Illinois School District 219 had planned to use tax dollars to promote Palestine and indoctrinate students against Israel

Posted on May 30, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

JTA
Chicago-area high school pulls support for teacher training on Palestine after pro-Israel backlash
by Ben Sales
May 31, 2019

A high school district with a large Jewish population has withdrawn its recommendation of an optional training opportunity for teachers called “Teaching Palestine” after local teachers, synagogues and national organizations protested…One of the schools, Niles North High, is the primary high school serving Skokie, a local Jewish population center…Offered by a group called Teachers for Social Justice, the course was open to “critical educators who want to teach about Palestine and the Palestine liberation struggle,” according to a May 22 email to teachers obtained by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. READ MORE

JNS After backlash, Illinois high school district withdraws ‘Teaching Palestine’ course Niles Township stated that the lesson wasn’t developed by the district, and that “the district was never going to provide continuing education credits or lane advancement credit for the course.”…StandWithUs and the Simon Wiesenthal Center applauded the reversal. “We are pleased that District 219 acknowledged that their Teaching Palestine course was one-sided and inadequate to address a very complex topic, and that it created a sense of exclusion for Jewish and pro-Israel students,” StandWithUs CEO Roz Rothstein told JNS,

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“Amid heightened tensions on college campuses, well-established scientific ideas are suddenly meeting with stiff political resistance”

Posted on May 30, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

THE ATLANTIC
Self-censorship on Campus Is Bad for Science
by Luana Maroja
May 28, 2019

I have taught evolution and genetics at Williams College for about a decade. For most of that time, the only complaints I got from students were about grades. But that all changed after Donald Trump’s election as president. At that moment, political tensions were running high on our campus. And well-established scientific ideas that I’d been teaching for years suddenly met with stiff ideological resistance. The trouble began when we discussed the notion of heritability as it applies to human intelligence. READ MORE

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“In a shocking turn of events, Netanyahu unable to secure a majority coalition in parliament; Likud-drafted motion to dissolve Knesset passes 74-45 in late-night vote”

Posted on May 29, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Knesset votes for new elections on September 17 after PM fails to form coalition
by Tamar Pileggi and Raoul Wootliff
May 30, 2019

Israel’s parliament on Wednesday voted to dissolve a mere month after it was sworn in, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to meet the midnight deadline to form a new government, triggering an unprecedented second national election this year. After a raucous 12-hour debate, lawmakers voted 74 to 45 in favor of the Likud-drafted bill to dissolve the 21st Knesset and hold new elections on September 17. The Likud, Yisrael Beytenu, United Torah Judaism, Shas and Union of Right-Wing Parties were joined by the two Arab-Israeli parties, Ra’am-Balad and Hadash-Ta’al in supporting the motion. READ MORE

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“But some of the most strident anti-Zionists are Jews, such as Norman Finkelstein and even Israelis such as Gilad Atzmon. Surely they can’t be anti-Semites?”

Posted on May 28, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

GATESTONE
It is Not Surprising to See an Increase in Jew-hatred in Western Europe
by Alan M. Dershowitz
May 28, 2019

…”Oh no,” we hear from European apologists. “This is different. We don’t hate the Jews. We only hate their nation-state. Moreover, the Nazis were right-wing. We’re left-wing, so we can’t be anti-Semites.” Nonsense. The hard left has a history of anti-Semitism as deep and enduring as the hard right. The line from Voltaire to Karl Marx, to Lavrentiy Beria, to Robert Faurisson, to today’s hard-left Israel-bashers is as straight as the line from Wilhelm Marr to the persecutors of Alfred Dreyfus to Hitler. The Jews of Europe have always been crushed between the Black and the Red – victims of extremism whether it be the ultra-nationalism of Khmelnitsky to the ultra-anti-Semitism of Stalin. READ MORE

From Hitler’s Germany (and Europe) to Palestine, a continuum of antisemitism

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Nearly 3,000 Jews, Israeli Arabs, Palestinians and international guests break the fast together in a show of coexistence at Negev-based SodaStream

Posted on May 28, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

ISRAEL 21C
Israelis, Palestinians share Ramadan meal at SodaStream
by Naama Barak
May 29, 2019

Jews, Israeli Arabs and Palestinians walk into a carbonation-machine factory in the desert. This is not the beginning of a joke, but the daily reality at the SodaStream plant in the Negev. And as the company’s Muslim employees are observing the month of Ramadan, marked by daily fasting, they all broke the fast together at a celebratory Iftar dinner this week. The nearly 3,000 attendees, comprised of all of SodaStream’s employees and local and international guests, made the event the largest Iftar celebration in Israel and highlighted the company’s message of coexistence. READ MORE

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Israel, “an oasis for LGBT rights in a desert of homophobic, biphobic and transphobic hate and oppression”

Posted on May 27, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

HURRY UP HARRY
Israeli Pinkwashing? Gurl bye.
by Ben Maxwell Freeman
May 27, 2019

…You may have heard of accusations that Israel engages in “Pinkwashing”. Pinkwashing is the claim that Israel deflects attention from its conflict with Palestine by exaggerating its strong LGBT rights record….The reality is accusations of pinkwashing are made in the vein of attempting to demonise rather than criticise Israel. Those who argue this point, are really saying that Israel is a morally corrupt and inherently manipulative country – and nothing Israel does right can ever make it acceptable. To those on the Left, Israel is and must remain a pariah State, regardless of how progressive and democratic it may be in certain areas. READ MORE

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America’s best diplomat is schooling the Germans again. This time, it’s about Jew hatred.

Posted on May 26, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

AMERICAN THINKER
Grenell schools Germans about wearing the Jewish kippa
by Monica Showalter
May 26, 2019

…The US government’s most high-profile ambassador in Europe, Richard Grenell, said Jews in Germany should not conceal their religious identity and urged them to wear kippot in defiance of a Sunday statement from Germany’s commissioner to combat antisemitism to avoid kippot in public..For [Germany’s]  anti-Semitism commissioner to suggest that Jews need to hide — rather than the cops crack down on violent Nazis and Islamofascists targeting Jews and teaching them a lesson they’ll never forget — is quite despicable. READ MORE

DEUTSCHE WELLE German official warns Jews against wearing kippahs in public The German government’s anti-Semitism commissioner on Saturday warned the country’s Jewish community to avoid donning yarmulkes, the traditional Jewish head coverings for males, in some public spaces due to a rise in anti-Semitic crimes. 

TIMES OF ISRAEL Top German paper to print cutout kippah in solidarity with Jews The editor of Bild, Germany’s largest newspaper, on Sunday said he will print a Jewish skullcap on the front page of the Monday paper so that Germans can cut it out and wear it in solidarity with the local Jewish community.

JERUSALEM POST German Jews demand ban on Hezbollah after kippah warning The nearly 100,000-member Central Council of Jews in Germany urged Chancellor Angela Merkel’s administration to outlaw the entire terrorist entity Hezbollah. Just days after Dr. Felix Klein, Merkel’s commissioner to combat antisemitism and support Jewish life in Germany, said it is not safe for Jews to wear kippot in public…

THE TOWER Every Jewish Institution in Germany Needs Police Protection, Merkel Warns Every Jewish institution in Germany requires police protection, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an exclusive interview with CNN on Tuesday. Speaking to Christian Amanpour about rising levels of anti-Jewish hate, Merkel warned of “dark forces” gaining ground in Germany and across Europe.

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“The Israeli media rarely address the threat to the nation’s democracy represented by a judicial and broader legal system”

Posted on May 26, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Why the Israeli left is still in power
by Dr Kenneth Levin
May 26, 2019

…[Israel’s] Supreme Court’s ideological bias has been rendered much more consequential by its activism. The court has assigned to itself the right to pass judgment on and veto acts of the elected legislature. It claims the right to do so in the context of its supposed role as enforcer of the precepts of the constitution. But Israel, of course, has no constitution. It has basic laws, and the Supreme Court has allowed itself the greatest possible latitude in interpreting these basic laws. One consequence of the court’s activism is its encouragement of expanded prosecutorial authority. READ MORE

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The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Jerusalem Post as well as wire services and other newspapers all managed to leave Zionism out of their summations of Wouk’s life. Except that Zionism is what guided his life.

Posted on May 26, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

ARUTZ SHEVA
Burying Herman Wouk and burying his Zionism
by Moshe Phillips
May 22, 2019

Herman Wouk, the famed novelist who first became a household name for his 1951 Pulitzer Prize winning The Caine Mutiny died last week nearly 70 years after achieving fame. Besides his long career as a writer he was also a lifelong Zionist. This fact of Wouk’s love affair with the State of Israel has been completely absent from the many articles celebrating his literary career and marking his passing, less than two weeks before what would have been his 104th birthday. In this small space we will attempt to rectify that. READ MORE

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We must remember constantly that because we are modern, liberal, democratic, and above all, Jews, we are seen as the “Other” in the Arab world surrounding us

Posted on May 26, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

ISRAEL INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES
Beware of Middle Eastern Politics
by Mordechai Kedar
May 12, 2019

…We must be aware of the fact that the rapprochement with the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates is solely due to the Iranian threat. Their fear of Iran has simply become greater than their historic, religious, national and cultural hatred of the Jewish state that emerged –despite their opposition – on “Palestinian soil.” Accordingly, if and when the Iranian threat weakens or disappears in some way, we may witness a weakening or the complete disappearance of the main reason Saudi Arabia and the Emirates developed relations with Israel and relied on the Jewish state.  READ MORE

JERUSALEM POST Melanie Phillips: How are our new best friends in Saudi Arabia doing these days? Until recently, Saudi Arabia was the principal exporter to the world of the Wahhabi strain of Islamic extremism, which has radicalized countless millions to the jihadi cause. Now, though, the kingdom is no longer trying so hard to do so. It has been almost completely replaced by its foe Qatar as the main source of funding for global Islamist education, and Saudi newspapers regularly publish diatribes against Islamist extremism.

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