“Americans advised to be alert, avoid demonstrations and follow Israeli authorities’ instructions ahead of Nakba Day protests, Eurovision”

TIMES OF ISRAEL
US warns of Palestinian attacks on anniversary of Jerusalem embassy move
by Michael Bachner
May 14, 2019

The US embassy in Israel issued a security alert to American citizens, warning that Palestinian terrorists could choose to carry out attacks in Israel and the West Bank over the coming days. “May 14, 2019, is the anniversary of the US Embassy opening in Jerusalem, as well as related protests along the Gaza periphery,” the embassy said in an email sent Monday to citizens in Israel that was also posted on its website. “Terrorist groups may choose the anniversary, which coincides with the Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv (May 14-18), or Nakba Day (May 15), to conduct violent protests or an attack.” READ MORE

JNS Two Eastern Jerusalem Men Accused of Planning Shooting Attack on Tel Aviv Beach The indictment noted that after their release from prison in February 2019, the men traveled to Istanbul, where they met with a Hamas operative who recommended that they assassinate former Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, ex-Israel Police Chief Roni Alsheich, or Temple Mount activist and then-Likud Knesset member Yehudah Glick. They were given funds and pants stitched with hidden messages from Hamas…

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“Obama’s attempt to make Tehran an ally against ISIS has backfired. Trump needs to ditch that approach to keep Iran in check and prevent an ISIS resurgence”

TABLET MAG
A New Strategy to Counter Iran’s Growing Power
by Omar Hossino
May 15, 2019

…While ISIS has been defeated, Iran has filled the vacuum and now holds sway over vast stretches of the northern Middle East. As ISIS’s caliphate has collapsed, Iran has cemented its hold on Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. The strategic dilemma for the U.S. is that while the defeat of ISIS has been touted as a signature success, much of it has come about by turning a blind eye to the expansion of Iran and its proxies, which now pose a serious threat to U.S. forces and allies in the region. READ MORE

THE HILL Trump frustrated with advisers over Iran, wants to speak to leaders in Tehran President Trump is frustrated with some of his top advisers over the threat posed by Iran, saying hard-line aides could rush the U.S. into a military struggle with the Islamic republic and break his campaign pledge to avoid costly foreign wars, according to The Washington Post.

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“Tlaib’s behavior is not unique. Her fake, anti-Jewish history of the Holocaust is of a piece with the long history of anti-Jewish behavior”

BREITBART
Why Democrats Keep Defending, and Promoting, Rashida Tlaib
by Caroline Glick
May 15, 2019

…Tlaib’s third lie, that in establishing Israel, the Jews caused great suffering among the Palestinian Arabs (“My ancestors, Palestinians…lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, their existence in many ways, have been wiped out, and some people’s passports”), is another atrocious fiction. Palestinian Arabs didn’t lose the state offered by the UN in 1947 because of the Holocaust or Holocaust refugees. They rejected it outright. Husseini refused any Palestinian Arab state that was to live alongside a Jewish one. READ MORE

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“Poland has to recognize its past and stop running away from it”

JERUSALEM POST
Shameful Rewrite
Editorial
May 16, 2019

Poland has to recognize its past and stop running away from it. That is once again the lesson from what happened earlier this week when a delegation of Israeli government officials landed in Warsaw and was told to turn around, get back on the plane and return home. The Polish Foreign Ministry issued a short statement on its website saying that the visit was canceled, “after the Israeli side made last minute changes in the composition of the delegation, suggesting that the talks would primarily focus on issues related to property restitution.” This is not the first crisis with Poland regarding the Holocaust. READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL Israeli apologizes for spitting at Polish envoy, as Warsaw demands justice Arik Lederman says security guard called him ‘Zhid,’ a claim ambassador rejects as ‘bizarre’; Lederman is sent to house arrest, asserts incident has been ‘blown out of proportion’

FREE BEACON Congress: No U.S. Military Base for Poland Until It Pays for Holocaust Victims Congress pressures admin to make Poland resolve Holocaust-era claims as talk over ‘Fort Trump’ continue

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Madonna on her way to TelAviv (not Jerusalem) for Eurovision

REUTERS
Madonna, on Eurovision, says she won’t bow ‘to suit someone’s political agenda
by Jill Serjeant
May 14, 2019

Pop superstar Madonna on Tuesday explained her decision to perform at the Eurovision Song Contest in Israel this week, saying that she will always speak up to defend human rights and hopes to see “a new path toward peace.” Madonna will make a guest appearance on Saturday during the Eurovision finals in Tel Aviv. The venue has prompted calls for a boycott by pro-Palestinian activists who want companies, performers and governments to disengage from Israel. READ MORE

BESA The Barring of Eurovision from Jerusalem Is a Win for the BDS Movement The €28.5 million Eurovision Song Contest, which draws 200 million viewers from 42 countries, might seem to be just a huge pop spectacle, but it is a good deal more. In addition to serving as an entertainment vehicle, it is a powerful mechanism of soft power – a tool that is critically important to the modern State of Israel and particularly to the city of Jerusalem. Europe’s refusal to allow the contest to be held in Jerusalem, in contravention of Eurovision’s own rules, constitutes a victory for the BDS movement.

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“The Palestinian tragedy is self-perpetuating, led by those unable to come to terms with history”

THE FEDERALIST
Rashida Tlaib’s Lies Remind Us Why Israel Must Exist
by David Harsanyi
May 13, 2019

During a recent SkullDuggery Podcast on Yahoo!, Rep Rashida Tlaib dropped a few historically illiterate thoughts on the Holocaust and Israel. None of it was especially surprising to anyone who’s followed far-left or Palestinian rhetoric for any amount of time. For Tlaib, the Holocaust was primarily a tragedy for the Palestinian people, who were unable to repel Jews’ immigration and stop the formation of a Jewish state. Her words are a helpful reminder of not only why Israel exists, but also that the tragedy of the Palestinian people is neither the fault of the Jews, nor the British, nor the Holocaust. READ MORE

NATIONAL REVIEW CNN Fact Checks Tlaib’s Holocaust Comments: ‘She Can’t Rewrite History’ CNN’s John King corrected Representative Rashida Tlaib’s (D., Mich.) revisionist history of the Holocaust on Monday, pointing out that Palestinian leaders supported the German extermination of Jews and violently resisted the creation of a Jewish state.

ATLANTIC MONTHLY Benny Morris: Rashida Tlaib Has Her History Wrong The representative’s account of the Arab-Israeli conflict relies on origin myths about the birth of Israel.

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WaPost Op-ed: “All American Muslims are somehow affiliated with or sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood”

CLARION PROJECT
US Mainstream Media Shills for Brotherhood (Read: Qatar)
May 13, 2019

Many mainstream media newspapers have joined The New York Times in shilling for the Muslim Brotherhood— claiming that the movement gave up violence years ago and such a designation stems merely from Islamophobia — yet few are looking at the Qatar connection.  In a particularly disingenuous article, The Washington Post ran an op-ed authored by human rights lawyer and Muslim personality Arsalan Iftikhar titled “Calling the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization will scapegoat all Muslims.” The article postulates that “Nearly 7 million American Muslims [there are actually only 3.5 million American Muslims] would become the primary domestic target of such a designation.” READ MORE

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Auschwitz exhibition at NYC’s Museum of Jewish Heritage ‏”engaging and moving, though too often the Jewish victims seem to be afterthoughts”

WALL STREET JOURNAL
An Auschwitz Exhibition Fails the Jews
by Edward Rothstein
May 11, 2019

…In the introductory section, Jews seem like afterthoughts, secondary to more fundamental political hatreds. Even in portraying the death machinery, descriptions are made as broad as possible: “Trains, traveling around the clock, brought 1.3 million Jews, Poles, Roma, and other enemies of the Third Reich, real or perceived, to Auschwitz.”…Make no mistake: This show wields considerable power, but, like most Holocaust exhibitions (aside from Yad Vashem in Jerusalem), it is oddly discomfited by that Judaic center and overly content with contemporary platitudes. READ MORE SUBSCRIPTION CONTENT

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BDS-supporting Imam invited to give opening prayer at Congress

DAILY CALLER
Militantly Anti-Semitic Imam Gives Opening Prayer At House Of Representatives
by Joshua Gill
May 10, 2019

A Muslim cleric who called for violence against Israel and expressed support for Hamas gave the opening prayer before the House of Representatives Thursday, angering several representatives. Omar Suleiman, an imam and president of the Yaqeen Institute, delivered the invocation at the invitation of his congresswoman, Democratic Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, according to the Jewish Telegraph Agency. Republican New York Rep. Lee Zeldin, who is Jewish, decried the invitation in light of the fact that Suleiman has repeatedly called for a third Intifada against Israel, referred to Jews as “Zionists” and called them “enemies of God,” and defended the terrorist organization Hamas on social media. READ MORE

NATIONAL REVEW Senator Rick Scott:Democrats’ Tolerance of Anti-Semitism Exposes Their Intolerance The inability of the national Democratic party to take a strong, declarative, and unequivocal stand against anti-Semitism will cost the party dearly, and not only with Jewish voters. 

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Late Night TV luminaries Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers and Trevor Noah put “seal of approval” on Ilhan Omar

JNS
Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitism wins the pop-culture primary
by Jonathan Tobin
May 9, 2019

…If smears of Jews and of Israel have become mainstream fare, it’s not because of anything Congress did or didn’t do. It’s because the late-night television comedy circuit has embraced Ilhan Omar as a heroine who must be defended at all costs. In doing so, the likes of Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah have essentially put the popular-culture seal of approval on a figure who, in a saner time in our political history, would be viewed with disdain rather than admiration by the people who keep America laughing after prime time. READ MORE

THE FEDERALIST Everything Seth Meyers Said About Ilhan Omar Is Wrong Meyers also asked a misleading rhetorical question about whether people could be “critical” of Israel without being called anti-Semitic. Virtually every member of the Barack Obama administration was critical of Israel. Tons of people are critical of Israel all the time. Omar wasn’t merely critical of Israel—and by critical of Israel, it is true that she doesn’t believe it should exist—but she smeared American Jews as seditious activists.

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