Illinois Pro-Israel community concerned Kwame Raoul would weaken anti-BDS legislation

FREE BEACON
Illinois’ Anti-BDS Efforts in Jeopardy as Key Opponent Leads Polls in Attorney General Race
by Adam Kredo
October 22, 2018

…Kwame Raoul, a veteran Illinois state legislator who replaced President Barack Obama in the legislative body when he moved into the Senate, is running to become the next Illinois attorney general, a position that would give him leverage to weaken the state’s landmark legislation blocking partnerships with any company that supports the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. Raoul was a chief opponent of the legislation, which was enacted in 2015, and has come under fire from the pro-Israel community for anti-Israel remarks, which include comparing the Holocaust to slavery in America. READ MORE

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“The Jewish state needs a strong Saudi Arabia to help confront Iran, but does not want to be seen as a mouthpiece for a regime that kills journalists”

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Khashoggi disliked Israel, but his brutal murder puts Jerusalem in tough spot
by Raphael Ahren
October 23, 2018

Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who was brutally murdered in Istanbul earlier this month, was not fond of Israel, to say the least. “The Jews are without history in Palestine. Therefore, they invented the Wailing Wall, which is a Mamluk structure,” he tweeted in 2015. Khashoggi also opposed Saudi Arabia’s covert cooperation with Israel, arguing that Riyadh did not need it and that any ties with the the Jewish state would unnecessarily tarnish his country’s reputation in the wider Arab world, according to Professor Joshua Teitelbaum, an expert on Saudi Arabia at Bar-Ilan University who knew Khashoggi well. READ MORE

ATLANTIC Jonathan Schanzer: The Experts Were Wrong About the Middle East  There is a rare and growing bipartisan consensus in Congress about the need to smack Saudi Arabia with human-rights sanctions, or perhaps even tougher penalties…Sanctions seem inevitable. The only problem is that many of the same experts pushing for sanctions against Saudi Arabia have previously argued, in other contexts, that sanctions don’t work

NEW YORK POST Tony Badran and Michael Doran: Why the Saudis despised Jamal Khashoggi With the likelihood growing that the Saudi government was behind the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, pressure has built for severe, swift action. As President Trump awaits more answers and contemplates a response, it’s worth considering who Khashoggi actually was, what he stood for and why the regime might have wanted him dead. This is not to suggest that the killing of Khashoggi is justified. It is, however, meant to observe that characterizations of him in the media are not fully accurate.

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Brooke Goldstein on Canary Mission: “Why do we have to be afraid to publicly expose those who are rabidly anti-Semitic? Have we learned nothing from our tragic past?”

JNS
Students support Canary Mission fight against ‘institutionalized, tolerated anti-Semitism’
by Jackson Richman and Alex Traiman
October 22, 2018

The controversial Canary Mission—an anonymous campus watchdog group that exposes organizations, academics and activists that demonize Israel on college campuses—recently came under fire when the San Francisco Jewish Federation indicated that it would no longer facilitate private-donor funding of the group. Articles in The Forward blasted the organization as “shadowy” for refusing to identify its leadership and sources of funding. Yet for pro-Israel student activists who are actively fighting against intensifying bigotry and intimidation on universities throughout North America, the work of Canary Mission provides useful tools in the war against campus anti-Semitism. READ MORE

CANARY MISSION #Twitter “locks” #CanaryMission for exposing #JewHatred 2 things you can do to help 1) Text TWITTER support: “I am appalled that you have locked the account of @canarymission, and denied their appeal three times. Canary Mission’s sole purpose is to expose hatred and bigotry! Their account is a vital service to the public, please reinstate it fully immediately. Thank you” 2) Tweet @Twitter in support of @CanaryMission and against their decision to lock the account.

DAILY BRUIN US Rep. Brad Sherman, Chancellor Block exchange letters on SJP and free speech Chancellor Gene Block said in a letter addressed to U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman that the university would not cancel a national conference the congressman finds exclusionary and anti-Semitic. Sherman, who represents the eastern San Fernando Valley and Western Simi Hills, wrote a letter to Block urging him to cancel a national conference for Students for Justice in Palestine branches from universities across the country. 

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“Including Jerusalem as a future Palestinian capital in the American peace plan could put Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a bind, especially if he’s to call early elections”

YNET
Israel worried US peace plan will include Jerusalem as Palestinian capital
by Itamar Eichner
October 21, 2018

Israel is worried the American peace plan would include a declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of two states—Israel and Palestine—in an effort to convince Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to return to the negotiating table…The official said that if the Republicans lose power in the upcoming midterm elections, Trump might increase his efforts to reach a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so he could run for his second term with a big foreign policy achievement under his belt. READ MORE

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“How did an elite, repressive minority policing speech and culture through #PoliticalCorrectness come to browbeat the American democratic majority?”

TABLET MAG
The Emperor’s Woke Clothes
by Wesley Yang
October 18, 2018

The overwhelming majority of Americans oppose political correctness. A recent survey of 8,000 Americans reveals that people of all ages, races, and educational levels oppose it by lopsided margins. None of the demographic categories presumed to be aligned with it, or to fall within its protective embrace, actually support it. Three out of 4 black people, 2 out of 3 people with postgraduate degrees, and 78 percent of people under the age of 24 all regard political correctness as a problem. While 79 percent of white people oppose political correctness, it is Asians (82 percent), Hispanics (87 percent), and American Indians (88 percent) who are most likely to be resistant to it. READ MORE

MORE IN COMMON Hidden Tribes: A Study of America’s Polarized Landscape This report is about polarization in America today: what is driving us apart, and what can bring us back together.

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“If elected #Illinois governor in November, #JBPritzker will wear his sash and carry silver trays of sliced apples to Boss Madigan and wait to be told when to propose his whopping tax increase”

CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Come back to Rauner? Or let ‘Toilets’ Pritzker wear a sash while Boss Madigan rules Illinois?
by John Kass
October 19, 2018

The November elections in Illinois aren’t about some Democratic revenge fantasy, punishing President Donald Trump for putting Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. And the November elections in Illinois aren’t really about some Republican revenge fantasy to punish Gov. Bruce Rauner for betraying his conservative base by signing that bill on taxpayer-funded abortion. The November elections in Illinois — only weeks away now — are about two things: 1)Your taxes. 2) And the power of House Speaker Michael Madigan, the Southwest Side state Democratic boss, the longest ruling House speaker in American history, who has become incredibly wealthy in his tax reduction legal practice while also presiding over the fiscal collapse of Illinois. READ MORE SUBSCRIPTION CONTENT

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“The main strategic takeaway from Gaza and from Judea and Samaria is that there is no solution, military or otherwise to the Palestinians’ never-ending war against the Jewish state”

JERUSALEM POST
Mowing the Lawn in Gaza
by Caroline B. Glick
October 18, 2018

… Moreover, if Hamas [Gaza] were toppled tomorrow, it wouldn’t be replaced by a peaceful regime. It has no moderate opponents. As The Jerusalem Post’s Khaled Abu Toameh has reported, the second most powerful force in Gaza is the Islamic Jihad terror group. Hamas is controlled by Qatar, Turkey and Iran. Since it was established in 1988 by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, Islamic Jihad has been a wholly owned proxy of Tehran. Pick your poison. READ MORE

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Sbarro, Jerusalem, 2001: An open letter to Robert A. Sauerberg, president and CEO of Condé Nast

GHEULA CANARUTTO NEMNI BLOG
Why Condé Nast and Vogue do not respect Jews
October 9, 2018

On October 4, 2018, Vogue Arabia published a letter by Ahed Tamimi, the Palestinian teenager who is becoming an icon, despite the culture she represents.

My name is Raya Schijveschuurder. Today I would be 31 years old. I would be probably married and I would have my own children. They would be the same age of my little brothers who were 2 and 4 years old when they were killed together with my parents and me, inside a pizza store in Jerusalem, seventeen years agoWe were a happy family until 2 pm of August 9th 2001. We were eight children, four girls and four boys, the perfect balance. My parents were still young, 43 and 41 years old. READ MORE

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Israeli war planners are profoundly aware of Israel’s lack of strategic depth. “This bitter reality has meant that Israel’s military doctrine has of necessity come to emphasize offensive tactics: carrying the war to the enemy and away from Israel’s population centers as quickly as possible”

TABLET MAG
Killing the Lavi: Tracing the unintended consequences of the fateful 1987 cancellation of Israel’s largest single weapons development program
by John W. Golan
October 4, 2018

Thirty-one years ago, on Aug. 30, 1987, an Israeli cabinet voted to terminate Israel’s Lavi fighter program, ending the largest single weapons development effort in the history of the Jewish state. It was a narrow, party-line vote in a divided “national unity” Cabinet. As the story behind this airplane has receded into history and its memory has faded among the succeeding generations, its broader meaning and significance to Israel’s national security has likewise been largely lost. The consequences of decisions not fully understood at the time that they were made will so often be visited upon the generations that follow. READ MORE

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#Jonathan Greenblatt #ADL’s “new executive director is betraying the organization’s purpose”

COMMENTARY
The Shame of the Anti-Defamation League
by Seth Mandel
October 2018

…Like every organization, the ADL had its blind spots, but it never had an obstructed view of its own raison d’être—until the summer of 2015. That was when Jonathan Greenblatt succeeded longtime ADL director Abe Foxman. Greenblatt is a man of the left in the purest sense, and one who holds partisan politics paramount. In the years leading up to his hire, the American left’s relationship with world Jewry had begun a steady decline. This decline was exploited and exacerbated by President Barack Obama—for whose administration Greenblatt worked before taking over the ADL. It is unclear whether the ADL’s reputation can survive Greenblatt’s stewardship. READ MORE

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