Palestinian arrested in Jerusalem murder of West Bank Jewish teen

Posted on February 9, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Justice minister urges death penalty for suspect in Jerusalem murder
by Staff
February 10, 2019

A senior Israeli minister told prosecutors on Saturday to pursue the death penalty for a Palestinian suspect in the grisly murder of an Israeli teen in Jerusalem last week. Arafat Irfayia, 29, was arrested Friday on suspicion of killing Ori Ansbacher, 19, in a wooded area of southern Jerusalem on Thursday, in a case that has sparked outrage across the country. Authorities suspect Irfayia may had a nationalistic motive, according to Hebrew-language press reports, but are also probing if the attack was sexual in nature…[Justice Minister Ayelet] Shaked and other ministers have insisted that the murder was a terror attack, though most details of the incident have been kept under gag order. READ MORE

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Unmasking #BDS warfare: “Out of the 13 NGOs examined, the report identifies more than 100 connections between BDS organizations and terrorists”

Posted on February 9, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

CBN NEWS
Terrorists in Suits’: Senior Leaders of Anti-Israel BDS Groups Tied to Palestinian Terror
by Emily Jones
February 4, 2019

Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry says dozens of leaders of the global Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement against Israel are directly linked to Palestinian terror organizations. The ministry released its “Terrorists in Suits” report Sunday, revealing that more than 30 members of Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) currently hold senior positions in BDS-promoting NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations). According to the report, 20 of those terrorists have been imprisoned for violent crimes and still remain active in terror groups. READ MORE

Click here to download the State of Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy monograph “Terrorists in Suits: The Ties Between NGO’s promoting BDS and Terrorist Organizations”

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El Salvador’s pro-Israel Palestinian President “proudly revealed that his wife’s grandfather was a Sephardic Jew”

Posted on February 8, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

CUFI
El Salvador’s new President is a Palestinian and pro-Israel
February 6, 2019

El Salvador has elected their youngest ever President, 37-year-old Nayib Bukele. Interestingly, he is of Palestinian descent and also pro-Israel. The President-Elect traces his Palestinians roots to the early 20th century when many left the cities of Bethlehem and Jerusalem to find a new home in El Salvador…Around 100,000 Salvadorans with Palestinian ancestry live in the country out of a population of 6.5 million, ranking it as the second highest population of Palestinian descendants in Central America behind Honduras, the National reports. READ MORE

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“A movement that can detect a racist dog-whistle from miles away is strangely deaf when it comes to some of the barking on its own side of the fence”

Posted on February 8, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

NEW YORK TIMES
The Progressive Assault on Israel
by Bret Stephens
February 8, 2019

…Israel is now the home of nearly nine million citizens, with an identity that is as distinctively and proudly Israeli as the Dutch are Dutch or the Danes Danish. Anti-Zionism proposes nothing less than the elimination of that identity and the political dispossession of those who cherish it, with no real thought of what would likely happen to the dispossessed. Do progressives expect the rights of Jews to be protected should Hamas someday assume the leadership of a reconstituted “Palestine”? Then there’s the astounding view that anti-Zionism bears only a tangential relationship to anti-Semitism. READ MORE

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“The US decision to procure Iron Dome comes on the heels of a variety of joint Israel-U.S. programs and defense systems that are increasingly outfitting U.S. forces”

Posted on February 7, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

DEFENSE NEWS
Can Iron Dome cut it for indirect fire protection? US Army is buying a couple systems to find out
by Seth J. Frantzman
February 6, 2019

The U.S. Army plans to buy a limited number of Iron Dome batteries, evaluating the option for protecting U.S. military service members against a wide variety of indirect fire and aerial threats. In the long term the U.S. is still assessing a variety of other options, but the U.S. has been examining acquisition of several batteries of the Iron Dome since mid-2018 to fill the Army’s Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2 needs. Initial reports indicated the U.S. would spend $373 million to purchase two Iron Dome batteries. READ MORE

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“He is a committed Jew and pro-Israel advocate, and is smart as a whip. He is an extremely successful prosecutor”

Posted on February 7, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Iraq war veteran, grandson of Holocaust survivors Elan Carr tapped as anti-Semitism envoy
by Jackson Richman
February 4, 2019

After a 21-month-long vacancy awaiting the appointment of the U.S. State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, the Trump administration has picked Iraq War veteran and attorney Elan Carr to fill the position…Carr, 50, arrived in Baghdad in October 2003 and served as an anti-terrorism officer in a unit under U.S. Central Command. He participated in Jewish life in the army, including having a Passover seder to leading Friday-night Shabbat services to lighting the Hanukkah menorah in the former palace of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. It was there that Carr’s grandfather sat behind bars in 1948 for five years in response to Israel’s founding…READ MORE

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CNN panel gets heated: Democrats challenging support for Israel

Posted on February 7, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

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“Moody’s warned Illinois’ Democratic governor’s that his plan to more than double income taxes on the rich could create a bigger state deficit if they leave”

Posted on February 7, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

AMERICAN THINKER
Moody’s Warns Illinois Raising Taxes Causes Rich to Leave
by Chriss Street
February 8, 2019

…Democrat J.B. Pritzker successfully ran for governor of Illinois on a campaign that it was “Not Impossible” for a state with a $7,871,602,484.87 payment backlog to 91,099 vendors and the worst credit rating in the nation to cut taxes while implementing a $15 minimum wage, expanding education and health care, and creating more jobs.  With Illinois already having the second highest effective property tax rate of 2.32 percent and the fifth highest average sales tax of 8.64 percent, Pritzker was expected on February 20 to ask both Democratic-controlled houses of the state Legislature to dump a 3.75 percent flat-rate state income tax for a progressive Fair Tax that would more than double the state income tax rate to 7.65 percent on incomes over $225,000. READ MORE

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The late Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein founded the IFCJ in 1983 to “help build bridges between Christians and Jews, and as a source of support for Israel and Jews around the world”

Posted on February 6, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, stalwart promoter of ties between Jews and Christians, dies at 67
by Jackson Richman
February 6, 2019

Israeli American Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, whose life goal was to promote a dialogue between Jews and Christians, died on Wednesday at the age of 67 from sudden heart failure. Born in New York City, he held dual citizenship, having become an Israeli citizen in 2002. Eckstein founded the [Chicago-based] International Fellowship of Christians and Jews in 1983…Under Eckstein’s leadership, IFCJ raised more than $1.3 billion, or $140 million annually, mostly from evangelical Christians, to help the State of Israel and Jews. IFCJ has helped immigrants move to Israel from the former Soviet Union, Ethiopia, Venezuela, Ukraine and other places, and has assisted them in Israel such as providing food care packages for Jewish holidays. READ MORE

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S1 bill now goes to the House, “where the Democratic majority will break it up into its components, and its leadership is likely to bury the anti-BDS section”

Posted on February 5, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

JTA
Senate passes anti-BDS measure with notable Democrats in dissent
February 5, 2019

The U.S. Senate approved in a 77-23 vote a bill that codifies $38 billion in defense assistance to Israel and which provides legal cover to states that target the boycott Israel movement. The bill, sponsored by Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., had stirred controversy because a number of Democratic senators said that while they oppose the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel, they were also concerned that state laws aimed at BDS impinged on speech freedoms. Among the Democratic dissenters were declared presidential candidates like Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California. READ MORE

See how the vote went. 23 nays, 22 of them Democrats.

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