November, another from the Americas and one more from a last-chance qualifier next year. Israel, ranked 19th in the world, advanced via its best opportunity in Italy this week. It upset the highest-ranked European nations — the Netherlands (No. 8) and host Italy (No. 16) — and wrapped it up with an 11-1 win over South Africa on Sunday. READ MORE

JEWISH BASEBALL NEWS Unbelievable: Israel to play baseball in 2020 Olympics A veteran oddsmaker wouldn’t have taken the bet. A Hollywood producer wouldn’t have entertained such a preposterous plot line. No one — except perhaps Israel Association of Baseball president Peter Kurz, the eternally optimistic uncle you might dismiss as delusional — would have believed the Israeli national baseball team could earn a berth in the 2020 Olympics…

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Iran: “Trump must remember a cardinal rule: If we reward aggression, we’ll get more of it”

Posted on September 22, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Submitting to Islamist bullies won’t make America great again
by Clifford D. May
September 22, 2019

John Bolton’s sudden departure from the White House last week cheered progressives who believe America has no enemies, just friends whose grievances we’ve failed to address, as well as those conservatives who believe if we leave our enemies alone, they’ll return the favor. And you thought there was no common ground between left and right!…Bolton’s departure was reportedly precipitated when Trump began to consider giving in to demands from Iran’s rulers to relieve economic pressure on them as a precondition for new talks about their nuclear weapons program, support for terrorists, imperialist aggression and other malign activities.  READ MORE

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Jews and Arabs saving each other’s lives

Posted on September 22, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

ELDER OF ZIYON
Jews and Arabs donate kidneys to each other when original recipients were not suitable
from YNET
September 20, 2019

Twenty-four hours before the dramatic moment the polls opened, two Jewish men and two Arab women faced their own dramatic moment: a chain of operations that saved the lives of two of them. Ido from the religious community of Hoshaya intended to donate a kidney altruistically to Israel, which he did not know before, but unfortunately he was found unsuitable for matching. So did Aida Mashfaram, who intended to donate a kidney to her sister-in-law Hanan, but the results of the tests showed that this would not be possible. At Rambam Hospital, the four proposed a “chain of transplants”, which led to Aida donating her kidney to Israel, while Ido donated a kidney to Hanan. READ MORE

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“Nowhere in her book does Bari Weiss indicate she has any problem with the deadening mental conformity of contemporary American liberalism”

Posted on September 22, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

MOSAIC
In Her New Book on Anti-Semitism, Bari Weiss Bravely States the Obvious
September 11, 2019

In How to Fight Anti-Semitism, Bari Weiss points out that anti-Semitism is as much a creature of the left as of the right, and that the anti-Zionism that has overtaken progressive circles and college campuses is indistinguishable from other forms of hatred of Jews. That the book must be judged brave for saying so, and that Weiss has attracted so much vitriol for holding these opinions, writes Hillel Halkin in his review, is “a badge of shame for the ‘progressive’ America” of which Weiss considers herself a part. READ MORE

ELDER OF ZIYON Critiquing Judith Butler’s critique of Bari Weiss For some reason, Jewish Currents chose rabid anti-Israel ideologue Judith Butler to review Bari Weiss’ “How to Fight Anti-Semitism,” a book that describes in detail why modern anti-Zionism is a new form of antisemitism just as toxic as white supremacism, a thesis with which Butler violently disagrees.

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“How Iran makes war in the Middle East while turning U.S. foreign policy into an extension of partisan American politics”

Posted on September 22, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

TABLET MAG
Team Iran
by Lee Smith
September 20, 2019

It wouldn’t seem hard for anyone remotely interested in the fate of the planet to draw at least one clear lesson from last Saturday’s Iranian strikes on Saudi Arabia: There is no way that the regime that casually took 50% of Saudi oil production offline can ever be allowed to get anywhere near possessing a nuclear bomb. Imagine what a nuclear-armed Iran might do to the oil production on which the entire planet depends for energy, transportation, and food. Does anyone really care to wager that an Iranian regime that had such devastating weapons wouldn’t actually use them? That seems like a bad bet. READ MORE

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“Many adults who do not deny that the Earth is getting warmer do deny that the threat is “existential” and do believe that the left’s solutions, such as the Green New Deal, will damage the world far more than will carbon emissions”

Posted on September 22, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

REAL CLEAR POLITICS
If You Can’t Sell Your Hysteria to Adults, Try Kids
by Dennis Prager
September 24, 2019

…Proof that the left is hysterical is its unwillingness to promote nuclear power — a completely clean, non-fossil fuel-based source of power. It provides France with 70 percent of its energy. Anyone who really believes life on Earth is endangered would grasp at the nuclear power lifeboat. That they do not proves what many of us have believed from the beginning: The “existential threat” scenario is another left-wing falsehood used to whip up hysteria that will lead to the left’s control of the economy and society. READ MORE

ISRAELLY COOL BDS Movement Further Slides into Parody As They Accuse Israel of ‘Climate Apartheid’ Just when you thought you’ve heard and seen it all, along come the Israel haters (or Palestinians) to invent something new. Introducing – wait for it – climate apartheid!

POWERLINE Exposing Junk Climate Science This twelve-minute video by Tony Heller of Real Climate Science, released just yesterday, does a great job of exposing the deceptive use of data on which climate alarmism depends. Heller begins with the National Climate Assessment that recently went out to journalists and policymakers. It included a set of charts and graphs that superficially seemed to support the claim that we are experiencing alarming changes in the Earth’s climate, as summed up in this graphic.

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“Whatever the motivations, a formal mutual defense pact between US and Israel will end up being a distinct liability for both”

Posted on September 20, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
A Formal US-Israeli Defense Pact Is Still A Bad Idea
by Ilan Berman
September 19, 2019

The question of whether the United States and Israel should sign a formal mutual defense pact is a recurring theme in relations between the two countries. It came up again in the run-up to this week’s tumultuous elections as a result of public advocacy on the part of Washington and behind-the-scenes encouragement from Jerusalem. The motivation on both sides is understandable; the US wants to demonstrate its enduring commitment to Israeli security, while the Israeli government is eager to capitalize on the pro-Israeli attitudes of the Trump administration…READ MORE

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