Europeans and Egypt send air support as Israel battles wildfires

Posted on May 25, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Israel spends weekend ablaze as fires break out throughout the country
by Tamar Beeri
May 26, 2019

Firefighters managed to contain by Saturday the wildfires that had raged throughout Israel the previous days. International help from Greece, Croatia, Italy, Egypt and Cyprus arrived to help battle the blazes, while Russia and the Palestinian Authority also offered support, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Some 3,500 people were evacuated from towns and dozens of homes were destroyed during the heights of the blazes on Thursday as brushfires raged nationwide, with more than 500 acres of woodland burned…READ MORE

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“No, Israel isn’t a country of privileged and powerful white Europeans”

Posted on May 24, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

TABLET MAG
Who Gets to Speak for Mizrahi Jews?
by Hen Mazzig
May 24, 2019

Earlier this month, I wrote an op-ed in The Los Angeles Times titled “No, Israel isn’t a country of privileged and powerful white Europeans.” I speak from experience: I am neither white, nor European—my grandparents came to Israel from Iraq and North Africa. And, as a gay man, I don’t feel particularly privileged, either. Marc Lamont Hill, a political commentator and professor of media studies and urban education at Temple University, did not like my piece…READ MORE

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Disturbing, not surprising: “Recent poll shows that nothing Trump might do for Israel would impact the opinions of Jewish voters”

Posted on May 24, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
What happens when Israel is your lowest priority?
by Jonathan S. Tobin
May 24, 2019

…But if there is one number that you can learn from a deep dive into the survey’s findings, it’s that only 28 percent of the Jews polled say that support for Israel is one of the most important issues that determine how they vote. That puts it on the bottom of a list of issues presented to them, ranking far below concerns about protecting Medicare and Social Security (the No. 1 issue), health care, gun control, abortion, the Supreme Court, education, taxes and immigration, among others. As the executive summary of the poll summed it up, “Israel is the lowest policy priority for Jewish voters.” READ MORE

ALGEMEINER New Poll of US Jews Connects Growing Anxiety Over Antisemitism With Broader Opposition to Trump The poll — commissioned by the left-leaning Jewish Electorate Institute (JEI) and carried out by veteran Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg — also showed that support for Israel was the lowest political priority among non-Orthodox American Jews, with Trump’s dramatic realignment with the Israeli government over the last two years having virtually no positive impact on his standing in the community.

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Newly-minted NYU PhD (and future Northwestern University professor) takes podium at NYU graduation to attack Israel

Posted on May 23, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

FREE BEACON
NYU Graduation Speaker Smears Trump, Israel
by Mikhael Smits
May 22, 2019

A graduation speaker at New York University called President Donald Trump a “fascist,” described Israel as an “apartheid” state, endorsed the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and praised Occupy Wall Street in a two-minute excerpt from his Monday speech. Speaking at the convocation ceremony for NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Steven William Thrasher praised his fellow doctoral graduates for their fight against the various perceived evils.”  READ MORE

THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN Journalist Steven Thrasher to join Medill as inaugural Daniel H. Renberg chair Thrasher, who has written about LGBTQ issues for publications including The New York Times, The Guardian and Buzzfeed, will join the University as the inaugural Daniel H. Renberg chair, a newly created position in which he will lead programming on LGBTQ issues and teach classes on similar subjects.

JEWISH JOURNAL NYU President ‘Shocked’ At Grad Speaker’s Anti-Semitic Tweets New York University (NYU) President Andrew Hamilton told the Journal that he was “shocked at NYU Doctoral Graduate and soon-to-be Northwestern University Professor Steven Thrasher’s recently unearthed anti-Semitic tweets and that Thrasher shouldn’t have spoken at the May 20 convocation ceremony.

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At the UN: World Health Organization dumps on Israel again while Brigitte Gabriel–a Lebanese woman wearing a Star of David–defends the Jewish state

Posted on May 23, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
World Health Organization’s singling out Israel over health conditions in disputed territories a ‘fantastic lie’
by Eliana Rudee
May 23, 2019

The 72nd assembly of the U.N.’s World Health Organization (WHO) voted 96-11 this week for a resolution, co-sponsored by the Arab bloc and the Palestinian delegation, which singled out Israel over “health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east[ern] Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan.”…Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based non-governmental organization U.N. Watch, condemned the delegates’ abuse of the U.N. body as a forum to target Israel. “Singling out Israel is a perversion of the truth and a perversion of the values under which the World Health Organization was founded,” he told JNS. READ MORE

UN WATCH Good News: Germany, UK, Denmark, Brazil Change Votes at UN to Support Israel In the past two months, two major UN events saw influential countries—including Germany, Britain and Brazil—change their votes to oppose Arab-sponsored resolutions that target Israel for discriminatory treatment, a key objective of UN Watch…

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Israel Builders Association warning that in a country where it takes 15 years to approve a single new housing development, “2030 is tomorrow and 2050 is the day after tomorrow”

Posted on May 23, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
‘Israel is unprepared for the 17 million people who will be living here in 2050’
by Eran Bar-Tal
May 20, 2019

Despite recent attempts by the government to change the housing situation, the housing market in Israel is still in crisis, and if far-reaching changes are not implemented immediately, the crisis will turn into a socio-economic disaster in the years to come, Israel Builders Association president Raul Srugo warned at the association’s annual conference, which took place over the weekend in Eilat. Srugo told the conference that the government must “stop pulling the wool over the public’s eyes.” READ MORE

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Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery: “Now I know why your soldiers fight so hard. You take better care of your dead than we do our living”

Posted on May 23, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

IMPRIMIS
Sacred Duty: A Soldier’s Tour at Arlington National Cemetery
by Senator Tom Cotton
April/May 2019

…Nothing interferes with The Old Guard’s mission in Arlington—and when I say nothing, I mean nothing, not even 9/11. On that beautiful morning, the 9 o’clock funerals were underway when American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon, blasting debris across Washington Boulevard into the cemetery’s southeastern corner. The Old Guard’s Medical Platoon rushed to the scene, becoming the first soldiers to deploy to a battlefield in the War on Terror. Yet those funerals continued. So did the 10 o’clock funerals. And the 11 o’clock funerals. READ MORE

WALL STREET JOURNAL Peggy Noonan:‘Which Way to Pointe du Hoc?’ Each generation is tested, from the Army Rangers of D-Day to the college graduates of 2019…This holiday weekend I find myself reflecting again on the boys who seized back the continent of Europe, and the boys and girls now graduating college and trying to figure out what history asks of them.

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It would be far better if The New York Times waited until the plan was released and then commented on its specific provisions rather than stacking the deck against it by quoting only its most strident critics

Posted on May 23, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

GATESTONE
Why is The New York Times Trying to Abort the Trump Peace Plan?
by Alan M. Dershowitz
May 24, 2019

…Every single expert quoted in the article predicted that it would not succeed. Many of these experts have been involved in past unsuccessful efforts to bring about a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is not surprising that these experts would not want to see others succeed where they have failed, especially if those others were members of the Trump administration. Then one expert went so far as to say: “The only way to protect the long-term viability of the best aspects of the Kushner plan,” he wrote, “is to kill the plan.”…There are those who will criticize any plan, no matter how positive it may be, if it emanates from the Trump administration. READ MORE

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Chicago synagogue on alert on after an attempted arson

Posted on May 20, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

USA TODAY
Chicago synagogues targets of arson, vandalism; police step up patrols
by John Bacon
May 20, 2019

Police in Chicago were stepping up patrols at Jewish schools, businesses and synagogues Monday after someone attempted to set fire to a synagogue with Molotov cocktails. Police released a surveillance photo of a man in a hoodie walking near Anshe Sholom B’nai Israel Congregation in the Lakeview section of the city. Police say he is accused of attempted aggravated arson at two adjoining sites. “The offender used a Molotov at both locations but resulted in no fire damage and no injuries,” police said in a community alert. READ MORE

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Germany becomes first European country to pass landmark resolution designating BDS campaign against Israel as antisemitic

Posted on May 20, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

REUTERS
Germany designates BDS Israel boycott movement as anti-Semitic
by Joseph Nasr, Riham Alkousaa
May 17, 2019

The German parliament voted on Friday to condemn as anti-Semitic a movement that calls for economic pressure on Israel to end the occupation of Palestinian land, grant Arab citizens equal rights and recognize the right of return of Palestinian refugees. In a move welcomed by Israel, a majority of lawmakers in the Bundestag voted in favor of a motion to label the international Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement as an entity that uses anti-Semitic tactics to fulfill its political goals…With Friday’s Bundestag motion, Germany has effectively backed Israel’s position that international boycotts are discriminatory and anti-Semitic. READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL In first, Germany votes against anti-Israel measure at World Health Organization Israeli ambassador thanks Berlin for ‘significant and principled stand’; resolution blaming Israel for poor health conditions in Palestinian areas passes with overwhelming majority

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