Gaza, The New State Solution “can happen in the near-term, leaving future negotiations over the West Bank, including sure-to-be-difficult ones over the status of Jerusalem, to another day”

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
The new state solution: A creative, big idea to jump-start peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians
by Yaakov Peri, Amir Avivi and Benjamin Anthony
April 21, 2019

…We call our approach The New State Solution. The plan calls for the establishment of a free, independent, sovereign and viable Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, where half of all Palestinians live, that would be expanded southwards, to incorporate approximately 10% of the northern, coastal area of the Sinai Peninsula. Gaza, that very same strip of land that is deemed hopeless and doomed, is actually the place that offers a realistic opportunity to create a change to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a change that genuinely serves the interests of both sides. That should be the site of the state for all Palestinians. READ MORE

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Iran Sanctions New State Department waivers “leave intact sanctions that apply directly to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and its proxies”

PBS NEWS HOUR
U.S. grants exemptions to sanctions on Iran Revolutionary Guard
by Matt Lee, Associated Press
April 24, 2019

The Trump administration on Wednesday granted important exemptions to new sanctions on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, watering down the effects of the measures while also eliminating an aspect that would have complicated U.S. foreign policy efforts. Foreign governments and businesses that have dealings with the Revolutionary Guard and its affiliates will not be subject to a ban on U.S. travel under waivers outlined by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in two notices published in the Federal Register. That weakens the effect of the measures and will frustrate members of Congress backing tough measures against Iran who are already concerned that the Trump administration won’t fully enforce sanctions on Iranian oil.  READ MORE

GATESTONE The US Sanctions on Mullahs are Working As sanctions against Iran were lifted during the Obama administration, it quickly became clear that those actions instead gave Iran global legitimacy in the eyes of the international community.

NBC NEWS Trump pressure will fail because Iran has a ‘Ph.D. in sanctions busting,’ says Iran’s Zarif President Trump “believes that the maximum pressure policy will bring Iran to its knees,” said Iran’s Javad Zarif. “Iran will not accept pressure.”

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“A new bill in Quebec prohibiting some public displays of religious symbols would bar observant Jews from serving in courts and classrooms”

TABLET MAG
Kippahs in the Crossfire
by Adam Kovac
April 21, 2019

Kippah-wearing Jews in the Canadian province of Quebec would be banned from teaching in public schools, serving as judges and from holding an array of government jobs under a new law proposed by the province’s ruling party. Bill 21, officially known as An Act Respecting the Laicity [secularism] of the State, would prohibit public employees in certain positions of authority from wearing religious symbols such as kippahs, hijabs, and turbans while on the job. It would also prevent citizens from accessing certain public services while wearing a face covering. READ MORE

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Comedian Owen Benjamin: “So when I criticize the Jew, you realize I’m criticizing the most racist people on the planet”

ALGEMEINER
How Much Did YouTube and PayPal Make From Owen Benjamin’s Jew-Hatred?
by Dexter Van Zile
April 24, 2019

As the comedian, who goes by the name of Owen Benjamin, rants about the evil, hate-worthy Jews who are responsible for all the problems of the world, his supporters make comments on YouTube’s live chat stream that vilify and demonize Jews. They type things like “With Jews You Lose,” “Jews became their own god,” “The bible is a jew scam,” “MUZZIES ARE PWNS OF JEWS,” and “BOLSHEVIK JEWS ZIONIST JEWS SAME CONTROL FREAKS.”…In early April, he had 246,000 subscribers on his YouTube account. READ MORE

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Ukraine has less antisemitism than most of Europe…“The times of pogroms are over”

NEW YORK TIMES
Ukraine’s Newly Elected President Is Jewish. So Is Its Prime Minister. Not All Jews There Are Pleased.
by Andrew Higgins
April 24, 2019

When Volodymyr Zelensky, the Jewish comedian recently elected the president of Ukraine, announced that he was running, the chief rabbi for the eastern Ukrainian region where Mr. Zelensky grew up was shocked by the hostile reaction [from Ukrainian Jews]…Despite its scarred history, Ukraine today is no hotbed of anti-Semitism. It already has a Jewish prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman, and if he stays on after Mr. Zelensky is sworn in, Ukraine will be the only country outside of Israel where the heads of state and government are JewishREAD MORE

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Shmuley Boteach on Cory Booker “I cannot overlook his stunning unfaithfulness to the Jewish people at a time when antisemitism is rising throughout the world”

JERUSALEM POST
Why Cory Booker is cratering in the polls
by Shmuley Boteach
April 23, 2019

An article in the national media a few weeks ago said that my 25-year friendship with Cory Booker “had foundered.” I must dispute this characterization. My friendship has not foundered. It was betrayed. It was betrayed by a friend who was as close to me as a brother, whom my people embraced as a son, but who decided to vote to fund a government that was calling for our annihilation.  It was betrayed by a friend whom I introduced to Elie Wiesel, and who quotes the great Holocaust survivor at every turn, but who chose to close his eyes to Iran’s promise to perpetrate a second Holocaust. READ MORE

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Bernie Sanders: “I’m 100 percent pro-Israel’ and by the way, their new, duly-elected government is racist

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Sanders: ‘Israel now run by a right wing — dare I say — racist government’
by Eric Cortellessa
April 23, 2019

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders excoriated the Netanyahu government as “racist” Monday night as he participated in a CNN town hall event with Democratic voters. Without discussing specific details, the 2020 presidential hopeful called for a change in America’s policy toward Israel, describing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approach toward the Palestinians as “oppressive,” and said that his administration, should he be elected, would be more sympathetic to Palestinian concerns. READ MORE

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“The two-state paradigm, which requires Israel to keep its most vital national and strategic interests in limbo to appease terrorists that will never be appeased, is a policy paradigm that is inherently hostile to Israel”

BREITBART
The Tragedy of Jewish American Liberals
by Caroline Glick
April 23, 2019

…The groups’ letter to Trump reveals two distressing facts about the state of these groups and about liberal American Jewry as a whole. First, while they may represent more than half of American Jews, these organizations are rendering themselves irrelevant. The so-called “two-state solution” to which they maintain slavish devotion has no chance of being implemented. The Palestinians simply do not want it. They don’t want a state that will live side by side with Israel. They want to eliminate Israel. That is why the Trump administration is walking away from the two-state formula. And this is why no major Israeli political party on the right or on the left ran on a platform calling for its implementation. READ MORE

ASSOCIATED PRESS Israeli election may have dimmed hopes for 2-state solution Is the two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict dead? After Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu coasted to another victory in this month’s Israeli election, it sure seems that way. On the campaign trail, Netanyahu ruled out Palestinian statehood and for the first time, pledged to begin annexing Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

JERUSALEM POST Naftali Bennett lost but also won big So Bennett – the individual – lost terribly. And yet, he won massively. There are some 325,000 Jews now living permanently in east Jerusalem and another 450,000 Jews elsewhere in Judea/Samaria.

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The term “Nakba” was first referenced in George Antonius’s influential 1938 book “The Arab Awakening” and had nothing to do with Israel; it referred to the “post-WWI creation of the modern Middle East”

BESA CENTER
The False “Nakba” Narrative
by Col (Res.) Dr. Raphael G. Bouchnik-Chen
April 16, 2019

The term “Nakba,” originally coined to describe the magnitude of the self-inflicted Palestinian and Arab defeat in the 1948 war, has become in recent decades a synonym for Palestinian victimhood, with failed aggressors transformed into hapless victims and vice versa. Israel should do its utmost to uproot this false image by exposing its patently false historical basis…READ MORE

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“Daniel Pearl’s father, Prof. Judea Pearl, said, “I welcome any steps toward exposing and bringing to justice those horrendous murderers””

JERUSALEM POST
Pakistan arrests ‘last terrorist at large’ in Daniel Pearl killing
by Arshad Mehmood and Felice Friedson, Media Line
April 22, 2019

Counter-terrorism officials in Islamabad have confirmed that the remaining terrorist sought in the 2002 murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl has been taken into custody. Azim Jan, a commander of the TTP, the Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan, an offshoot of al-Qaeda, was apprehended on Friday in a joint operation headed by Pakistan Security Forces. The mission was conducted in the hilly area of Mansehra, a district in the Khyber Pakhtoon Khwa Province, located about 100 miles north of the capital Islamabad. READ MORE

ALGEMEINER Judea Pearl Renounces NYU Distinguished Alumnus Status as School Prepares to Award Students for Justice in Palestine Turing Award winner Judea Pearl has renounced his status as a distinguished alumnus of New York University, following the school’s decision to award its Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter — which orchestrated an ongoing boycott of Zionist student clubs — for “extraordinary and positive impact on the University community.”

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