“Communications technology developed in Israel is being used by divers to help free 12 boys and their coach trapped for 11 days in a flooded Thai cave”

Posted on July 4, 2018 by ArchitectGuy

ISRAEL 21C
Rescuers turn to Israeli tech to help save trapped Thai boys
by Nicky Blackburn
July 4, 2018

Emergency mobile communications technology developed by Israeli company Maxtech Networks is being used by rescue teams working to save 12 teenagers and their 25-year-old coach who have been trapped for 11 days in a flooded cave in Thailand. The teenagers, a boys’ soccer team, went missing on June 23 after a soccer game when they visited a sprawling 10-kilometer-long cave system in the northern region of Chiang Rai, and became trapped by a flash flood. Initial rescue attempts were hampered not only by the rising waters, but by lack of communication between first responders, as existing communication systems couldn’t work in the complexity of the underground caves. READ MORE

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Physical assaults on writers “part of the Palestinian Authority’s continued effort to silence critics and intimidate journalists who fail to “toe the line”

Posted on July 2, 2018 by ArchitectGuy

GATESTONE INSTITUTE
Palestinians Beat Female Journalists; World “Sees No Evil”
by Bassam Tawil
July 3, 2018

Two female Palestinian journalists were beaten during protests in the West Bank in the past week. The two women, Lara Kan’an and Majdoleen Hassona, were assaulted by Palestinian Authority security officers while covering Palestinian demonstrations calling on President Mahmoud Abbas to lift the economic sanctions he imposed last year on the Gaza Strip…The truth is that the Palestinian Authority is a body that has long been functioning as a dictatorship that suppresses freedom of speech and imposes a reign of terror and intimidation on Palestinian journalists and critics. READ MORE

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BDS activist Ariel Gold: “I am in the Tel Aviv airport getting deported”

Posted on July 2, 2018 by ArchitectGuy

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
Israel denies entry to Jewish-American boycott ‎activist
by Shimon Yaish, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
July 2, 2018

Israel on Monday denied entry to a Jewish-American ‎activist for advocating the boycott of the Jewish ‎state.‎ The Immigration Authority confirmed that Ariel ‎Gold, 40, arrived in Israel Sunday and was refused ‎entry at the airport. ‎ Gold is the national co-director of U.S.-based left-wing organization Code Pink and an advocate of [BDS]…She visited Israel last year and during her stay, it ‎became clear she was a well-known BDS activist, who ‎had deleted anti-Israel posts and tweets prior to ‎arriving in the country, so as not to arouse suspicion. ‎READ MORE

I 24 Barred US-Jewish BDS activist considers becoming Israeli citizen

Ariel is “heartbroken” by criticism from pro-Israel Jews

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“The future UK monarch’s historic trip boosted Israel’s international legitimacy, but also underlined the world’s ongoing discomfort with Jewish sovereignty throughout Jerusalem”

Posted on July 2, 2018 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Prince William’s visit a PR coup for Israel, with some royal pain amid the gain
by Raphael Ahren
June 28, 2018

… The importance of his tour lies mainly in the fact that a member of the royal family, after seven decades of unofficial boycott, finally came on an official visit to the State of Israel. It’s a harsh blow to those who seek to delegitimize the State of Israel when Great Britain — which not only abstained on the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan but also repeatedly refused to vote in favor of Israel’s joining the UN, only recognizing the nascent Jewish state in April 1950 — finally sent a representative of Her Majesty to Jerusalem for meetings with Israel’s most senior leaders.READ MORE

CLARION PROJECT Dear Prince William…“And so you’re back,” as the song continues. I can’t wait to see the expression on your face when you see how things have changed since your 80,000 troops high-tailed it out in ‘47. I am become a vibrant democracy that successfully juggles the rights and demands of the world’s three major religions. You could even call me a virtual beacon of light on that count considering the neighborhood I live in…

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Ami Horowitz channels Borat with Hamas Commander

Posted on July 1, 2018 by ArchitectGuy

DAILY WIRE
Ami Horowitz Speaks With Senior Hamas Leader In Wild Interview
by James Barrett
June 28, 2018

In a never-before-released interview, journalist and activist filmmaker Ami Horowitz journeys to the West Bank to meet with a high-ranking Hamas leader to ask him about female jihadists, the Palestinians’ mission of “redeeming” all of Israel, and what a man like him does to “relax.” After working through “several layers” of contacts to finally land a meeting, Horowitz traveled to Qalqilya in the West Bank to meet with Abdul Rahman Zedain, the Northern West Bank Commander of the terrorist organization Hamas. READ MORE

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Prospects for West Bank Annexation

Posted on July 1, 2018 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
UN Expert: Israel Moving Closer to Formal West Bank Annexation
by Tovah Lazaroff
July 2, 2018

Israel has taken steps that could lead to the formal annexation of the West Bank, UN legal expert Michael Lynk said in advance of Monday’s United Nations Human Rights Council meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “After years of creeping Israeli de facto annexation of the large swathes of the West Bank through settlement expansion, the creation of closed military zones and other measures, Israel appears to be getting closer to enacting legislation that will formally annex parts of the West Bank,” Lynk said. READ MORE

JERUSALEM POST What is the U.S. Position on the Golan?…Lapid’s visit [to America] focused on securing bipartisan American support for US recognition of Israeli control over the Golan Heights. One step that would prove the trip successful would be if some kind of lobby for that cause is created in Congress. The cynics would say that Lapid latched onto the issue, because he is trying to portray himself as Israel’s shadow foreign minister and the main alternative to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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“#Netanyahu’s gifts were apparent very early on. Intelligent, preternaturally serious, he had an immense capacity for hard work, always seeming older than his age”

Posted on July 1, 2018 by ArchitectGuy

MOSAIC
A First Draft of the Life of Benjamin Netanyahu
by Neil Rogachevsky
July 2, 2018

…No one can deny that Bibi is indeed a bit of a fish out of water in contemporary Israel. He is more comfortable with American-born aides as well as with supporters in America than with rank-and-file Likud members, to say nothing of Israel’s literary and media establishment. Pfeffer rightly attributes this to his “American journey” in education, business, and politics, yet misses the essential point. During his time in America in the 70s and 80s, Bibi became a serious student of the new common-sense economic and political thought that would soon, like everything in America, develop an “ism” to go with it: in this case, neoconservatism. READ MORE

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Democrats and Republicans unite to oppose BDS

Posted on June 29, 2018 by ArchitectGuy

THE TOWER
Congressional Committee Unanimously Passes Bipartisan Israel Anti-Boycott
by Staff
June 29, 2018

The influential House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously passed the bipartisan Israel Anti-Boycott Act sending it to the full House of Representatives for a vote, The Jerusalem Post reported Thursday. The bill would protect Israel and Israeli businesses from boycotts organized by international organizations. Northwestern Law School Prof. Eugene Kontorovich explained last year that the purpose of the bill is to counter efforts by international organizations, such as the United Nations Human Rights Council, which is assembling a blacklist of companies doing business with firms that have any ties to the West Bank. READ MORE

ALGEMEINER Israel Anti-Boycott Act Approved by House Foreign Affairs Committee  The Israel Anti-Boycott Act — a bipartisan bill sponsored by Representatives Peter Roskam (R-IL) and Juan Vargas (D-CA) — would require the president to update federal regulations so as to prohibit compliance by American companies with international attempts to boycott the Jewish state.

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Here’s a Birthright Trip Michael Chabon could get behind

Posted on June 29, 2018 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Left-wing NGO crashes Birthright group to spread ‘anti-Occupation’ info
by Jeremy Sharon
June 28, 2018

A group of five activists from the far-left IfNotNow Jewish organization infiltrated a Birthright group currently in Israel this week, and offered a tour of Hebron to other members of the group with the Breaking the Silence organization.
IfNotNow, which says it seeks to “end American Jewish support for the occupation,” launched a new campaign this week called Not Just A Free Trip, in which it says it is using “a diversity of methods” to teach Birthright participants about “the daily nightmare of Occupation.”  READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL Left-wing participants stage Birthright walkout to attend West Bank tour  Claiming the program was “hiding the realities of the occupation,” a group of five Birthright participants staged a walkout on the final day of their trip on Thursday in order to attend a tour of the West Bank city of Hebron run by the left-wing Breaking the Silence organization. The group live-streamed their protest…

JNS Focusing on the funding and leadership of IfNotNow According to Aviva Slomich, international campus director for CAMERA…anti-Zionist messages are an essential part of IfNotNow’s messaging. “Our concern with IfNotNow is not that they give the Palestinians a voice, but that they attack Israel, make heavily biased statements and facts, distort the truth, and demonize Israel and the Jewish people.”

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Rabbi Moskowitz: ‘Serving queer Jews is a fulfillment of his duty as an Orthodox rabbi, not a contradiction”

Posted on June 29, 2018 by ArchitectGuy

JTA
This Orthodox rabbi just took a job at an LGBT synagogue
by Ben Sales
June 25, 2018

…On a recent weekday afternoon, [Rabbi Mike] Moskowitz is sitting in a Jewish study room at this city’s Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in front of shelves filled with tractates of the Talmud. But the rest of the setting is decidedly, um, unorthodox. The bathrooms around the corner are gender-neutral. A memorial plaque in the sanctuary pays tribute to those who have died in the AIDS epidemic. The prayer book, published specifically for this synagogue, includes a special prayer for the weekend of New York’s Pride Parade. Four rainbow flags hang in the lobby. READ MORE

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