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

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”

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”

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”

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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Low-level Gaza member touched rockets, setting them off by mistake, Israeli report says; fire came as Hamas chiefs were meeting with incredulous Egyptian mediators”

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Like Monty Python: TV details how Hamas ‘accidentally’ fired rockets at Tel Aviv
by Staff
March 15, 2019

The two Gaza rockets that almost brought Israel and Hamas to war late Thursday were fired by accident, Israel’s Channel 13 news reported Friday, when low-level Hamas operatives “messed with” a Gaza beach rocket launcher that was set up to fire toward Tel Aviv in the event of future conflict. The report said the farcical chain of events that almost led to war was “like something out of Monty Python,” referring to the legendary British comedy group. The report said news of rocket sirens blaring in Tel Aviv broke as Yihya Sinwar and other Hamas leaders were meeting with an Egyptian delegation trying to mediate eased Israeli economic restrictions on Gaza. READ MORE

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“In 2014, Beto O’Rourke was one of eight House members to vote against funding for Iron Dome”

JTA
5 Jewish things to know about Beto O’Rourke
by Josefin Dolsten
March 14, 2019

In 2014, O’Rourke was one of eight House members to vote against funding for Iron Dome. His vote stood out because he was among a small group of lawmakers to oppose the $225 million aid to Israel, which was dealing with a barrage of rockets from Gaza amid a military operation. Meanwhile, 395 members of the House voted for the aid. O’Rourke’s vote angered many in the local Jewish and pro-Israel community; some circulated letters expressing their dismay…O’Rourke was part of a delegation of Democratic lawmakers organized by the liberal Middle East policy group J Street. They met with Palestinians and Israelis, and visited Jerusalem’s Old City and Yad Vashem. READ MORE

HAARETZ The Time Beto O’Rourke Got Burned on Israel “The J Street PAC, which is a rabidly anti-Israel PAC, has raised over $160,000 for Congressman O’Rourke because of his many votes against the nation of Israel,” said Cruz…O’Rourke had supported the Obama administration’s nuclear deal, calling it the best “available way forward to achieve our two primary goals in the Middle East: Stopping Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and ensuring the security of Israel and our regional allies.” He was among the 58 Democrats to boycott Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the joint session of Congress, warning about the prospects of a nuclear Iran. O’Rourke also opposed moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

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BDSFail College president overrides college council as well as Rep Rashida Tlaib efforts to scrub Israel program

JEWISH JOURNAL
Pitzer President Vetoes College Council Vote on Israel Program
by Aaron Bandler
March 14, 2019

Pitzer College President Melvin Oliver announced in a March 14 statement that he is not going to implement the College Council’s recommendation to suspend the study abroad program at the University of Haifa. Earlier in the evening, the council voted by a margin of 67 to 28, with 8 abstentions to suspend the program until Israel ends its policy of barring boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) supporters into the country. Oliver said he would not implement the council’s recommendation because Pitzer would essentially be taking “an unavoidably political position on one of the most controversial issues of our time.” READ MORE

WASHINGTON EXAMINER Rashida Tlaib pushes California college to end Israel study abroad program Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., is promoting an effort to force a California-based college to abandon its study abroad program to Israel. Daniel Segal, a professor at Pitzer College, a Claremont, Calif. liberal arts college, posted a photo of Tlaib posing with a #SuspendPitzerHaifa brochure. He praised the freshman congresswoman’s support for suspending the college’s relationship with Haifa University until Israel met a list of demands. 

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Not Birthright: “Those who go on the J Street tour will probably be a self-selected group who are already radicalized”

JNS
Its planned Israel trip explains why J Street is losing the fight with the far-left
by Jonathan Tobin
March 15, 2019

The announcement from the J Street lobby that it plans to sponsor a free trip this summer for college-age students to compete with the popular Birthright Israel program provoked predictable outrage. Many in the pro-Israel community already despise J Street as a Trojan horse organization that seeks to undermine support for the Jewish state. The idea of it shepherding Jewish kids around the West Bank to meet with Arabs who will trash Israel infuriates and deepens the resolve of some to exclude the left-wing lobby from communal organizations. READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL J Street launches Birthright-style trip to Israel that will include Palestinians After months of chastising Birthright Israel for what it calls one-sided trips, J Street U is launching its first-ever free trip to Israel and the West Bank. Come July, 40 American college students will participate on a 10-day trip courtesy of the progressive group. 

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“The vast majority of the Democrats and Republicans in Congress support Israel because it is a valuable ally that shares fundamental ideals in a volatile region of the world”

THE HILL
The myth of the pro-Israel lobby
by former Congressman Steve Israel
March 11, 2019

There is something deeply troubling, and even dangerous, about the fevered debate over the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on members of Congress. Both the left and the right are locked in a narrative that members of Congress support Israel either because they love that land or because they are gripped by a powerful lobby. But what is missing from the argument is what really motivates most of my former colleagues: What is good for the United States? The current framing, whether by calculated design or simple inference, casts a shadow on the political motives of supporting Israel.  READ MORE

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Berlin Interior Minister: “Freedom of expression is a great good. If, however, the state of Israel and Jews are to be ruthlessly persecuted, the red line has been crossed”

JEWISH PRESS
Germany Revokes Visa, Asks Convicted Arab Terrorist Rasmea Odeh to Leave
by Hana Levi Julian
March 16, 2019

Convicted Arab terrorist Rasmea Yousef Odeh has been stopped from taking the stage in Berlin as an icon of the “resistance” thanks to protesters and those who respect the rule of law. German officials banned her from engaging in political activities and asked her to leave the country over fears of causing incitement against Israel, according to a report posted Saturday by DW News…Berlin Mayor Michael Muller said in a statement that Berlin is a tolerant city with no room for extremist propaganda. “Anti-Israel and anti-Semitic resentments packaged in liberation rhetoric have no place with us,” he said. READ MORE

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