Matti Friedman: “I watched as the goal of mainstream journalism shifted from describing reality to ushering readers to the correct political conclusion”

Posted on September 7, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

THE FREE PRESS
When We Started to Lie
Matti Friedman
September 10, 2024

…The most important thing I saw during my time as a correspondent in the American press, it seemed to me, was happening among my colleagues. The practice of journalism—that is, knowledgeable analysis of messy events on Planet Earth—was being replaced by a kind of aggressive activism that left little room for dissent. The new goal was not to describe reality, but to usher readers to the correct political conclusion, and if this sounds familiar now, it was both new and surprising to the younger version of myself who was lucky to get a job with the AP’s Jerusalem bureau in 2006. The story I found myself part of proposed, in effect, that the ills of Western civilization—racism, militarism, colonialism, nationalism—were embodied by Israel, which was covered more heavily than any other foreign country. READ MORE

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BDS, Al Qaeda, “Kill the Jews” and Kamala’s “Incredible Muslim Team”

Posted on September 6, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

FRONT PAGE MAG
Kamala’s Islamists
Daniel Greenfield
September 10, 2024

…And while Kamala’s opposition to Israel has often been seen as a response to the necessities of winning Michigan, her solidarity with Islamists is not a response to the 2024 election. Kamala has built a Muslim team whose views are extreme and whose hostility to America and Israel, as well as their ties to foreign governments and Muslim Brotherhood groups, raise troubling questions, especially as some figures, like Maher Bitar, are expected to rise further in her administration, while others we may not yet know about will arrive on the scene. Vice President Kamala Harris is not a critic of Israel’s campaign against Hamas because of the pressure out of Dearborn, but because she has built up relationships with terrorism supporters. READ MORE

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“Hersh was described as funny with a dry, dark sense of humor. He was obsessed with soccer and loved electronic music”

Posted on September 5, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

FDD
Hamas Executes Six Israeli Hostages in Rafah, IDF Returns Remains to Families
September 1, 2024

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on September 1 that the bodies of six murdered Israelis were discovered in a tunnel below Rafah. The IDF found the deceased hostages approximately one kilometer away from the location where the IDF rescued Israeli hostage Farhan al-Qadi alive earlier in the week. According to the IDF, the six hostages were executed by Gaza terrorist shortly before the IDF reached them. The slain hostages are Israeli-American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, and Israeli citizens Carmel Gat, 40, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Alexander Lubnov, 32, Almog Sarusi, 27, and Ori Danino, 25. So far, at least nine Israeli hostages have been discovered by the IDF in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost town that abuts Gaza’s border with Egypt. READ MORE

JNS UN Secretary-General Guterres slammed over ‘crocodile tears’ for news Hamas killed six hostages “Won’t even say ‘Hamas.’ Won’t condemn the terror group that took Hersh, held him hostage for 330 days and murdered him,” wrote AIPAC. “Says it all.”

JPOST IDF finds tunnel shaft where bodies of hostages were found in a children’s yard The IDF found the shaft to the tunnel in which the bodies of the hostages were found Saturday in a children’s yard…The bodies were found only one kilometer from where Kaid Farhan al-Alkadi, age 52, from Rahat, was found last week. Since Alkadi was found, the IDF put out instructions to be extra careful in the area, but it is possible that Hamas killed the six, knowing that the military was close by…

ARUTZ SHEVA Hamas releases footage of hostages who were murdered in captivity
Hamas published footage in which Alexander Lobanov and Carmel Gat, who were murdered last week, beg Israelis to protest for their release.

FREE PRESS Bari Weiss: Dark Tunnels and Moral Beacons The names of the six murdered Israeli hostages—and the evil ideology of their executioners—should be seared into the minds of all who wish to live in civilization.

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“Biden’s failure to take action to rescue American hostages from Hamas and address Palestinian terrorism reflects a prioritization of pursuing a Palestinian state over justice for victims”

Posted on September 5, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

JPOST
Biden abandoned hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin
Moshe Phillips
September 5, 2024

It’s appalling that US President Joe Biden is blaming Israel for Hamas’s recent murder of six hostages, including American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin. But what makes Biden’s stance even more outrageous is the fact that his administration has never taken even the most minimal steps to bring about the release of any of the Americans who were kidnapped by Hamas. What could Biden have done?…The US has been pouring aid into Gaza—$674 million between October 7 and mid-July 2024. Much of that was stolen by Hamas and used to sustain its forces, including the kidnappers who are holding Americans captive. Biden could have announced that no aid would enter Gaza until the American citizens were released. READ MORE

COMMENTARY John Podhoretz: The Hostage Murders and the New Threat…And I cannot help but ask. I cannot. Had the Biden administration’s will not been bent and twisted in the months following the attack by the fiendish propaganda campaign causing them to worry about the war’s effect on Joe’s chances in Michigan—due to a population that effectively supported the terrorist monsters and cared not a whit for the eight Americans, let alone the 240 other innocents dragged into Hell—would Hersh and these others have survived? Imagine an Israel that had not found itself restrained and under assault, not told to pause, not scolded in pissy little phone calls with petulant American establishmentarians, without arms and aid held up, without being lectured about the geo-strategic value of going slow or not going at all. READ MORE

JNS Jonathan Tobin: Don’t confuse Washington’s Netanyahu-bashing with those of Israeli critics Most Israelis understand that had Biden stuck to his initial position of strong support, the defeat of Hamas would have been made possible and accomplished faster, and at the cost of fewer lives on both sides. And they also realize that pressuring Netanyahu—and not Hamas and its enablers in Qatar and elsewhere—is part of the problem. By pursuing its vendetta against Netanyahu rather than supporting Israel, the administration has undermined U.S. interests in the region and given aid and comfort to the terrorists. Rather than supporting Israelis or the hostages, Biden and Harris are sticking to Obama’s failed formula for the Middle East that has already cost so many lives in Israel, Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen.

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“I need you to help us stay strong and I need you to help us survive,” his mother, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, said at the Jerusalem service.

Posted on September 5, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

KVELLER
At Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s Funeral, A Beautiful Boy Remembered
Lior Zaltzman
September 3, 2024

Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s funeral at Jerusalem’s Har Hamenuchot cemetery this Monday was packed. Crowds wearing red shirts, for HaPoel Jerusalem, Hersh’s beloved local team, flooded the road leading up to the space where mourners spoke about their loved one, waving flags and scarfs with messages from Bob Marley and against racism. There were secular and religious men and women, some waving yellow flags for the hostages, some holding or wrapped in Israeli flags. They sat on the rooftops of buildings and watched as Hersh’s parents, sisters and the country’s president speak. They walked with him on his final journey, this boy who loved to travel the world so much. They sang “El Maleh Rachamim,” a prayer of remembrance. READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL ‘My sweet boy Hersh, we tried so desperately to save you’ The full text of Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s speech at the funeral of her son Hersh, abducted, held captive and murdered by Hamas in Gaza, laid to rest in Jerusalem

ISRAEL HAYOM In touching Times Square tribute, images of murdered hostages displayed Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs launches poignant campaign on New York’s iconic billboards calling for urgent action to secure the safe return of all remaining hostages.

YOUTUBE Click here to view funeral for American-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin

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“The UN has not said a word. Neither has the Red Cross. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch do not care either. That should be the main story here”

Posted on September 5, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

FUTURE OF JEWISH
Hamas’ psychological warfare knows no bounds
Joshua Hoffman
September 1, 2024

By now you have probably heard the heart-wrenching news: The bodies of six hostages abducted alive by Palestinians on October 7th were recovered from a tunnel in southern Gaza overnight, shortly after they were murdered by terrorists. All six hostages were shot multiple times from close range, indicating they were executed, according to Israel’s Health Ministry. The ministry said that the hostages were murdered between 48 and 72 hours before their autopsy, meaning between Thursday and Friday morning. Among all these details, the key one is that these bodies were not rescued as part of some daring IDF mission. They were strategically murdered and placed in a meaningful area of Gaza where the IDF could easily find them. Even these murdered abductees were chosen methodically; four of them were on the “humanitarian” list of captives and meant to be released in the first stage of a proposed hostage deal. READ MORE

NEWS NATION Chris Cuomo asks why the story of six executed Jewish hostages isn’t receiving the attention it deserves

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Stephens: “Israelis should remember that wars will be worse, and come more often, to those who fail to win them”

Posted on September 4, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

SEATTLE TIMES
A Hostage Deal is a Poison Pill for Israel
Bret Stephens
September 3, 3024

…Huge demonstrations in Tel Aviv, coinciding with the heartbreaking funerals of six murdered hostages, have demanded that the prime minister agree to a cease-fire deal to obtain the release of additional hostages, at the cost of conceding one of Hamas’s core demands: an Israeli withdrawal from a strip of land known as the Philadelphi Corridor, which separates Gaza from Egypt. Netanyahu has refused, insisting in a news conference on Monday that Israeli forces will not leave. Netanyahu is right, and it’s important for his usual critics, including me, to acknowledge it. He’s right, first because the highest justification for fighting a war, besides survival, is to prevent its repetition. READ MORE

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“Since Oct. 7, about 3,170 new immigrants have made their way to Israel from North America”

Posted on September 4, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

ISRAEL HAYOM
Young US Jews embrace Israel amid Gaza war
Efrat Forsher
September 4, 2024

In a striking display of solidarity, hundreds of young North American Jews are choosing to immigrate to Israel despite the ongoing Gaza war. Many of the newcomers are not only committed to building their lives in the Jewish state but are also planning to enlist in the IDF upon arrival. From June to August, approximately 1,500 North American immigrants arrived in Israel through the collaborative efforts of Nefesh B’Nefesh, the Aliyah and Integration Ministry, the Jewish Agency, Jewish National Fund-USA, and Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael. The majority of the new olim are young adults who have decided to tie their futures to Israel, particularly during this tumultuous period. READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL Summer influx of Olim arrive in Israel’s busiest Aliyah season yet “On October 7th, my husband and I looked at each other and we both said, ‘We’re still going,’” Hiller-Bersson said from her new home in Modi’in, Israel. “We’d been making these plans for years and we knew moving to Israel was part of something big.”

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“#BringThemHome demonstrates just how hollow and inflamed Israeli public discourse has become. To whom, exactly, is this exhortation addressed?”

Posted on September 4, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

TABLET MAG
‘Bring Them Home’ Is Bringing Us to the Brink
Liel Leibovitz
September 3, 2024

…In recent days, a post from an unnamed reservist in Gaza has been going viral in Israel for making a very different argument than the one you hear parroted by self-appointed experts on TV or hear shouted in the streets of Tel Aviv. “The Philadelphi Corridor is more important than hostages,” wrote the reservist. “It’s more important than me and my entire battalion, which has been fighting in Gaza since the beginning of the war.” Approximately every 100 meters, he explained, a tunnel passes through the fence, openings used for smuggling massive amounts of contraband. Therefore, the reservist continued, “leaving Philadelphi for one day means a death sentence for thousands more Israelis…READ MORE

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CA school district committee leader described Jewish organizations that took issue with the curriculum as “racist Zionists”

Posted on August 31, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

LA TIMES
Jewish advocacy groups allege antisemitism behind Santa Ana’s ethnic studies rollout
Gabriel San Román
August 28, 2024

An ethnic studies curriculum at Santa Ana Unified School District is headed for a court battle in an ongoing lawsuit that alleges courses were developed in secret and “infected” with antisemitism…Attorneys also obtained text messages that appear to show senior district officials discussing a strategy of the school board to hold votes on Jewish holidays, like Passover, to approve ethnic studies classes without protest from the Jewish community. “The policy-making committee that was established saw Jews as an obstacle to exclude in the process,” said James Pasch, the ADL’s senior director for national litigation. “Due to that exclusion, the end result was the creation of anti-Jewish, anti-Israel classes being implemented into the curriculum.” READ MORE

NATIONAL REVIEW California School District Tried to Hide Antisemitic Ethnic-Studies Courses from Jewish Taxpayers, Lawsuit Alleges One leader referred to the only Jewish committee member as a “colonized Jewish mind” and a “f–king baby” for expressing concerns over the depiction of Jews in the curriculum. Another individual on the committee reportedly said that “Jews are not a disadvantaged ethnic group in the U.S. because they were never slaves,” that “Jews greatly benefit from white privilege, so they have it better,” and that the school district should “only support the oppressed, and Jews are the oppressors.” Another argued that Jews are “racialized under the white category.”

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