“Israel’s confusing plethora of small parties actually keeps Ḥaredim and Israeli Arabs, in particular, from becoming too alienated”

Posted on April 13, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

MOSAIC
How Israel’s Electoral System Brings the Country’s Fringes Into Its Center
by Evelyn Gordon
April 9, 2019

Like Haviv Rettig Gur in “How and Why Israelis Vote,” I, too, think the advantages of Israel’s parliamentary system outweigh its disadvantages, and for essentially the same reason: because it keeps a great many people in the political system who would otherwise remain outside it. Critics of the system’s plethora of small parties—as Gur notes, no fewer than 43 parties have been vying for Knesset seats in this year’s election—maintain that it should be streamlined and redesigned so that only big parties would be able to enter the Knesset…What, then, might be done to further the mainstreaming of both haredi and Arab voters?…READ MORE

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West Bank annexation and Trump’s Deal of the Century

Posted on April 13, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Pompeo says Netanyahu’s ‘annex West Bank’ talk won’t hurt peace prospects
by Tovah Lazaroff and Omri Nahmias
April 14, 2019

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview Friday night that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s talk about annexing parts of the West Bank won’t hurt President Trump’s upcoming peace plan. “I think that the vision that we’ll layout is going to represent a significant change from the model that’s been used,” Pompeo responded to a question by CNN’s Jake Tapper as to if the secretary of state thinks that Netanyahu’s vow to annex the West Bank might hurt the pursuit of peace…Last week [during a Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing], Pompeo refused to endorse a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. READ MORE

FOREIGN POLICY Robert Satloff: Trump must not let Jared Kushner’s Peace Plan see the light of day Releasing a U.S. proposal that is bound to fail would legitimize Israeli annexation, give Saudi Arabia leverage, and strengthen Iran and its allies.

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American Jewish groups to Trump: We know what’s better for Israel, restrain Bibi

Posted on April 13, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

JTA
Reform and Conservative movements join letter asking Trump to oppose Netanyahu bids to annex territory
by Ron Kampeas
April 12, 2019

Nine Jewish groups, including five associated with the Reform and Conservative movements, wrote to President Donald Trump asking him to preserve the two-state solution in the face of a pledge by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex West Bank territory. The letter is unusual, if not unprecedented, in mainstream Jewish groups pleading with a U.S. president to take steps to restrain an Israeli prime minister. READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL Four Jewish Democrats warn Israel not to annex West Bank territory Eliot Engel, Nita Lowey, Ted Deutch and Brad Schneider, known for strong AIPAC ties, allude to pre-election pledge by Netanyahu to extend Israeli law to settlements

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Omar Barghouti, co-founder of BDS, shut out of US

Posted on April 12, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

ALGEMEINER
US Blocks Entry to Controversial BDS Activist Omar Barghouti Ahead of Speaking Tour
by Benjamin Kerstein
April 11, 2019

Omar Barghouti, one of the world’s most prominent supporters of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, has been denied entry to the United States. Barghouti was about to depart for the US from Ben-Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv when he was informed that US immigration authorities would refuse him entry into the country. A State Department official told The Algemeiner in regard to the case, “Visa records are confidential under US law; therefore, we cannot discuss the details of individual visa cases.” READ MORE

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“Jews have no idea that they might have been killed this year” at 3 not-yet-identified synagogues

Posted on April 12, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

FRONT PAGE MAG
3 Muslim Terror Plots Targeted US Synagogues in 3 Months
by Daniel Greenfield
April 11th, 2019

…To the three Muslim synagogue terror plotters, anti-Semitism was a fundamental component of their religious and political values. Killing Jews was as natural to them as attacking government buildings…Even as the media emphasizes Islamophobia, Islamic anti-Semitism continues to be a rising problem. And the media suppresses coverage of the problem by not reporting on it and by changing the subject. READ MORE

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“By seeking to override or ignore the will of Israeli democracy, Democrats are accelerating the breakdown of the rapidly eroding bipartisan consensus in favor of the Jewish state”

Posted on April 12, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Democrats’ war on Netanyahu isn’t compatible with a pro-Israel stance
by Jonathan S. Tobin
April 11, 2019

When leaders of Tammany Hall—the legendary Democratic machine that ran New York City for more than a century—would be confronted with an occasional electoral setback, their usual response was to deride it by claiming that if their handpicked candidates didn’t win, then “it ain’t democratic.” That’s pretty much the reaction of much of the Democratic Party to the results of Israel’s election. Prominent Democrats have greeted the victory of the man who was the bitter foe of President Barack Obama and, just as bad, the close friend and ally of President Donald Trump with a mixture of dismay and horror. READ MORE

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Likud barely edges out Blue and White; Bibi to remain PM

Posted on April 10, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

JEWISH PRESS
Huge Netanyahu Victory, Israeli Left Trashed, Orthodox Judaism Rules
by David Israel
April 10, 2019

Benjamin Netanyahu has won it all Tuesday, establishing himself as both the smartest politician in Israel’s history, and, very likely, the longest serving Prime Minister. He also gained the highest number of seats of his career — as 97% of the votes have been counted Wednesday morning. Likud this morning boasts 35 seats, the same as its rival, Blue and White, but while Bibi has increased the stretch of the right-wing bloc to as much as 65, Benny Gantz has left nothing but rubble and smoldering ashes on the left side of the aisle, with Labor at the lowest point in its history, 6 seats, and Meretz down to only 4 seats, the closest it has ever come to extinction. READ MORE

JERUSALEM POST Bennett, Shaked appear to be out of Knesset as URP surges In a surprising twist, two of the more popular and outspoken right-wing politicians, Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, appear to have lost their bid to be in the 21st Knesset.

JERUSALEM POST Khaled Abu Toameh: Arab citizens urge leaders to draw conclusions from low turnout Some Arab Israelis who boycotted the election said that they did so to protest “growing racism” in Israel, especially in the aftermath of the Nation-State Law.

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“Very little has been written about the reign of terror Hamas has inflicted on the people of Gaza”

Posted on April 10, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

ARUTZ SHEVA
The suffering of Gaza’s population
by Dr Mordechai Kedar
Apri 5, 2019

…A reign of terror began in June 2007 when the Hamas movement seized control of the Strip and attacked the Palestinian Authority security forces with extreme brutality: Scores of PA police died when a tunnel dug by Hamas under one of the PA security installations was booby trapped and set off, others were shot down in front of their families, and some were thrown from the roofs of the residential buildings they escaped to for fear of Hamas only to be hurled to their deaths on the asphalt. Hamas terrorists eliminated at least twenty members of Amarat Beyt al-Maqdis in Rafah when they shot them on the street in cold blood. READ MORE

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Airbnb cancels ban on West Bank listings; Shurat HaDin negotiates settlement agreement

Posted on April 9, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

CBN NEWS
Airbnb Reverses Ban on Israeli Homes in West Bank, Says it Never Supported BDS
by Emily Jones
April 10, 2019

Airbnb has reversed its decision to ban home listings in Israeli settlement communities in historic Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank. Airbnb announced the policy change after a court settlement Monday between the hospitality service and several American Jewish plaintiffs who sued the company. Last November, the company vowed to “remove listings in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank that are at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians.” READ MORE

LEGAL INSURRECTION Airbnb rescinds ban on Jewish settlement home listings in “West Bank” One of the federal lawsuits, pending in the District of Delaware, has been settled, and Airbnb agreed to rescind the policy. Shurat HaDin Law Center released this statement: We just scored a tremendous victory in the lawsuit we launched against Airbnb!…Over the past few weeks we have been negotiating a settlement agreement with the hospitality giant Airbnb to rescind its discriminatory policy redlining Jewish-owned properties in the Judea and Samaria region.

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IRGC—now termed a terrorist organization—“believed to control one-third or more of the total economy of the Islamic Republic”

Posted on April 9, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

RADIO FARDA
Trump’s Signal To Tehran
by Ilan Berman
April 9, 2019

The Trump administration is turning up the heat on the ayatollahs. On Monday, April 8th, the White House formally announced that it was adding the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list – putting Iran’s clerical army on a par with global terrorist groups like the Islamic State and al-Qaeda…But the Revolutionary Guards are also much more. Within Iran, they are nothing short of an economic powerhouse, in control of numerous companies and corporate entities that stretch across broad swathes of the national economy, from transportation to energy to construction. READ MORE

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