Jerusalem reportedly open to border deal, normalized relations with Syria

Posted on May 15, 2025 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Israel holding talks with Syria on Sharaa regime joining Abraham Accords
16 May 2025

Israel has been holding secret talks with Syrian officials in recent days, including on the possibility of the new regime joining the Abraham Accords, according to a report Thursday, a day after US President Trump invited new Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa to join the accords and normalize ties with Israel. The talks are being mediated by the United Arab Emirates, Channel 12 news said, also referring to unspecified wider regional moves being advanced by the United Arab Emirates. A Haaretz report, by contrast, said the talks were being mediated by Qatar and had been going on for months…Channel 12 said one meeting was held in recent days in Azerbaijan, where Israel was represented by the chief of the IDF Operations Directorate, Maj. Gen. Oded Basyuk. He met with representatives from the new Syrian government, with Turkish representatives also present…READ MORE

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Yet more ICC corruption revealed

Posted on May 15, 2025 by ArchitectGuy

JPOST
ICC prosecutor issued warrants for Netanyahu to make West ‘turn against Israel’
Jotam Confino
May 13, 2025

Karim Khan, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, hoped that issuing arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant would make the West turn against Israel, a senior Western diplomat with firsthand knowledge of the ICC case has told The Jerusalem Post in an exclusive interview. The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that he believed Khan’s decision to issue arrest warrants against Israeli leaders was based on a combination of a desire to see powerful, Western nations turn against Israel and inspire public pressure from pro-Palestinian groups. READ MORE

JNS ICC prosecutor cited ‘Palestine’ to hush sex scandal ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan asked a woman who accused him of sexual assault to drop charges so he could issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

ASSOCIATED PRESS Trump’s sanctions on ICC prosecutor have halted tribunal’s work The International Criminal Court ’s chief prosecutor has lost access to his email, and his bank accounts have been frozen. The Hague-based court’s American staffers have been told that if they travel to the U.S. they risk arrest. Some non-governmental organizations have stopped working with the ICC and the leaders of one won’t even reply to emails from court officials. Those are just some of the hurdles facing court staff since U.S. President Donald Trump in February slapped sanctions on its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan…

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“On Wednesday, a Palestinian terrorist opened fire on Israeli vehicles in the northern West Bank, fatally wounding a pregnant woman and injuring her husband as they made their way to the hospital to deliver their baby”

Posted on May 15, 2025 by ArchitectGuy

ALGEMEINER
Hamas Praises Murder of Pregnant Israeli Mother After Terrorist Attack in West Bank
Ailin Vilches Arguello
May 15, 2025

Hamas sparked global outrage after lauding the murder of a pregnant Israeli mother of three — shot in the West Bank on her way to the hospital to give birth — as “historic,” amid a surge in violence and ongoing efforts by mediators to reach a ceasefire in Gaza Shortly after the shooting terrorist attack near the West Bank town of Bruqin, Abu Obaida, spokesperson for the Qassam Brigades — the military wing of the Palestinian terrorist group — issued a statement praising the assault..After the attack, the 30-year-old woman, identified as Tzeela Gez, was quickly transported to Petah Tikva’s Rabin Medical Center in critical condition. Despite doctors’ efforts to save her, she was pronounced dead early Thursday morning. With an emergency C-section, doctors managed to deliver her baby, who is now in stable condition but continues to fight for his life. READ MORE

ALGEMEINER Rashida Tlaib Introduces Resolution to Mandate Federal Recognition of Palestinian ‘Nakba’ US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) on Wednesday introduced a resolution recognizing the 77th anniversary of the “nakba,” the Arabic term for “catastrophe” used by Palestinians and anti-Israel activists to refer to the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948. “The nakba never ended. Today we are witnessing the Israeli apartheid regime carry out genocide in Gaza”…Co-sponsors of the bill include Democratic Reps. André Carson (IN), Summer Lee (PA), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ilhan Omar (MN), Ayanna Pressley (MA), Delia Ramirez (IL), Lateefah Simon (CA), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ).

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“Free speech doesn’t mean freedom to intimidate. I’ve seen what real oppression looks like. These students aren’t freedom fighters. They’re bullies in keffiyehs”

Posted on May 15, 2025 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Harvard settles with Jewish student who sued school for ignoring campus antisemitism
May 16, 2025

Harvard University has settled a high-profile lawsuit by an Orthodox Jewish student who accused the Ivy League school of ignoring antisemitism on campus. Alexander Kestenbaum, who is known as Shabbos, and Harvard jointly agreed to end the case, according to a dismissal notice filed on Thursday in Boston federal court. “Harvard and Mr. Kestenbaum acknowledge each other’s steadfast and important efforts to combat antisemitism at Harvard and elsewhere,” the university says in a statement. “Harvard and Mr. Kestenbaum are pleased to have resolved the litigation.”…Jewish students say Harvard tolerated their being maligned as “murderers” and subjected to viral attacks, and accused the university of hiring professors who promoted anti-Jewish violence and spread antisemitic propaganda. READ MORE

FREE BEACON 11 Percent of Columbia Library Arrestees Identify as They/Them—Nearly 7 Times America’s Trans Population It’s a they-tifada. At least 9 of the 81 people, or 11 percent, arrested in connection with storming a Columbia University library Wednesday use “they/them” pronouns, a review of public records by the Washington Free Beacon shows. That share is well above the 1.6 percent of Americans who identify as transgender or nonbinary, according to the Pew Research Center, and more than double the 5 percent of people who identify as transgender or nonbinary under 30. The brood of agitators run the gamut from longtime professional protesters, to otherwise carefree writers and poets.

JNS ‘Insane’ Columbia students paying $90k have to leave MacBooks as protesters chase them out of library Columbia University has suspended more than 65 students and barred at least 33 others from campus, after dozens of anti-Israel protesters took over the Butler Library reading room on Wednesday and were later arrested by the New York City Police Department, a university official told JNS.

JPOST Columbia janitors sue pro-Palestinian protesters who ‘held them hostage’ Two university workers filed a lawsuit against over 40 students who allegedly assaulted them and called them “Jew-lovers” during last year’s Hamilton Hall occupation.

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The phenomenon of “lone soldiers” predates the modern State of Israel. Today, the country is home to an estimated 7,000 of them.

Posted on May 15, 2025 by ArchitectGuy

FUTURE OF JEWISH
These young Jews leave everything behind to defend Israel.
Joshua Hoffman
May 14, 2025

When Edan Alexander was released this week after more than 580 days in Hamas captivity, the news resonated far beyond Israel’s borders. Alexander, born in Israel and raised in New Jersey, had voluntarily returned to his birth country to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as a “lone soldier” (chayal boded in Hebrew) — a term reserved for those serving in the army without the support of immediate family in the country. His story is heartbreaking and heroic: Kidnapped on October 7th from an outpost in Kissufim, Edan had chosen to forgo his weekend leave in order to stay on base and serve. He wasn’t alone in that kind of sacrifice. Alexander is part of a growing and remarkable phenomenon in Israeli society — one that has only intensified in the aftermath of the October 7th massacre: young men and women, many from the Jewish Diaspora, leaving behind lives of comfort and security to join the IDF, not for personal gain, but out of principle, identity, and purpose. READ MORE

AXIOS Hamas approached pro-Trump activist for secret talks that freed Edan Alexander The backchannel talks that led to the release of Edan Alexander began with a message from a Hamas official to Bishara Bahbah, the former leader of “Arab Americans for Trump,” two Israeli officials, one Palestinian official and one U.S. official tell Axios. Hamas was seeking a way to convince President Trump to put more pressure on Israel, and Trump’s team was intent on freeing the last living American held in Gaza. Bahbah, a Palestinian-American businessman who helped Trump make inroads with Arab voters in 2024, became the unlikely intermediary.

NEW YORK POST Freed hostage Edan Alexander posts sweet Instagram message as he awaits return to New Jersey: ‘Home Sweet Home’ Newly freed Israeli-American Edan Alexander hopes to return to New Jersey soon with his family — as the 21-year-old recently enjoyed a cold beer for the first time since he was released by Hamas.  Alexander, who was freed Monday after 584 days in captivity, shared his first Instagram story, with the Tenafly resident flashing a smile and Corona bottle in hand, surrounded by loved ones on the hospital rooftop. “Home Sweet Home,” the caption read.

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“The tiny Gulf nation has spent almost $100 billion to establish its influence in Congress, universities, newsrooms, think tanks, and corporations. What does it want in return?”

Posted on May 14, 2025 by ArchitectGuy

FREE PRESS
How Qatar Bought America
Frannie Block and Jay Solomon
May 13, 2025

…But Qatar is also a seat of the Muslim Brotherhood, a crucial source of financing to Hamas, a diplomatic and energy partner of Iran, a refuge for the Taliban’s exiled political leadership, financier and cheerleader of Palestinian terrorism, and the chief propagandist of Islamism through its media powerhouse, Al Jazeera, which reaches 430 million people in more than 150 countries. Key members of Qatar’s royal family have made their admiration for Islamism—and Hamas specifically—very clear. Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, the mother of Qatar’s emir and the chairperson of an educational nonprofit funneling millions into American schools, praised the mastermind of the October 7, 2023 massacre, Yahya Sinwar: “He will live on,” she wrote on X after his death last year, “and they will be gone.” READ MORE

JNS Melanie Phillips: The gold-plated peacenik in the White House There’s no doubting Trump’s genuine commitment to Israel and the Jewish people. But it’s now clear that he has an almost messianic belief that he can end all wars and bring peace to the world through his ability to make deals. He thinks that he can make even the most bloodthirsty tyrants an offer they can’t refuse. He doesn’t care about the justice of a cause. He just wants to stop the killing. Thus, he has bashed heads together in Pakistan and India to forge an uneasy peace. He believes he can do the same with Russia and Ukraine. And he’s now applying the same principle to the Middle East.

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Wounded soldiers from the war meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu and call for a decisive victory in Gaza. Netanyahu: “A decision has been made to go all the way. We are very close”

Posted on May 12, 2025 by ArchitectGuy

ARUTZ SHEVA
Netanyahu to wounded soldiers: Things will happen in Gaza you haven’t seen before
Hezki Baruch
May 12, 2025

Reservist soldiers who were wounded during the fighting over the past year and a half met on Monday evening with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as part of the activities of the War Wounded Forum. During the meeting, the Prime Minister told the soldiers, “We will conquer Gaza, and our security control will remain there forever. Within days, things are going to happen in Gaza. Things will happen that you haven’t seen before.” He added, “We didn’t do everything we’ve done in Gaza so far just to return to the starting point. Things have changed; a decision has been made to go all the way. We are very close.” Members of the forum had previously clarified their demand to achieve a complete victory in the war against Hamas and to end what they called “political and security stagnation.” READ MORE

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Smithsonian exhibit, which explores architecture and conflict in the Middle East, accused of aligning with pro-Hamas messaging and promoting false claims that “U.S.-backed Israeli operations deliberately targeted civilian homes.”

Posted on May 11, 2025 by ArchitectGuy

JPOST
Israeli NGO demands Smithsonian cancel ‘Anti-Israel’ exhibit in D.C.
May 8, 2025

The Shurat HaDin Law Center has formally urged the White House to cancel a Smithsonian museum exhibit it labels as “provocative and anti-Israel,” warning that it promotes a narrative sympathetic to terrorism and detrimental to U.S. interests. In a letter to Vice President JD Vance and other senior U.S. officials, Shurat HaDin President Nitsana Darshan-Leitner criticized the Patterns of Life exhibit, which is currently on display at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. She described it as “emotionally manipulative storytelling using selectively curated data to promote an extremist, anti-American, and anti-Israel agenda under the guise of academic and artistic engagement.”  READ MORE

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“Stupefyingly, it is simply impossible to change the wicked media narrative that Israel is starving Gazan civilians to death”

Posted on May 11, 2025 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
The indestructible myth of famine in Gaza
Melanie Phillips
May 8, 2025

Yet again, the myth has been revived that there is a famine in the Gaza Strip. This claim, which has done so much to incite attacks on Jews, has been promulgated repeatedly by mainstream Western media during the past 18 months of war. It is a lie that distorts yet another lie. Time and again, U.N. agencies and NGOs have warned that famine and starvation are imminent. But this has never happened. More food has been admitted to Gaza than people need. The problem has been that Hamas took much of it to feed themselves and to sell it on the black market to finance their infrastructure of war. Nevertheless, the Gazans have overwhelmingly remained conspicuously well-fed, while the people who really have been starved are the Israeli hostages they hold captive. Yet the media has continued to insist that civilians in Gaza are being starved to death. READ MORE

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Chicago and NYC police suicide rates are a national tragedy; “Over the past decade, Chicago has become the anti-cop capital of America”

Posted on May 11, 2025 by ArchitectGuy

FREE PRESS
How Can You Be a Cop in a City That Hates You?
Olivia Reingold
May 7, 2025

“They treat cops like tissues. They just throw us away.” That is how Rick Nigro, a retired sergeant, describes Chicago after nearly three decades on its police force. “You ever hear about firemen killing themselves? No. They’re heroes. They’re idolized,” added Sergeant Nigro. “We’re the pariahs of the civil service.” In March 2021, after Officer James Daly, an acquaintance of Nigro, committed suicide, he wrote then-mayor Lori Lightfoot a letter “We are woefully unprepared to deal with the physical human stress that it takes upon us,” he wrote. A local TV station picked up news of his letter, and Lightfoot released a statement promising “to ensure that Chicago’s police officers feel supported and valued.” Later that week, another officer—Jeffrey Troglia, a father of three—fatally shot himself in his basement. By the end of the year, Nigro himself retired. READ MORE

NEW YORK POST Police suicide epidemic continues to grip Long Island as cops confirm body found on Nassau beach If an autopsy confirms the self-inflicted killing, it would mark the seventh police officer to commit suicide in New York state this year. At its current pace, the state is on track to see more than 20 police suicides by the end of 2025 — far surpassing 2024’s total of 13.

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