“The 41st president beat AIPAC, but lost 24% of his Jewish backing after confronting Israel over the settlements; it’s a lesson US leaders since have taken to heart”

Posted on December 1, 2018 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
How ‘lonely little’ George H.W. Bush changed the US-Israel relationship
by Eric Cortellessa
December 1, 2018

Former Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren once castigated Barack Obama for not abiding by the principle of “no daylight” and “no surprises.” That was most reflected, the Israeli diplomat emphasized, in Obama’s publicly castigating Israel’s settlements. But Obama was not the first president to make Israeli settlements such a point of contention.  Former president George H.W. Bush, who died Friday night, went much further than him, in fact. Bush, who was president from 1989 to 1993, forever changed American politics when he exerted his power to curtail the settlement enterprise and faced a vehement backlash. READ MORE

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“Hanukkah, after all, is about a war: a war against Hellenism, the attempt by Greek forces to force a pagan vision upon the Jews”

Posted on December 1, 2018 by ArchitectGuy

JEWISH JOURNAL
Hanukkah Is Not Christmas. This Year, Let’s Embrace That
by Ben Shapiro
November 28, 2018

It’s that time of year again when American Jews bask in the wintertime flavor of Christmas — when we teach our children that the Jewish version of Christmas is called Hanukkah, that the equivalent of the Christmas tree is the menorah, that while Christians have a big gift-giving blowout, we have eight crazy nights (in Adam Sandler’s iteration). The prominence of Christmas in America means that American Jews often attempt to ride the Christmas coattails, to get into the “holiday spirit” — or, more cynically, to compete with Christmas in order to prevent our children from falling for the romance of Christmas. READ MORE

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“Are they naifs, idiots, or are they just playing with foreign policy to make life a little harder for Trump?”

Posted on November 30, 2018 by ArchitectGuy

AMERICAN GREATNESS
What Is Saudi Arabia to Us?
by Angelo Codevilla
November 27th, 2018

It seems that Saudi Arabia’s rulers murdered an opponent. The U.S. media and political class is shocked, shocked, to find that murder is going on in such precincts. Who did they imagine the Muslim world’s leaders are? Moreover, our chattering class demands that President Trump do whatever it takes to make sure that they do nothing like that again. Do what? Does anyone really think that swapping sheik A for sheik B would improve their kind’s moral standards? Do they have any idea of what keeps A on top of B, what it would take to switch them, or what the repercussions would be in foreign policy? READ MORE

AMERICAN THINKER Thomas Lifson: At last: A little realism on Saudi Arabia Then, if you have time and want to get a sense of the sort of analysis that Codevilla mocks, read this very long essay in the Washington Post by David Ignatius (below).  He is far from stupid, and he knows a lot, but he is a prisoner of the assumptions Americans like to make about others – that they are simply waiting to become just like us.

WASHINGTON POST David Ignatius: The Khashoggi killing had roots in a cutthroat Saudi family feud

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“A new CNN poll reveals that one in four Europeans are anti-Semitic”

Posted on November 30, 2018 by ArchitectGuy

NEW YORK TIMES
Europe’s Jew Hatred, and Ours
by Bari Weiss
November 29, 2018

Paris. Toulouse. Malmo. Copenhagen. Brussels. Berlin. For most people, they are lovely cities where you might happily take a holiday. But for the world’s Jews, they are something else, too. They are place names of hate. Paris for us doesn’t mean just baguettes and Brie but also this year’s murder of a Holocaust survivor in her apartment in the 11th arrondissement and the 2015 siege of a kosher supermarket during which four people were killed. Toulouse is the place where in 2012 three Jewish children and a teacher were murdered at school. READ MORE

CNN A Shadow Over Europe One in 20 Europeans surveyed has never heard of the Holocaust. More than a quarter believe Jews have too much influence in business and finance. One in five believe anti-Semitism is a response to the everyday actions of Jews. CNN poll reveals depth of anti-Semitism in Europe

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“Former AP columnist held forth on the subject of How to Report the Middle East from the Middle East at the Jewish Media Summit in Jerusalem”

Posted on November 29, 2018 by ArchitectGuy

JUDEAN ROSE
Framing the Narrative: Matti Friedman on the Israel Story
by Varda Meyers Epstein
November 27, 2018

You have to admire Matti Friedman. He bucked the entrenched wisdom to expose the unfairness (here and here) of the media’s excessive focus on Israel by, for instance, the Associated Press. And he did so as a liberal when being liberal, for the most part, means being down on Israel. In other words, Friedman doesn’t allow his political beliefs to color the truth—something that’s not as easy as it sounds, especially when one has a journalist’s platform to use or abuse. Today I discovered that Friedman’s not only a great writer whose morals remain intact, he’s also a rousing speaker, personable, witty, and fun. READ MORE

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Why are most Westerners ignorant about history of #Islam and the West ?

Posted on November 29, 2018 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
The dire consequences of rewriting Western-Muslim history
by Raymond Ibrahim
November 24, 2018

…In fact, from Islam’s first contact with Western civilization and for over a millennium thereafter, Muslims behaved not unlike the Islamic State and on the same conviction: that Islam commands war on—and the enslavement or slaughter of—non-Muslims. During this perennial jihad that began in the seventh century, almost three-quarters of Christendom’s original territory—including all of North Africa, Egypt, Greater Syria, and Anatolia—was permanently swallowed up by Islam. European nations and territories that were attacked and/or came under Muslim occupation (sometimes for centuries) include: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Iceland, Denmark, England, Sicily, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Greece, Russia, Poland, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Lithuania, Romania, Albania, Serbia, Armenia, Georgia, Crete, Cyprus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Belarus, Malta, and Sardinia. READ MORE

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CNN fires Marc Lamont Hill after he calls for a free Palestine “from the river to the sea” i.e. Israel’s destruction

Posted on November 29, 2018 by ArchitectGuy

THE HILL
CNN cuts ties with Marc Lamont Hill after Israel comments
by Megan Keller
November 29, 2018

CNN cut ties with contributor Marc Lamont Hill on Thursday after the Temple University professor made controversial comments regarding Israel at the United Nations. “Marc Lamont Hill is no longer under contract with CNN,” a CNN spokesperson told The Hill. Hill had urged countries to boycott Israel in a speech at the U.N. on Wednesday, calling for a “free Palestine from the river to the sea.” READ MORE

CONSERVATIVE REVIEW CNN contributor calls for Israel’s extermination, endorses violence against Jewish state CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill spoke today at the U.N.’s “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” an annual anti-Israel hatefest that props up Palestinian terrorists and is rife with calls for Israel’s extermination. In his speech before the United Nations in New York City, the CNN personality explicitly endorsed  violent Palestinian actions against Israel…Hill not only endorsed violence against Israel, he also called for its destruction.

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“Had Abdi been successful, the U.S. would have gone only four weeks between deadly incidents in or around synagogues”

Posted on November 29, 2018 by ArchitectGuy

TABLET MAG
We May Never Know the Motivations of the Man Who Shouted Anti-Semitic Slurs Before Trying to Kills Jews
by Armin Rosen
November 28, 2018

This one seems about as straightforward as it gets: At around 9:30 on a Friday night, a 32-year-old man lurked outside of a Los Angeles synagogue in a rented car and then screamed anti-Jewish invective as he tried to run down two men emerging from the sanctuary. The would-be victims were able to shelter behind an electrical box as they noticed the car accelerating but the attacker, Mogadishu-born Mohamed Mohamed Abdi, was so determined to kill Jews that he ran a red light and made an abrupt U-turn in order to have a second shot at his targets. READ MORE

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“The main point many of them wanted to get across is that it is important to meet with Israelis and for both sides to share their views”

Posted on November 27, 2018 by ArchitectGuy

BREITBART
While Airbnb boycotts, Israel builds its diplomatic strength
by Caroline Glick
November 28, 2018

…The Arab leaders assembled in Rome for the MED2018 conference, in contrast to the Western Europeans and the left, are tired of the Palestinians. The clear preference of the leaders of these states is not to boycott Israel, but to expand contacts and relations with the Jewish state. Their behavior in Rome made clear that they are unwilling to subordinate their shared interests with Israel to the Palestinians’ unappeasable animosity towards the Jewish state. For instance, although Qatar has been one the chief sponsors of Hamas’s terror state in Gaza in the past, its foreign minister chose not to mention the Palestinians in his enumeration of the chief challenges facing the Middle East. READ MORE

JERUSALEM POST Seth J. Frantzman: Israelis, Arabs and Kurds discuss a Middle East confederation in Jerusalem …These were some of the ideas that emerged from a unique event last week at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), where a group of Israeli, Arab and Kurdish speakers – some speaking via Skype from abroad – discussed the current state of the Middle East and its future…The meeting was a closed-door session and some of the participants did not want to be identified because they are from Middle Eastern countries that do not have relations with Israel. 

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“Nachal Haredi, an army unit made up entirely of former yeshiva students, is growing and is a highly trained and successful combat unit”

Posted on November 27, 2018 by ArchitectGuy

MOMENT
What Will It Take to Get the Haredim to Enlist?
by Naomi Ragen
November/December 2018

…Ever since the nascent State of Israel agreed in 1948 in return for Orthodox support not to draft 400 yeshiva students—a number that by 2012 had risen to an astounding 58,000—the unequal sharing of the burden of military service has become an ever more toxic and explosive element in Israeli public life. In the 1980s, religious Zionists (in American terms, Modern Orthodox) voluntarily chose to obligate their yeshiva sons to join the army. Not so the haredim, who zealously guard their exemption and are deaf to all entreaties to compromise. READ MORE

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