United and Delta Airlines suspending Israel flights due to escalating security tensions in the region

Posted on July 29, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
US airlines cancel flights to Israel
August 1, 2024

United and Delta Airlines announced on Wednesday the suspension of flights to Tel Aviv due to escalating security tensions in the Middle East. The decision by the two American legacy carriers follows the back-to -back assassinations of a top Hezbollah leader in Lebanon and Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Iran, and again leaves Israel’s flagship carrier El Al as the only airline offering direct service to and from the United States…At least five other carriers—Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Air India and FlyDubai—also canceled flights to the Jewish state. READ MORE

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Pick of the day…Pipes: “This abnormal conflict cannot be ended through compromise. One side must win, the other must lose”

Posted on July 28, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

JPOST
The uniqueness of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Daniel Pipes
July 16, 2024

…Palestinians can damage Israel through acts of violence and by spreading an anti-Zionist message, but they cannot prevent the Jewish state from ascending from one success to the next. Israel can punish Palestinians for their aggression, but it cannot quench the rejectionist spirit and its ever-more depraved expressions. That rejectionism is not temporary, does not bend to the pressure of carrots and sticks, and does not moderate over time explains the general inability to understand it or formulate a response to it. The mentality bewilders contemporaries as something hitherto unknown, a new phenomenon that prior experience cannot explain, like the French Revolution or Soviet Russia. READ MORE

QUIILLETTE Gadi Taub: “This war is just the first chapter of what will be a very long war”

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“We can’t turn away Jewish students who feel unsafe or unprotected on their college campuses”

Posted on July 28, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
US Jewish students transfer to friendlier schools post-Oct. 7
David Isaac
August 1, 2024

In the wake of the anti-Israel protests that swept across U.S. college campuses following the Hamas invasion on Oct. 7, anecdotal evidence suggests that Jewish students have started voting with their feet and decamping from the worst-offending schools. “We’ve seen an unprecedented number of students from top-tier institutions transfer to Yeshiva University, including from Columbia, Cornell and Barnard,” Yeshiva University President Rabbi Ari Berman told JNS…[Emmit] DeHart said he’s just one of a growing trend of Jewish students leaving problem campuses. He’s happy about his decision to go to a school “where being Jewish is normal and you can focus on your education without having to worry about all these protests and antisemitism.” READ MORE

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Schanzer: “Some warned that this would be Israel’s “forever war” and said that thousands of Israeli soldiers would be killed. But Israel’s majority-reservist army defied those experts and their expectations”

Posted on July 27, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

FREE PRESS
Two Assassinations and a Transformed War
Jonathan Schanzer
August 1, 2024

…Between the demise of the Hamas leadership and the loss of more than two-thirds of its fighting force in Gaza, Hamas is undeniably reeling. But the most meaningful development in Gaza has gone remarkably unreported. The Israelis now control the Philadelphi Corridor, which is the border area connecting Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula to the Gaza Strip. More importantly, the Israelis now control the tunnels that lie beneath it. For most of the war, those tunnels enabled Hamas to bring weapons, cash, and materiel from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula into the Gaza Strip. Those days are over. In the meantime, Israel continues to get the better of Hamas in virtually every clash. All of this flies in the face of the conventional wisdom touted by the so-called experts early in the war. READ MORE

WATCH Miryam Institute CEO Benjamin Anthony: Israel’s military ‘very capable’ of defending itself against Hamas and Hezbollah…and we must take the battle to Iran, the head of the snake.

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Mideast scholar John Oliver gets everything wrong on the subject but that doesn’t stop him from pontificating

Posted on July 26, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

CAMERA BLOG
The new Wall Street Journal – chasing clicks with anti-Israel bias
Andrea Levin
July 26, 2024

Wall Street Journal Editor-in-Chief Emma Tucker is making changes at the venerable publication, pushing more “life-style stories with snappy headlines” in the news section and has reportedly downsized, if not gutted, the standards desk that handles corrections. She’s eliminated an editing team “responsible for prepublication review of sensitive stories.” The new direction, as described in a National Review story, resonates alarmingly for many readers of the newspaper who have long counted on its fact-focused, serious coverage but find something very different today. For many too the increasingly skewed, factually shoddy coverage of Israel is a striking indicator of the wider shift in tenor and content. READ MORE

CAMERA BLOG John Oliver’s Latest Rant About Israel Is As Misinformed As It Is Crass Not content with having embarrassed himself when he last discussed Israel in November, John Oliver is back with a 29-minute long Gish Gallop of a rant in which nearly every sentence is misleading. Oliver makes clear throughout that he is interested only in promoting the Palestinian narrative, and that facts contrary to this world view – such as every single missed opportunity the Palestinians have had for independence – have no place in his blame-Israel-first approach.

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The alliance between the “progressive” Left and Arab/Muslim antisemites is now a formidable portion of the Democratic Party — and electing Harris as the 47th U.S. president would make it even worse.

Posted on July 26, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

FUTURE OF JEWISH
Kamala Harris will be even more anti-Israel than Obama
Joshua Hoffman
July 26, 2024

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris has apparently earned the support of enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, succeeding her current boss Joe Biden as the Democrats’ presidential nominee in time for the November election. This is terrible news for Jews in America, especially those who consider themselves both Democrats and Zionists. Like Obama, Harris represents the growing “progressive” faction of the Democratic Party — and I am not talking about the textbook definition of “progressive” which includes noble aims like combating poverty, reduce inequality, and provide social safety nets. Harris is close with “pro-Palestinian” progressives who have aligned with Earth’s most regressive, misogynistic, homophobic, antidemocratic, violent forces (Hamas). READ MORE

TWITTER Joel Pollak I heard Kamala Harris speak just hours after revisiting the sites of the October 7 terror attack, where unspeakable evil was unleashed by Palestinian terrorists.  She refuses to distinguish between the side that targets civilians and the side that tries to save them; between the side that revels in cruelty and the side that embraces humanity; between the side starts a war and the side that fights to end it. There is something more important here than an obvious attempt to pander to Muslim and Arab voters in Michigan, or to split the difference between the anti-Israel mobs and their antisemitic slogans and anti-American behavior. What we see here is a would-be leader without a moral core. Kamala Harris would be a disaster for Israel and the U.S. This really is the most important election of our lifetimes.

JNS Harris offers ‘platitudes about complexities’ but no call for ending Hamas, former US envoy says “I noted not a word from you in your speech regretting that your administration funded Hamas terror,” David Friedman wrote to the U.S. vice president.

JEWISH INSIDER Ernst accuses Harris of emboldening pro-Hamas demonstrators, Iran by skipping Netanyahu speech Ernst said at the Christians United for Israel summit outside Washington, D.C., on Tuesday that Harris’ absence “sent a very powerful message” to the anti-Israel “rioters” who vandalized Union Station during the speech. “It also sent a clear signal to Hamas’ backers in Tehran,” she continued, alleging that the Biden administration “does not have the backbone to stand up to the pro-Hamas wing of the Democratic Party.”

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How Barack Obama ended normalcy in American politics

Posted on July 26, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

TABLET MAG
He the People
Lee Smith
July 29, 2024

The people have spoken, and last week former President Barack Obama called Vice President Kamala Harris to tell her. His endorsement of her run for the presidency was captured in a short video documenting the candidate’s reaction. “Although you called for an open process,” said Obama, “and you know, Democrats have, have put in place an open process, it appears that people feel very strongly that you need to be our nominee.” But without a primary, without a popular referendum, without even the open convention that Obama was rumored to favor, how did the people make their will known, and strongly? Was it social media influencers? Mass rallies across the country? Media chronicling the excitement surrounding a Harris candidacy? No, it was nothing like that. Obama is the people. The people are Obama. READ MORE

GATESTONE Why Has the Biden Administration Donated Close to One Billion Dollars in “Aid” to Hamas since the October 7 Massacre? Biden and Blinken have “known for years” that the US aid is providing “material support” for Hamas’ “tunnels, rockets, weapon procurement, and command and control infrastructure,” among other terror structures, the lawsuit stated.

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Bibi: “Following our victory, with the help of regional partners, the demilitarization and deradicalization of Gaza can also lead to a future of security, prosperity and peace. That’s my vision for Gaza.”

Posted on July 26, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Netanyahu calls for ‘deradicalized’ Gaza, anti-Iran ‘Abraham Alliance’
July 25, 2024

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday laid out his vision for post-Hamas Gaza, calling for the enclave to be “demilitarized and deradicalized” in a manner similar to Germany and Japan after World War II. Speaking to a joint session of Congress in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., he also called for the establishment of a Middle Eastern defense alliance to confront the threat posed to the region by Iran. “The day after we defeat Hamas, a new Gaza can emerge. My vision for that day is of a demilitarized and deradicalized Gaza,” said the Israeli premier. “Israel does not seek to resettle Gaza. But for the foreseeable future, we must retain overriding security control there to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel,” he added. READ MORE

C-SPAN Watch the speech

ARUTZ SHEVA Prime Minister’s Office: Netanyahu met Musk after Congress speech
Netanyahu’s office says he met with Elon Musk in Washington after his address to the US Congress. The two discussed opportunities and challenges in AI, and opportunities for technological cooperation with Israel.

AXIOS Around half of Congress’ Democrats skip Netanyahu speech Roughly half of House and Senate Democrats skipped Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, according to an Axios headcount. Roughly 100 House Democrats and 28 Senate Democrats were present in the chamber for the Israeli prime minister’s speech, meaning around half of both caucuses were absent. Most of the lawmakers who did attend the speech are on the more moderate, pro-Israel side of the party, including many swing-district lawmakers.

JPOST ‘Hamas is coming’: Protesters pull down US flag, vandalize DC landmarks “Hamas is coming,” was scrawled in red across the face of the the Christopher Columbus Memorial Fountain at Union Station, alongside slogans, such as “free Gaza” and “all Zionists are bastards.”

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“Rightly or wrongly, key Arab leaders may interpret snub of Mr. Netanyahu as evidence that Ms. Harris sympathizes with the opponents of a Saudi treaty and that her Middle East policy will differ significantly from Mr. Biden’s”

Posted on July 24, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

WALL STREET JOURNAL
Tensions Between Bibi Netanyahu and Kamala Harris
Walter Russell Mead
July 23, 2024

When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint session of Congress Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris won’t be there. Despite having become the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, she decided that an earlier commitment to the Zeta Phi Beta sorority’s convention in Indianapolis mattered more than a speech by the leader of one of America’s closest allies at a time of conflict and crisis in a region involving vital U.S. interests. Ms. Harris is expected to meet Mr. Netanyahu during his visit to Washington, but the snub is unmistakable. It is fueling rumors of a rift between the Harris and Biden approaches to the Middle East. On March 4, NBC News reported that National Security Council officials “toned down” a draft of remarks Ms. Harris was to give on the humanitarian situation in Gaza. This week the Journal reported that other fissures could appear. READ MORE

POLITICO Dems GTFO after Bibi’s speech Sens. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) and John Fetterman (D-Pa.) were the only non-Republicans to hang around for a handshake with Netanyahu following the speech. Dozens of Democrats, including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, left the chamber before the prime minister had even left the rostrum.

THE HILL Pelosi says Netanyahu gave ‘the worst’ speech to Congress from any foreign leader Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) blasted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on Wednesday as the “worst” in the body’s history, harshly criticizing the leader’s lack of progress toward a hostage deal with Hamas. 

JEWISH INSIDER Speaker Johnson: VP Harris will ‘pay a price’ politically for skipping Bibi speech House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) criticized Vice President Kamala Harris’ decision to skip Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s joint address to Congress today as a “terrible symbolic gesture” and predicted that she would “pay a price for it politically.”

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The attack plan on the port of Hodeidah was long in the making, after over 220 Houthi attacks against Israel. The port is a major supply route for military and weapon supplies from Iran

Posted on July 24, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
20 fighter jets, 1,000 miles away: This is how Israel hit the Houthis in Yemen
Lilach Shoval
July 21, 2024

The IAF attack in the Hodeidah area of Yemen was carried out by 20 fighter jets, some of which were refueled in mid-air, and at a distance of more than 1,700 kilometers (1,000 miles) from Israel – 200 kilometers farther than Tehran, as confirmed by the IDF. This operation was a cumulative response to the Houthi attacks via drones and missiles, which numbered at about 220 over the past nine months, most of which were intercepted and downed by the American Central Command and the air defense system. The Israeli attack was executed not just due to the Houthi drone strike in Tel Aviv, but also because it was the first time a Houthi attack crossed the airspace and caused casualties. In this case, Evgeny Frader, 50, was killed early Friday morning by said drone strike. READ MORE

See video of the attack

NATIONAL SECURITY JOURNAL Ilan Berman: How To Strike Back Against The Houthis But the Israeli retaliation also did something more: it highlighted a way to turn the tables on what has, until now, been an enormously successful campaign of economic blackmail along one of the world’s most vital waterways.

GATESTONE Harold Rhode: A Big Win for Israel Following Israel’s recent strike on Houthi targets in Yemen, White House National Security Communications Advisor John F. Kirby said: “We did not participate in today’s Israeli attack on Yemen and did not help Israel.” This is wonderful news. It shows to the Iranians, Arab states and others that Israel is an independent actor, not a “client state” of America. It also demonstrates that Israel is willing to go it alone against the advice or demands of the Americans. It shows the Sunni Arab countries that Israel is a reliable partner against the Iranian regime because Israel will do what it must to protect itself and stop Iran and its proxies.

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