“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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Representative Omar: Have you ever called out Jordan for establishing Islam as the religion of the state?

Posted on February 5, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

FREE BEACON
Singling Out the Jewish State
by Aaron Kliegman
January 31, 2019

There are 43 countries with official state religions and another 40 that give one religion preferential treatment over other faiths. Of the former group, 27 countries enshrine Islam as their state faith, and 13 do the same for Christianity—including nine countries in Europe. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) does not seem to have a problem with any of them; one would be hard-pressed to recall a single word of criticism. But she does have a problem—a big one—with the world’s only Jewish state—a tiny country, home to just under nine million people—recognizing itself as, well, the Jewish state. READ MORE

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“Horrible as Riyadh’s behavior is, the Houthis are worse. Thus by ending support for the Saudi coalition, American would empower an even greater evil”

Posted on February 5, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Backing the Saudis in Yemen is right, strategically and morally
by Evelyn Gordon
January 30, 2019

…On the strategic side, let’s start with the fact that an organization [Iran] whose official slogan is “God is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse the Jews, Victory to Islam” isn’t one Americans should want ruling anything, much less a country [Yemen] whose location enables it to dominate a strategic waterway vital to the global oil industry. And without the Saudi-led coalition, the Houthis would long since have taken over Yemen. READ MORE

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“With ground support from a big tent of vitriolic groups, it was Human Rights Watch that pressured Airbnb into boycotting Israel”

Posted on February 4, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Why has Human Rights Watch become an anti-Israel activist group?
by Jonathan Schanzer and David May
February 4, 2019

When Airbnb, the online lodging service, announced in November that it would ban Israeli listings in the disputed West Bank, hardcore anti-Israel groups took an undeserved victory lap. Surprisingly, though, the credit belongs to Human Rights Watch, an nongovernmental organization with seemingly no reason to enter into the circus of anti-Israel activism…It was HRW that published “Bed and Breakfast on Stolen Land,” a report documenting alleged human rights violations associated with renting Jewish properties in the West Bank. To avoid bad press, Airbnb yanked its Jewish-owned listings one day before the report dropped. READ MORE

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For reporting on Henry Ford’s antisemitism, Dearborn mayor fires an editor

Posted on February 4, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

GATESTONE
Double Standard for Historical Revisionism
by Alan M. Dershowitz
February 6, 2019

Imagine if an American city continued to celebrate a prominent businessman who had published newspapers and books advocating overt racism and racial discrimination against Black people. Imagine if the Grand Wizard of the KKK had a picture of this man in his office and credited him with inspiring him to kill African Americans…Henry Ford does not deserve to be honored. The question the good people of Dearborn should ask themselves is: What would you do if the performing arts center were named after Jefferson Davis? If the answer is that you would remove Davis’s name, then you should remove Ford’s. READ MORE

NEW YORK TIMES A Mayor’s Effort to Play Down Henry Ford’s Anti-Semitism Backfires  Henry Ford is everywhere in Dearborn, Mich., his hometown, where more than 70 years after the famed industrialist’s death, his name or likeness graces everything from the performing arts center to the manhole covers. But Bill McGraw, editor of a local quarterly journal published by the city’s historical commission, felt that residents could stand to learn more about the unflattering side of the man who founded Ford Motor Company and pioneered assembly line production in his factories.

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#BDSFail UK #BDS poll concluded “Muslim respondents were almost four times likelier to agree with the need to boycott Israel than the average”

Posted on February 3, 2019 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Boycotting Israel has little appeal in the UK, Despite star power
by Cnaan Lipschiz
February 1, 2019

…In the poll of 4,005 British respondents, only 10 percent agreed that Israel should be boycotted, compared to 46 percent who disagreed, according to the Ipsos MORI polling company. It conducted the survey in 2016 and 2017 for the Institute for Jewish Policy Research and the Community Security Trust. Significantly, another 42 percent said they either had no opinion or did not know, with the remaining 2 percent saying they would rather not express an opinion. The study found a distinct correlation between support for BDS and the view of Israel as an apartheid state. READ MORE

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