A Muslim man who killed his Jewish neighbor in Paris while shouting about Allah is probably not criminally responsible for his actions because he had smoked marijuana beforehand, a French judge has ruled. The preliminary ruling in the trial of Kobili Traore for the 2017 murder of Sarah Halimi came Friday from a judge of inquiry — a magistrate that in the French justice system is tasked with deciding whether indicted defendants should in fact stand trial…Halimi was murdered in 2017 after she was attacked by her Muslim neighbor while she was sleeping in her apartment. He stabbed her, yelled “Allahu Akbar,” and then threw her from the third story to her death. READ MORE
Fathi Hammad, a member of Hamas’s politburo who is considered a hard-liner and is known for his fiery rhetoric, made the statement in a speech at a protest in the border region between the Gaza Strip and Israel on Friday…All of you 7 million Palestinians abroad, enough of the warming up. You have Jews everywhere and we must attack every Jew on the globe by way of slaughter and killing, if God permits. Enough of the warming up,” he added. READ MORE
“The occupation is a real problem,” said Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden on Friday, referring to Israel’s military presence in the West Bank, in an election rally event in Dover, New Hampshire. “Elias Newman, 26, an American Jew from far-left group IfNotNow asked Joe Biden if he were elected, would he pressure Israel to end the occupation. The former vice president said that “there’s no answer but a two-state solution,” then added, “I think the settlements are unnecessary.” Biden continued and said that pressure should also be exerted on Palestinian leaders, who need “to be prepared to stop the hate.” READ MORE
JNS The problem with opposing Israel’s ‘occupation’While it wasn’t likely that IfNotNow volunteers could persuade Democratic presidential candidates to adopt their anti-Zionist platform, they had a much more realistic goal. They hoped to create confrontations on the campaign trail, especially in state like New Hampshire, where local retail politics is a must, which could produce viral video moments in which some Democrats might be persuaded to make statements that would illustrate their party’s drift away from Israel.
Anti-Israel activists from IfNotNow try to pigeon hole New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and force him to agree with their claim that the Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria is a “human rights crisis”. They use fake statistics to try to strengthen their argument but Booker doesn’t fall for it.
…One thing to remember about the Iran deal that Mr. Biden now promises to rejoin: It was opposed — “overwhelmingly,” said the New York Times — by both houses of Congress at the time the deal was struck. Yet President Obama and Secretary Kerry, without a peep of opposition from Mr. Biden, took the deal to the United Nations and voted for it there in opposition to our own Congress. The aim was to trap America in the deal despite Congress…Americans were horrified when they discovered that, as part of the deal, the Obama administration had airlifted pallets of cash — billions — to Iran. READ MORE
I once opened a speech by confessing to a crowd of Jews that I used to hate them. It was 2006 and I was a young native of Somalia who’d been elected to the Dutch Parliament. The American Jewish Committee was giving me its Moral Courage Award. I felt honored and humbled, but a little dishonest if I didn’t own up to my anti-Semitic past. So I told them how I’d learned to blame the Jews for everything. Fast-forward to 2019. A freshman congresswoman from Minnesota has been infuriating the Jewish community and discomfiting the Democratic leadership with her expressions of anti-Semitism. Like me, Ilhan Omar was born in Somalia and exposed at an early age to Muslim anti-Semitism. READ MORE SUBSCRIPTION CONTENT
Thirty-three years ago, when I entered college, left-wing ideologies dominated American universities, and especially the humanities and social sciences. But one still could get a fair, balanced education by consulting traditional canonical texts that countered the dogma. Free speech was alive on college campuses. There were hisses and boos, of course, but for the most part, hearing perspectives different from your own was considered essential to your education. Few of us lived in our own curated silos. Today, after 22 years of being a college professor, and having traveled much of America to lecture, I am sad to say the situation is not the same.READ MORE
“Why Israel, From Why Should I Care to What Can I Do?” was the multi-part question asked and answered this week, as more than 5,000 members of Christians United for Israel (CUFI) braved biblically bad rain to gather in Washington, D.C., and stand with Israel…At the summit, significant time was devoted to exciting new archaeological discoveries like the pilgrimage road and biblical kings’ seals, as well as security threats posed by Hamas and Hezbollah’s terror tunnels and Iran’s nuclear ambitions…Time was also devoted to domestic anti-Semitism and the urgency of opposing it. READ MORE
The Iranian regime has never “repurposed” the Fordow uranium enrichment facility as required by the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between the Islamic Republic and world powers, the Institute for Science and International Security said in an explosive report Wednesday. The deal stated, “Iran will convert the Fordow facility into a nuclear, physics and technology centre.” However, the report noted that the facility has in fact “never been repurposed” in that “everything required to enrich uranium to weapons grade could be quickly reconstituted.”READ MORE
Sarah Idan, who represented Iraq in the 2017 Miss Universe competition, is facing calls for her citizenship to be revoked over remarks she made before the United Nations in support of Israel and peace. The 29-year-old Idan’s family was forced to flee Iraq after she posed for a photo on Instagram with Israel’s representative to the competition, 21-year-old Adar Gandelsman. Idan, who lives in California, received death threats over the photo. Earlier this month, Idan appeared before the United Nations Human Rights Council where she expressed public support for Israel….READ MORE
…“Sweden is at war and it is the politicians who are responsible. Five nights in a row, cars have been set on fire in the university town of Lund. Such insane acts have occurred on hundreds of occasions in various places in Sweden over the past fifteen years. From 1955 to 1985, not a single car was ignited in Malmö, Gothenburg, Stockholm or Lund…. None of these criminals is starving or lacking in access to clean water. They have a roof over their heads and they have been offered free schooling…. They do not live in dilapidated houses…. It is called upbringing and this is missing for thousands of girls and boys in Swedish homes today.” — Björn Ranelid, Swedish author, Expressen, July 5, 2019. READ MORE