“Given Linda Sarsour’s record, her claim that she supports Bernie Sanders because of rising anti-Semitism in America is irony thick enough to cut with a chainsaw”

Posted on September 12, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

FEDERALIST
Warren Mimics Bernie’s Promotion Of Anti-Semite Linda Sarsour To Campaign Surrogate
by Warren Henry
September 11, 2019

Personnel is policy, or so the saying goes. So it is troubling that the two leading left-wing presidential candidates—Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren—are empowering people who at best hate Israel and support the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement intended to destroy the Jewish state. Over the weekend, Sanders tweeted a video identifying Linda Sarsour as a campaign surrogate...More broadly, Sarsour has asserted anti-Semitism is “different than anti-black racism or Islamophobia because it’s not systemic.” This is news to anyone who has spent more than a moment studying the subject. READ MORE

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“Over the past year, more than a dozen Jewish-American professional ballplayers have obtained Israeli citizenship under the nation’s Law of Return”

Posted on September 12, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

WALL STREET JOURNAL
Israel’s Baseball Team: Now Starring Actual Israelis
by Jared Diamond
September 10, 2019

…Buoyed by that unexpected success, Israel now hopes to earn a spot in the Tokyo Olympics next year, with baseball returning to the program for the first time since 2008. Unlike the WBC, the Olympic Charter requires all athletes to be a national of the country they represent—a problem, since only about 1,000 people play baseball in Israel. So Israel found a solution: Over the past year, more than a dozen Jewish-American professional ballplayers have obtained Israeli citizenship under the nation’s Law of Return, a process known as making aliyah—Hebrew for “ascent.” READ MORE SUBSCRIPTION CONTENT

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Is Pakistan Preparing to Recognize Israel?

Posted on September 12, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

HAARETZ
Israel Would Welcome Ties With Pakistan. Should India Worry?
by Efraim Inbar
September 10, 2019

According to an op-ed in Haaretz this week, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and his military supporters are allowing a highly-censored media unprecedented freedom to discuss the possibility of establishing diplomatic relations with Israel. Such a public debate is not new. The highest-ranking Pakistani politician who advocated open diplomatic ties with Israel was the military dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf in 2003. Over the past two decades he has urged his country to initiate such a diplomatic move. Nowadays, it seems the once-taboo subject of reassessing the position on the Jewish state is more than ever part of mainstream discourse. READ MORE

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“The 30-year old Avi Berkowitz plainly lacks the heft Jason Greenblatt – though an international affairs novice, he was a veteran, seasoned attorney and negotiator – brought to the table”

Posted on September 12, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

JEWISH PRESS
Enter Avi Berkowitz
Editorial Board
September 11, 2019

…It is no secret that while the Trump Administration is ready to go, the Palestinians have rejected the plan out of hand by virtue of the plan’s reputed abandonment of a two-state solution with a divided Jerusalem and an overarching emphasis on Palestinian economic development. So, unless there is to be a fundamental rethinking of Trump’s core thinking, of which there is nary a sign, it is hard to believe that there is any real substantive role for Kushner and Berkowitz to play.  READ MORE

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“At American universities, personal grievances are what everyone’s talking about”

Posted on September 12, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

BLOOMBERG
The Rise of the Comfort College
by Steven B. Gerrard
September 9, 2019

Last year, in the fall of 2018, I tried to stand up for campus free speech. A small group of faculty at Williams College in Massachusetts, where I teach philosophy, had circulated a petition to have our institution sign a national pledge of allegiance to principles of free expression that originated at the University of Chicago. Over 50 colleges and universities, including Princeton and the Citadel, had already adopted the mainstream liberal principles, protecting both speakers and protesters. READ MORE

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“Sources in Washington acknowledged that there is no contradiction between Netanyahu’s plan to annex the Jordan Valley and Trump’s peace plan. It is impossible to overstate the significance of these statements”

Posted on September 11, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
Netanyahu’s earth-shattering announcement
by Caroline B. Glick
September 11, 2019

Hamas, which seeks to annihilate Israel, certainly was none too pleased with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement Tuesday evening that if re-elected, he would apply Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea in coordination with the United States. Hamas has good reason not to like what Netanyahu said. It even made sense that Gaza’s terror regime tried to harm Netanyahu politically by launching a volley of missiles at Ashdod while Netanyahu was giving a speech in the city. READ MORE

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John Bolton “acted as a break on the president’s neo-isolationism. The future of diplomacy with North Korea, the Taliban and even Tehran now hangs in the balance”

Posted on September 11, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
With Bolton gone, will Trump make a deal with Iran?
by Jonathan Tobin
September 10, 2019

Perhaps it was as much about personalities as policy. The notoriously brusque and hard-driving John Bolton was always an awkward fit as National Security Advisor for a president like Donald Trump, who prefers subordinates to be sycophants…Despite the opposition of the Democrats at home and America’s feckless European allies abroad, Trump is now interested in talking with the Iranians. That appalled Bolton, as it did Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Both of them believe that negotiations with Islamist dictators will never achieve a thing, and both fear that talks with Iran will inevitably lead to appeasement. READ MORE

BLOOMBERG U.S. President Trump could meet with Iran’s Rouhani at U.N. with no preconditions: Pompeo

NEW YORK SUN Editorial Board: Can Trump Hew the Hard Line After Bolton?

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On the morning of 9/11, former IDF commando Danny Lewin boarded American Airlines Flight No. 11 to fly from Boston to LA.

Posted on September 11, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

JEWISH JOURNAL
Honoring Danny Lewin. A Genius, a Hero, and the First Victim of 9/11
by Micha Danzig
September 11, 2019

…Based on the investigation done by the FBI’s and FAA, it appears rather certain that Danny Lewin was the first victim of the largest terrorist attack in history, an attack that murdered almost 3,000 people in one day. An internal memorandum of the FAA says “that in the course of a struggle that took place between Lewin, a graduate of Israel’s elite commando unit, Sayeret Matkal, and the four hijackers who were assaulting that cockpit, Lewin was murdered by Satam Al Suqami, a 25-year-old Saudi.” READ MORE

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“The greatest strategic threat to the future of Israel and the Jewish people is growing divide between my generation of American Millennial Diaspora Jews and those previous generations of diaspora Jews and current Israelis who believe in the survival of the Jewish state”

Posted on September 10, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
The Privilege of American Millennial Diaspora Jews
by Micah Q. Jones
September 7, 2019

This August, I traveled to Israel as one of 40 Israel Law and Policy (“I-LAP”) delegates. The I-LAP tour was hosted by Our Soldiers Speak (“OSS”)—a non-profit organization focused on elevating the discourse surrounding Israel. In addition to international trips like the one I was participating in, OSS facilitates high-level, pro-Israel, speaking events at elite universities throughout the Western world…Despite the incredible briefings, I believe that many of the speakers, and my fellow delegates, are ignorant to one of the greatest threats facing Israel and the Jewish people…READ MORE

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“The decisive factor in next week’s election — and the reason for Benjamin Netanyahu’s durability — is a repressed memory”

Posted on September 9, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

NEW YORK TIMES
The One Thing No Israeli Wants to Discuss
by Matti Friedman
September 9, 2019

…No single episode has shaped Israel’s population and politics like the wave of suicide bombings perpetrated by Palestinians in the first years of the 21st century. Much of what you see here in 2019 is the aftermath of that time, and every election since has been held in its shadow. The attacks, which killed hundreds of Israeli civilians, ended hopes for a negotiated peace and destroyed the left, which was in power when the wave began. Any sympathy that the Israeli majority had toward Palestinians evaporated. READ MORE

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