“A world that shrugs at Hamas’s abuse of its own people merely licenses the abuse to continue”

Posted on March 21, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

NEW YORK TIMES
Palestinian Lives Don’t Matter*
(*Unless Israel is to blame)
by Bret Stephens
March 21, 2019

The people of the Gaza Strip are protesting again, and soldiers are shooting again, and civilians are being victimized again. Only this time you may have missed the story, because these protests barely rated a buried paragraph in most Western news accounts. That’s odd: Some media outlets are prepared to devote months of journalistic effort in order to trace the trajectory of a single bullet that accidentally kills a Palestinian — provided the bullet is Israeli. The difference this time is that the shots are being fired by Hamas, the militant Islamist group that has ruled Gaza since 2007…READ MORE

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Victor Davis Hanson: “Trump can be uncouth and crass. But he has shown an empathy for the hollowed-out interior, lacking from prior Republican and Democratic candidates”

Posted on March 21, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

CNN
What progressives should know about Trump voters
by Victor Davis Hanson
March 19, 2019

Progressives wonder how in the world could anyone still support President Donald Trump. So here are ten reasons why more than 40% of the electorate probably does — and will.  1. Voters appreciate that the economy is currently experiencing near record-low peacetime unemployment, record-low minority unemployment, and virtual 3% annualized GDP growth. Interest andinflation rates remain low. Workers’ wages increasedafter years of stagnation. The US is now the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas. And gasoline prices remain affordable. The President continues to redress asymmetrical trade with China, as well as with former NAFTA partners and Europe. READ MORE

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Near Ramallah: IDF forces shot him dead as he opened fire at them

Posted on March 20, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

YNET
IDF kills Ariel Junction terrorist
by Elior Levy, Elisha Ben Kimon, Itai Blumental
March 19, 2019

IDF troops on Tuesday killed the suspected gunman who shot dead an Israeli soldier and a rabbi in a terror attack in the West Bank on Sunday. Omar Abu-Laila, 19, was killed in a shootout in the West Bank village of Abwein, near Ramallah. IDF forces surrounded the house and when the suspect opened fire, he was shot dead by the Israeli troops. Palestinian sources reported earlier Wednesday that IDF forces were raiding a house in a village near the city of Ramallah during their hunt for Abu-Laila. READ MORE

JERUSALEM POST Ariel terror victim Gal Keidan, 19, was gifted musician Photos of Gal Keidan, 19, hiking with a smile and sunglasses or playing the mandolin in high school, circulated on social media in the aftermath of his death in Sunday’s terror attack outside of Ariel…Keidan was the youngest of three siblings, born to parents who immigrated to Israel in the 1970s from the former Soviet Union.

TIMES OF ISRAEL Father of 12 succumbs to injuries from Sunday terror attack Rabbi Achiad Ettinger died of his injuries Monday, a day after being shot by a Palestinian terrorist during an attack in the northern West Bank, a family spokesperson said. Ettinger, 47, was a father of 12 from the settlement of Eli. Doctors had been working to save his life since the attack near Ariel Sunday morning in which a soldier, Gal Keidan, was also killed.

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In Geneva, in front of the corrupt UNHRC “Grenell also questioned how it was that members of the council could sit in judgment over Israel when they themselves didn’t adhere to the basic principles of the UN Charter”

Posted on March 19, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

THE TOWER
U.S. Ambassador at UNHRC: Applying One Standard to Israel and No One Else is Anti-Semitic
by Staff
March 19, 2019

Declaring the United Nations Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) policy toward Israel to be anti-Semitic, the United States Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell denounced the council’s “singular, obsessive focus” on the Jewish State in a speech he gave Monday in Geneva. Grenell’s speech was part of a rally organized by UN Watch, a watchdog group that holds the UN and its agencies accountable to abide by the principles put forth in the UN Charter. The rally, which protested the anti-Israel bias at the UNHRC, drew 1,000 people and featured prominent speakers. In addition to Grenell, UN Watch’s executive director Hillel Neuer, former director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry Dore Gold, and former MK Einat Wilf also spoke. READ MORE

JNS Experts reveal major fallacies in UN inquiry on Gaza report Following the testimony, hundreds gathered for the historic “Rally for Equal Rights” to protest UNHRC’s unprecedented assault on Israel, in which the council targeted the Jewish state in seven biased reports…“The United Nations has played directly into Hamas’s hand and the UNHRC is but an instrument of Hamas terrorism. This report, as well as countries that vote for it, encourage Hamas towards further terrorism in the future”

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“Founded by former AIPAC officials, Pro-Israel America seeks to be more explicitly political than the powerful lobby”

Posted on March 19, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
After Omar controversy, new group aims to get more Israel backers into Congress
by Eric Cortellessa
March 19, 2019

A new group was launched Tuesday to bolster pro-Israel candidates running for Congress. Following the 2018 midterms and the elevation of House members more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, such as New York Rep. Alexamndria Ocasio-Cortez, Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, former staffers at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) have created an organization to send more traditionally pro-Israel candidates to Capitol Hill. Founded by Jeff Mendelsohn and Jonathan Missner, Pro-Israel America endorsed 27 members of Congress — 14 Democrats and 13 Republicans — as it announced its own establishment. READ MORE

HUFFINGTON POST Here’s The Pro-Israel Lobby’s New Plan To Preserve Its Political Influence Senior figures affiliated with America-Israel Public Affairs Committee, known better as AIPAC, are preparing to launch a new political group called Pro-Israel America to steer smaller-dollar political donations toward pro-Israel candidates, according to a February strategy document obtained by HuffPost and Jewish Currents, a magazine aimed at the Jewish left. Pro-Israel America hopes to recruit 10,000 donors giving around $200 each in order to send at least $2 million to pro-Israel candidates during the 2020 campaign cycle. 

JNS Pro-Israel philanthropist remains committed to ‘speaking out’ against anti-Semitism Pro-Israel philanthropist Adam Milstein has said that he remains committed to speaking out against the anti-Semitic rhetoric of Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), as well as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), following his announcement that he has withdrawn from moderating a panel at the upcoming AIPAC Policy Conference after a series of tweets criticizing the politicians.

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Syria: “The U.S. should do everything in its power to ensure Israel’s success in its growing confrontation with #Iran, which serves U.S. interests, and those of our other Sunni Arab allies”

Posted on March 18, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

WASHINGTON EXAMINER
How the US can work with Israel in Syria without putting more boots on the ground
by Michael Makovsky
March 17, 2019

…For several years, Israel has waged a concerted and increasingly public campaign to deny Iran’s most ambitious goals in Syria: a significant upgrade to Hezbollah’s arsenal and establishment of a forward operating base against Israel and Jordan. Israel has conducted hundreds of strikes in Syria against Iranian arms convoys, bases, missile defenses, precision missile factories, and even personnel. Nevertheless, there is a limit to what Israel can accomplish. It might deny Tehran some objectives, but it cannot remove Iran’s presence entirely. That is why, as senior security officials told me on a recent visit, Israel has recently adopted a new approach to pushing Iran out of Syria. READ MORE

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“Ilhan Omar pretends to address her critics by misdirecting them in her new Washington Post op-ed”

Posted on March 18, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

ELDER OF ZIYON
.@Ilhan Omar’s @WashingtonPost op-ed – misdirection, projection and dishonesty
March 18, 2019

…The [Washington Post] article pretends to insist on using a single standard based on human rights for all nations, but the logic falls apart when you look past the platitudes…I was unaware that Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain are controlling and funding terror groups worldwide like Iran is….Even though this op-ed was carefully written to make it appear that Omar is not obsessed with “Palestine,” she has to address it and gives it five paragraphs – and her bias shines through even the layers of consultants and ghostwriters that she hired to spin this op-ed to be as liberal and fair as possible. READ MORE

FREE BEACON Dem Lawmakers Admit During Private Meeting They Don’t Know What Anti-Semitism Looks Like Omar doesn’t respond when asked to ‘affirm Israel’s right to exist’...Rep Phillips’s request that Omar support the right of Jews to exist in the Jewish state and in the United States “stunned the three Muslim Democrats in the room.”

TABLET MAG Lee Smith: Political Powerlessness Is Expensive American Jews have only begun to pay the price demanded by the Democratic Party’s new math. Ilhan Omar is both a canny political operator and a con artist who specializes in gutter smears. And thus there is no question about who won the fight she picked with Nancy Pelosi and Democratic congressional leadership, desperate to sweep the party’s anti-Semitism problem under the rug.

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“Wondering about the future of the Democratic Party? Just look at Britain’s Labour”

Posted on March 17, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

TABLET MAG
Corbynism Comes to America
by James Kirchik
March 13, 2019

…How Labour reached this deplorable condition is one that should seriously concern liberals in the United States, where a similar dynamic is playing out in the Democratic Party. An insurgent progressivism favorably disposed to socialism, hostile to Jews and openly admiring of Jeremy Corbyn and all that he represents is steadily making inroads against an aging, centrist Democratic establishment. Here, a constellation of elected officials, media personalities, and activists are mimicking the tactics of their ideological comrades in Britain to take over and transform the Democratic Party into a vehicle for their extreme agenda. READ MORE

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Egypt to Hamas: “Even if the Israelis decide to dismantle your rule in Gaza by assassinating each and every one of you we won’t lift a finger”

Posted on March 17, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
‘Israel will destroy you and we won’t do a thing to stop it’
by Daniel Siryoti
March 17, 2019

Shortly after 9 p.m. on Thursday, minutes after sirens blared across central Israel and a loud boom overhead shook the area, senior Egyptian intelligence officers became outraged during a meeting with Hamas officials in Gaza. “Just so you know,” they leveled at Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, “if Israel decides to launch a comprehensive military operation in Gaza we won’t do a thing to stop it, even if it decides to simultaneously topple Hamas and conquer the Gaza Strip.” The dramatic exchange was relayed to Israel Hayom by a senior Egyptian official who attended the meeting. READ MORE

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“The Industry of Lies argues that the global Israel-boycott movement has emboldened a growing disconnect between facts and perceptions”

Posted on March 17, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

MIDDLE EAST QUARTERLY
Ben-Dror Yemini: Industry of Lies, Media, Academia, and the Israeli-Arab Conflict
Reviewed by Asaf Romirowsky
Spring 2019

Edward Said called Palestinians “the victims of the victims,” and such Holocaust inversion has been baked into the Palestinian story, turning Jews and Israelis into Nazis. This strategy of feigned victimhood and weakness underlies the success story of the Palestinian narrative. Yemini, former opinion editor at the Israeli daily Maariv and now a columnist for Yediot Ahronot, unpacks the relationship between Israel and its global image. READ MORE

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