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PA Claims Israel Will ‘Destroy Al-Aqsa and Build Temple’ after Annexation

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Palestinian Authority (PA) Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Malki has recently appeared to instigate a religious war between the Muslim world and Israel when he alleged that Israel plans “to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and build the alleged Temple” after it declares sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria. Photo by Majdi Fathi/TPS on 3 February, 2020

By: TPS

Palestinian Authority (PA) Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Malki has recently appeared to instigate a religious war between the Muslim world and Israel when he alleged that Israel plans “to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and build the alleged Temple” after it declares sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria.

Al-Malki made his statement in a video conference of Arab officials at the level of foreign ministers regarding Israel’s presumed future plans to apply Israeli law to the Jordan Valley and the Israeli cities and towns in Judea and Samaria, the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida reported Thursday.

“[Israel’s annexation] will place the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque… under full Israeli control, in order to execute their plan to promote their false narrative in order to destroy it and build their alleged Temple. This will turn the conflict from a political conflict into a religious conflict whose end will be bad and bitter, will undermine the stability, and will destroy the security and peace in the region and the world,” Al-Malki told the Arab officials.

The Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), which reported on the statements, noted that “Al-Malki’s statement and prediction of ‘religious war’ functions as a call to Palestinians to take to violence and terror in the event Israel goes through with the annexation.”

PMW, an incitement and anti-Semitism watchdog, further pointed out that Al-Malki’s statement “joins a long line of music videos and fillers broadcast by the PA designed to ignite the Palestinian street, calling to carry out suicide bombings and stabbings and ‘restore honor,’ and fight with ‘daggers and knives,’ and ‘redeem Jerusalem’.”

According to the US-formulated Deal of the Century peace plan, Israel can declare sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria from the beginning of July.

The US’ Deal of the Century peace plan, officially titled “Vision for Peace, Prosperity, and a Brighter Future,” calls for the Israeli annexation of some 30% of the territory in Judea and Samaria already under its control, with the remaining 70% becoming a Palestinian state.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has rejected the plan even before its details were published.

In other developments,  the Border Police’s Undercover Unit on Monday was successful in preventing the smuggling of drugs into Israel from Egypt.

During the operation, the forces identified a number of suspects arriving on ATVs from the Egyptian side of the border toward Israel. The suspects began throwing several sacks into Israeli territory, and the Border Policemen responded by shooting in the direction of the smugglers.

The smuggling was thwarted, and the forces located four bags of cannabis and another bag of cannabis seeds weighing about 100 kg.

In addition, an M-16 cartridge was seized, apparently indicating that the smugglers on the Israeli side of the border were armed.

A search of the area led to the exposure of a vehicle and a water tank that were allegedly used by the smugglers.

(TPS)

Knesset Committee Pushes Off Vote on Tax Breaks for Orgs Operating in PA

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The Knesset’s Finance Committee pushed off a vote on granting tax breaks for aid organizations operating in the Palestinian Authority (PA) after several committee members accused the organizations of operating against Israel. Photo b Yehonatan Valtser/TPS on 7 April, 2020

By: Aryeh Savir

The Knesset’s Finance Committee pushed off a vote on granting tax breaks for aid organizations operating in the Palestinian Authority (PA) after several committee members accused the organizations of operating against Israel.

Finance Committee Chairman Member of Knesset Moshe Gafni decided on Monday to postpone the vote on a tax break for international aid organizations operating in the PA that would have exempted them from paying taxes on fuel purchases.

According to the Value Added Tax Regulations, the exemption that was up for voting is granted to an international aid organization recognized by the government. The committee was slated to vote on the extension of the exemption to the end of 2021.

MK Bezalel Smotrich rejected the exemption as “a folly” that should not be approved.

“One of the approved organizations is Swedish and partners with extreme groups, helping campaigns to boycott Israel. Another organization is helping anti-Semitic and anti-Israel organizations,” he charged.

The issue will be brought up to be discussed by the committee after “clarifications,” Gafni said.

Smotrich further stated that “you have established a left-wing government, you are allowed. But a government that transfers funds that fuels the war against Israel is not leftist, it is delusional. Where did you get lost? When did you sanctify self-hatred?”

“It’s as if we are not in the throes of Israel’s biggest economic crisis, and Bibi [Benjamin Netanyahu] and [Benny] Gantz are seeking benefits for BDS supporters?! How can we complain about European countries if the Israeli government is so irresponsible?” he added.

“It’s good that common sense won. Friends, wake up and do not lend a hand to the war of anti-Semites against the State of Israel,” he concluded.

MK Nir Barkat stated after the session that they were successful in blocking a vote on a regulation that “gives a discount of over half a billion shekels a year to organizations working against Israel and BDS supporters under the guise of  ‘aid organizations’.”

“Supporters of terrorism and anti-state organizations will receive fines rather than benefits,” he stated.

Watchdog: 24 Iranian-Backed Militiamen Killed in Israeli Strikes in 3 Weeks

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Iranian-backed reinforcements coming from Iraq to Syria have been attacked by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) in recent weeks, leaving at least 24 dead, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports. Photo by Yissachar Ruas/TPS on 3 November, 2019

By: TPS

Iranian-backed reinforcements coming from Iraq to Syria have been attacked by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) in recent weeks, leaving at least 24 dead, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports.

The watchdog, which has assets in Syria, reported Saturday that as soon as Iranian forces and Iranian-backed militias bring in military reinforcement from Iraq to their positions in the Deir Ezzor area in western Syria, the reinforcements are attacked by drones, believed to be Israeli, leaving “great material and human losses every time.”

However, the Iranians have not learned from the repeated attacks on the recently arrived military reinforcements, SOHR noted.

From mid-May to mid-June, the Syrian Observatory has documented 24 Iranian-backed militiamen who were killed in three separate attacks by drones on Iranian positions and vehicles in Deir Ezzor.

On June 6, the SOHR documented the killing of 12 Iranian-backed militiamen of Iraqi and Afghani nationalities, in addition to the destruction of vehicles and ammunition depots, following airstrikes on the headquarters of Iranian militias in the M’eizileh base in eastern Deir Ezzor.

On May 31, reliable SOHR sources confirmed that an unidentified aircraft targeted military vehicles belonging to Iranian-backed militias of non-Syrian nationality near the border crossing from Iraq into Syria. The airstrike killed five militiamen and destroyed three vehicles.

On May 16, unidentified aircraft targeted M’eizileh base. The attack came a few days after military reinforcements arrived at the base from the 47th brigade affiliated with the Iranian-backed militias.

According to SOHR sources, the attack killed seven Iranian-backed militiamen and resulted in the destruction of headquarters inside the base.

Israel has remained silent on the reports.

In general, Iran’s military build-up in Syria remains a red line for Israel. The Israeli Air Force has carried out thousands of attacks to thwart the Iranian entrenchment in the war-torn country.

(TPS)

Israel Seeing Start of Second Wave; 1/3 of Tel Aviv Cases Among Illegals

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A medical team at the coronavirus unit at Ichilov hospital, Tel Aviv. (Flash90/Yossi Aloni)

New cases are not in known hotspots, but rather “geographically scattered over a wide area,” the head of Public Health Services said.

By: David Isaac

Israel’s Head of Public Health Services at the Ministry of Health, Prof. Sigal Sadetzky, told Knesset members on Sunday that Israel is “experiencing the start of a second wave.”

Unlike the first wave, when it was possible to track the origin of cases, this time the wave “is across the country,” Sadetzky said. “We don’t exactly know who the risk groups are.”

New cases are not in known hotspots, but rather “geographically scattered over a wide area,” she said.

“I thought maybe the virus would go to sleep in May and that didn’t happen – we’re in a position to sow very dangerous seeds,” Sadetsky added.

According to the latest Health Ministry numbers, as of 7:00 a.m. Israel time on June 15, there were 114 new cases. There are a total of 19,122 confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic of which 15,390 have recovered. The total death toll is 302.

In one particularly sad case reported on Monday, a 26-year-old man who had recovered from the disease succumbed to heart complications. Kfar Saba resident Oshri Asulin died of of myocardial infarction after two months at Sheba Medical Center. His lungs had recovered from the disease but it had taken too great a toll on his health.

The first wave centered on haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, neighborhoods which were slow to respond to health guidelines. This time secular Tel Aviv is the epicenter. When the restrictions dropped, cooped-up city residents rushed out to parks and beaches, often without wearing masks or paying attention to social-distancing rules still in effect.

The city has about 400 cases. Of those, one-third are African illegals centered in south Tel Aviv, Channel 12 reports.

Among schools, Jerusalem has been hit the hardest. Of 506 schools, 183 are closed – 40 percent of them in Jerusalem, 15 percent in Tel Aviv and the rest scattered around the country.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Sunday, “If we do not see a change in the public’s behavior, the number of sick will continue to increase and we will have no choice but to act.”

“The number of infections continues to be about 200 per day, which is a red light,” he said.

In yet another development, an unnamed Health Ministry official told Ynet on Sunday that Israel is in “advanced talks” with a U.S. biotech company to purchase its experimental coronavirus vaccine.

When asked for comment on the report by CNBC, Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said, “We are having discussions with multiple governments around the world and are not able to comment on these.”

Moderna’s experimental vaccine called mRNA-1373 tries to counter the coronavirus’s ability to latch on to healthy cells and spread, thereby giving the body’s immune system ample time to destroy the deadly disease.

On Thursday, Moderna announced it is completing stage two of trials and will be moving on to its third and final stage of trials in July.

(World Israel News)

read more at: www.worldisraelnews.com

 

After Fatal Shooting, Israeli Police Will Be Trained to Interface with Special Needs People

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The police will be trained to identify and work with people with special needs, Minister of Internal Security Amit Ohana announced, after Iyad Halak, an Arab man with special needs, was shot by police stationed at the entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem earlier this month after he was erroneously suspected of attempting to carry out an attack. Photo by Yehonatan Valtser/TPS on 16 April, 2020

By: Aryeh Savir

The police will be trained to identify and work with people with special needs, Minister of Internal Security Amit Ohana announced, after Iyad Halak, an Arab man with special needs, was shot by police stationed at the entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem earlier this month after he was erroneously suspected of attempting to carry out an attack.

Ohana held a meeting on Sunday with the Israeli police’s top brass to address incidents involving people with disabilities.

The meeting was attended by the Ministry’s Chief Executive Moshe Edri, a former police commander, Acting Police Commissioner Moti Cohen, senior officers and representatives from the Ministries of Health, Social Affairs, Justice, and the Equal Rights Commission for People with Disabilities.

During the hearing, the police reviewed relevant data, procedures and updates in the training of policemen that were put to use, with the understanding that the procedures should be adapted to people with disabilities.

At the end of the discussion, it was agreed that a special session should be added to all police training in all units on meeting with persons with disabilities.

Existing and future lesson plans will be submitted to health and social care professionals as part of an effort to strengthen the interface between the ministries and the police.

“Out of the thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of daily police-citizen interactions, an overwhelmingly positive majority fulfills the police’s goals,” Ohana stated.

“The purpose of this hearing was to address the minority of cases, and specifically the encounters between a police officer and a person with disabilities, to improve the identification and operation of the Israeli police, and to deepen the policeman’s understanding on this issue,” he explained.

The police are still investigating the incident in which Halak approached the policemen stationed at the Lion’s Gate in Jerusalem’ Old City while carrying an object in his hand that appeared to them to be a weapon. When the forces called on him to stop he fled the scene. He was subsequently shot.

Ohana stated after the incident that he “shared in the pain of the Al-Halak family” and expressed his “sorrow over the death of Iyad, a young person with special needs.”

“The incident is being investigated as required by law, and we will act according to the findings to prevent similar incidents,” he said.

“Until the examination is over, we will not render judgment over the policemen. They are required to make fateful decisions in seconds, in terrorist –attack infested territory at a frequent risk to their lives,” he added.

The shooting officer was placed under house arrest.

(TPS)

Israel OKs Plan for New Golan Settlement Named After Trump

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In this June 16, 2019, file photo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, his wife Sara, United States Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, left, and his wife Tammy pose during the inauguration of a new settlement named after President Donald Trump in the Golan Heights, An Israeli cabinet minister on Sunday, June 14, 2020, said the government approved plans to build a new settlement in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights named after Trump. Settlements Minister Tzipi Hotovely wrote on Facebook that her ministry will start preparations for Ramat Trump — Hebrew for “Trump Heights” — to house 300 families. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File)

By: AP

An Israeli cabinet minister on Sunday said the government approved plans to build a new settlement in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights named after President Donald Trump.

Settlements Minister Tzipi Hotovely wrote on Facebook that her ministry will start preparations for Ramat Trump — Hebrew for “Trump Heights” — to house 300 families.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it in 1981. Most of the international community considers the move, and Israeli settlements in the territory, illegal under international law.

But Trump signed an executive order recognizing the strategic mountainous plateau as Israeli territory in March 2019. The move came during a visit to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just weeks before Israeli elections. The decision, just one of several diplomatic moves benefiting Israel, was widely applauded there.

The Israeli government’s approval of the plan, which according to Israeli media will involve earmarking 8 million shekels ($2.3 million) for developing the town, advances a project announced by Netanyahu last year with great pomp and fanfare. Sunday’s announcement coincided with Trump’s birthday, although it was unclear if it was connected.

Last June, Netanyahu convened his Cabinet in the small hamlet of Qela for a vote on rebranding the community as a gesture of appreciation for the president’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

The small town of Qela is home to under 300 people. Its original neighborhood of Bruchim, which will be rebranded as Trump Heights, is home to less than a dozen.

At a Cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu said that Israel would “begin practical steps in establishing the community of Ramat Trump on the Golan Heights, Israel’s sovereignty over which was recognized by President Trump.”

Israel has built dozens of settlements in the Golan over the years, with an estimated 26,000 Jewish settlers living there as of 2019. Roughly the same number of Arabs live there, most of them members of the Druze sect of Shiite Islam.

(AP)

Israel, Jewish Orgs, Slam Anti-Semitism at Paris ‘Anti-Racist’ Demo

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By: Aryeh Savir

Israel and French Jewish organizations issued harsh condemnations of the displays of anti-Semitism during a supposed anti-racism demonstration in Paris, France.

Demonstrators on Saturday carried anti-Semitic and anti-Israel posters and chanted anti-Jewish slogans accusing Israel of all means of evil, including “dirty Jews” and “Israel, laboratory of police violence.”

“Such public anti-Semitic manifestations breed anti-Semitic violence and must be strongly denounced and fought against!” Yuval Rotem, Director-General of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated Monday.

The Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France (CRIF), the umbrella organization of French Jews, stated that it “condemns these intolerable acts, which moreover come from demonstrators claiming to denounce racism.”

“There can be no fight against racism, which directly or indirectly tolerates anti-Semitism in its ranks,” the statement said.

CRIF noted its shock by the reaction of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a leader of the La France Insoumise extreme left party, who questioned the truth about reports on anti-Semitic incidents, although they were recorded and published on social media.

“Perhaps Jean-Luc Mélenchon is once again deaf and blind to anti-Semitism when he seems to come from his ranks,” the organization charged.

CRIF President Francis Kalifat called on “all democratic political parties to denounce these dangerous abuses and calls on the Public authorities to take exemplary actions and condemnations.”

France has been a hotbed of anti-Semitism for years.

In 2019, an online tool used to measure anti-Semitism on social-media in France documented 51,816 incidents classified by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) Working Definition on Antisemitism as Jew-hatred.

In January, a survey by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) found that a staggering 70% of French Jews say they have been victims of anti-Semitism, 59% suffered physical abuse in school and 46% suffered verbal abuse at work.

Attempting to avoid anti-Semitic attacks, more than a third of French Jews refrain from wearing Jewish symbols in public, and a quarter avoids revealing their Jewish identity at work, and 40% avoid arriving at certain areas to circumvent attacks.

Some 52% of French Jews have considered leaving France while Israel has seen several large waves of Aliyah of French Jews in recent years.

Between the years 2000 and 2017, 10% of the French Jewish community, the largest in Europe, immigrated to Israel.

(TPS)

World Bank Invests $15 Million in Palestinian IT Sector

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World Bank headquarters in Washington, DC. (shutterstock)

Twenty-five percent of working Palestinians were unemployed in 2019.

By: Aaron Sull

The World Bank, an international financial institution that allocates funds to poor countries, approved a $15 million grant to boost the information technology (IT) sector in the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria.

The initiative, called the Technology for Youth and Jobs Project, aims to help create more high-quality jobs for IT graduates and help boost the capabilities of existing companies in the field.

“The IT sector has the potential to make a strong contribution to economic growth. It can offer opportunities to Palestinian youth, who constitute 30 percent of the population and suffer from acute unemployment,” said Kanchan Shankar, World Bank Country Director of Judea and Samaria and Gaza.

According to statistical data provided by the World Bank, 37 percent of Palestinian graduates in Judea and Samaria, 61 percent in Gaza, and 25 percent of working Palestinians overall were unemployed in 2019.

“There are more than 3,000 IT graduates every year from Palestinian universities, and most of them do not have a job,” Shankar said. “Moreover, the sector is less vulnerable during crises and can accommodate remote work during times like the COVID-19 pandemic or other restrictions on movement.”

Besides the demand for IT services in the Palestinian territories, the project is expected to attract foreign investment, partnerships with global tech companies, and improve market access.

“The outlook for the Palestinian IT sector is promising if the right actions are taken,” said Iulia Cojocaru, World Bank Senior Private Sector Specialist.

“The project offers a set of interventions to support the transfer of high-tech knowledge and build the practical skills of graduates, and, at the same time, increase sector competitiveness and expose IT firms to global best practices and standards,” Cojocaru said.

In an unrelated development, TPS reported that the king of Jordan refused to take a phone call from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and would not comment on reports that Israel’s Defense Minister wants to meet with him, the Maan News agency reported Monday.

King Abdullah II has previously expressed his opposition to plans by Netanyahu to exert Israeli sovereignty over settlements in Judea and Samaria, areas that were occupied by Jordan until the 1967 Six Day War. In the peace treaty signed between the two countries in 1997, Jordan gave up any claim to the territory.

A Jordanian official told Maan the incident came in the context of the crisis in Jordanian-Israeli relations over Netanyahu’s annexation plan slated to take place starting July 1, which the king calls a unilateral move that threatens the two-state solution.

(World Israel News)

read more at: www.worldisraelnews.com

 

Let’s Keep Only the Good Cops

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The calls for doing away with our cops and our border security the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), would lead to chaos. Photo Credit: AP

The future of our nation, its history and glories, together with its future for all of us and our families now has a shroud like-dark curtain descending over all. Our own editorials, sadly, have to reflect on this situation since most of the other local media of all sorts, are fueling our descent into hell. They are advocating the eradication of nearly 250 years of constitutional law and order and replacing it with outright lawlessness and mass chaos. Their cries, emanating from the basest street thugs now rendering cities unsafe for their citizens, to a likely presidential candidate, are all calling for the defunding or eradication of our police departments. They are nuts!

We agree there is a need for police reforms. Let’s start the process with the erasing of union rules, signed into law by our political leaders that permit rogue cops to continue serving in our communities. We’re for more transparency in outing those officers who’ve committed offenses against citizens while on duty. They have to be removed, fired and taken off the job. This group makes up a tiny percentage of cops on the force. We’re aware of lousy teachers, lawyers, doctors, judges and congresspeople.

Do we paint their entire groups with the wide brush of being corrupt, inept and incompetent? No, we single out the bad eggs and deal with them, one by one and give those who do their jobs smoothly, and efficiently the pats on the back they deserve. Those who are engaged in law enforcement deserve the same treatment. But all cops seem to be in the cross-hairs of half of our elected leaders. This movement is scary.

The calls for doing away with our cops and our border security the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), would lead to chaos. Already, many communities have early-released tens of thousands of violent criminals from incarceration and under our state’s recent bail reform laws, many more are arrested, brought into courtrooms and immediately released under their own recognizement to continue their lives of crime.

Thousands of criminal illegals are let loose into the streets without the Feds being called in to deport them. They are a protected species. With the tilt of the courts leaning to the side of criminals, who will protect us, ordinary citizens from a growing army of culprits who deem themselves invulnerable to arrest, if cops are reduced in number or just eliminated?

Progressives start to mumble under their breaths when asked who will replace our current law enforcers on the streets. Some claim that locals can do the job. In other words, residents of high crime areas would maintain their own forms of law enforcement. Do you recall when NYC’s local communities that were given the responsibility of running their own schools with Community School Boards hiring teachers, principals and other staff? Disaster ensued.

We support our cops, the good ones. Let’s honor them by screening out the incompetent ones, the villainous ones, those who flout the rules of law. That way our communities will be safer with our citizens guaranteed their rights afforded them by our Constitution and local statutes.

Is this the New, Radicalized America???

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Led by the anarchists of ANTIFA and Black Lives Matter, the thugs have taken over a large chunk of a major city with the overt support of its mayor and police chief, yet that state’s governor publicly claims ignorance of the situation. Photo Credit: adl.org

Only in America, or rather, only in the new, radicalized America can a group of ignorant, unemployed, thuggish kids, barely out of diapers, led by the anarchists of ANTIFA and Black Lives Matter, take over a large chunk of a major city with the overt support of its mayor and police chief, yet have that state’s governor publicly claims ignorance of the situation. No, it’s not the scenario of a Mel Brooks movie, it’s happening right now in Seattle, the largest city in the state of Washington.

The area, now probably already getting the necessary papers ready to submit to the United Nations for acceptance into the world community as an independent nation, originally named “CHAZ” by its founding, pardon the word, “fathers,” has been renamed “CHOP.” Over two weeks ago, violent demonstrators overwhelmed, what appeared to be stationery, immobile, impotent, frustrated police, to claim that area to be what the New York Times described as being, “now a homeland for racial justice.”

The city’s police station, abandoned, as our government did with Manila way back in WWII has a new sign, “The Peoples’ Station.” Is this a pattern for the disruption that these domestic terrorists plan to use to disrupt the upcoming election in November? If it appears a snap for them to shut down a major city, how easy would it be for them to shut down polling places throughout the country? What then?

This is total madness. President Trump, fearing the spineless reaction of Seattle’s Mayor and the state’s governor might encourage other city’s to become virtual autonomous homeless shelters, ordered these officials to “Take the city back now!” He referred to them rightly, as “ugly anarchists.” Of course, Seattle Mayor, Jenny Durkan, told Trump to “go back to your bunker!” Her police no longer patrol and maintain order in the city. Its firefighters must get permission to enter this zone from the warlords in charge.

These officials have to be removed from office. There is very little news from the storekeepers in this “hell” as to their supplies, sales and looting. The news media is being closely monitored. These thugs have created border entry points manned by armed guards, limiting entry only to those they approved of. These are  same people who oppose our border wall with Mexico.

This is a mini Civil War. These thugs have seceded from this nation. They claim independence. This is illegal. However, these “protesters” have the media nearly totally behind them. This revolution can and surely will expand as long as they see they can get away with this anarchy and get support of Progressive mayors, governors and other similar leaning politicos. We call for these cities and states to take immediate action to re-take their cities from these revolutionaries before it’s too late. The clock is ticking.

Letters to the Editor

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Enabling Bad Behavior

Dear Editor:

I marched for civil and women’s rights back in the 70’s. As a Social Worker, I worked with mentally ill criminal offenders of all backgrounds, released on probation or parole. My goal was to help them help themselves by providing access to social services while still holding them accountable for their choices and behavior.

Yes, there is still racism in our society but it is far from and no longer institutionalized racism. If a community thinks their local police department needs better training or different methods for making an arrest, great.  Organize committees to meet with local officials, newspapers, local leaders, and politicians for change. If you perceive Trump as divisive, organize a group to defeat him, come next election. Looting upscale stores and Whites tripping over themselves to enable and excuse these crimes will only serve to perpetuate this paternalistic, condescending victim status, not to mention more lawlessness, more loss of community stores.

Throwing decades more money into social services for Black communities will not solve anything. Demanding accountability for the statistically disproportionate amount of criminality, drug dealing, school drop outs, gangs, culture of lawlessness of inner city Black youths and adults, and acceptance of this as the norm, is the source of the problem. Not racism. Black leaders should lead by calling out the generation after generation of their own community for failing to adopt society’s values of getting ahead by hard work, education, and using low cost public housing to save and sacrifice and move ahead, as so many minorities of all “colors” and “visible” ethnic backgrounds have done, despite discrimination.

The clear choice is whether to continue to be a Black or White enabler of perpetual victim hood, or to say enough is enough. Stand up for being a conscientious law abiding citizen and effect change by calling for accountability from all.

Sincerely
Ruth Greenblum


The Challenge of These Turbulent Times

Dear Editor:

The past two weeks have been a terrible time in the USA. Violence, looting, burning and the killing of many people including police officers. The outcry of “Police Brutality” and the charges of racism against black Americans overshadows the truth. Nobody wants to hear that in the United States, more white citizens are shot dead by police than blacks. So far this year, 172 white people were killed by police, compared to 88 blacks. Across America an average of over 80 police officers are killed every year.

Not a single American is defending what happened to George Floyd. We all want justice and reform across America with police tactics and procedures. Regardless to this tragedy there is no excuse for what followed.  The riots,  burning, looting ,beatings, the killings that followed in no way honored the victim. It is a national disgrace that our local governments allowed our streets to be taken over by this chaos. The politicians sat back and watched as anarchy ruled.

Back in 1999 a Jewish man named Gidone Busch who lived in Borough Park was shot dead by police. They fired 12 shots at him in front of his house. He was mentally ill and had a hammer in his hand. Surely, there was a better way to subdue a sick man than shooting a barrage of bullets at him. Bruce Springstein didn’t write a song titled 12 bullets. There were some street demonstrations that followed right in his neighborhood. Only other  Jewish people participated.  No riots, no looting, no killing. They demanded justice. They got a bit rowdy at times, but that was it. I am Jewish and have witnessed antisemitism my entire life.

Not looking Jewish, I have had people think I was Italian and they stood there saying a barrage of insults and stereo types against Jews in front of my face. I even had an ignorant woman in North Carolina ask to feel my head to see what my horns felt like. Jewish people have lived with antisemitism in America a long time and will continue to do so. We don’t riot, we don’t kill, we don’t loot stores in our own neighborhoods. We don’t set police cars on fire. We have too much dignity for that and we respect law enforcement. What is happening now in America is just an excuse for the dangerous groups who want an end to Democracy and America. If we are not careful, they will succeed.

Sincerely
Elissa Maldonado


Who Gets a Pass…and Who Doesn’t?

Dear Editor:

What mainstream media omits, even before this virus, says much about their agenda ridden “reporting.”  Silent or underreported:

  • The ADL called on Egypt and Oman to remove antisemitic materials from their annual (state-supported) book fairs which have long featured The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and The International Jew, both based on false conspiracy theory that Jews control the world.
  • “Antisemitism and hatred of Jews is growing in Germany”, the mayor of Frankfurt warned. Antisemitism is from the far left to the far right, influenced by anti-Zionism which becomes antisemitism.”
  • Somalia based, Islamic terrorists Al-Shabab continue suicide bombings. Sharia stonings, amputations, and beheadings are regular punishments.
  • Palestinian Media Watch & Textbooks: Jews are barbaric; ‘phased plan’ to eliminate the Zionist cancer from Palestine; martyrdom and jihad against Israel as unqualified virtues.
  • As Antisemitism Rises in the Netherlands, “Dutch Jews Fear Lack of Support From Police.”

Simon Weisenthal’s report: “Could a potentially cataclysmic killer like today’s COVID-19 virus fuse with anti-Semitic ideology in a deadly 21st century synthesis?”

  • FBI: “Neo-Nazis encouraging one another to spread the virus to kill Jews and law enforcement. Coronavirus is “a cure for Jewishness.”
  • Iraq TV: “Jewish-dominated America developed the coronavirus to kill off the world’s population…Jews control America, have a monopoly on laboratories that develop biological and nuclear weapons.”
  • Iranian TV: “Zionist regime work on bioterrorism agents that only infect a certain ethnic group, the Palestinians…”
  • Turkish politician: “Zionism is a five-thousand-year-old bacteria that has caused the suffering of people.” TV station: “Jews, Zionists engineered Corona virus as biological weapons…design the world, seize countries, neuter the world’s population.”
  • Calif. State University Professor As’ad Abukhalil, “Israel will institute racist caging of infected Palestinians. Code Pink’s Ariel Gold, “Israel is culpable for every coronavirus death in Gaza.” (Fact: Israel is extending medical aid to the Palestinians).

Sincerely
Asher Steinschloss

Is Systemic Racism & Bigotry Tied to a Political Agenda?  

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AP

And so there was no coverage of the pogroms in Los Angeles.

By: Rabbi Dov Fischer

A person applies for admission to college or grad school. Or to the federal or state or municipal government for a Small Business Loan or other program to help promote commerce. Or for a job at most anywhere. The résumé is submitted and is competitive. Or the business loan paperwork is in perfect order. Or the job applicant is able-bodied and dependable. Time passes, and a decision is made as to whom to admit, or who gets the government business benefit, or who gets the job. And it turns out that the decision went to someone based on race. The person with lesser credentials won because of his (male) or her (female) or their (whatever other gender they got) race.

That is racism. Of course it is racism. It is an “ism” derived from and based on race. If the English language still has any words not yet deconstructed by the Left, that is the very definition of racism: admitting people to schools, supporting businesses, hiring for work … based on race. It is racism, and racism is the theological sacrament of the Left.

We now are half a century into “Affirmative Action.” As with all Left initiatives, words are distorted to mean things they are not because the Left refuses to call the Truth by the truth. When an Arab Muslim terrorist murders Americans at a military base, the Left calls it “workplace violence.” Obamacare is called the “Affordable Care Act” even though it gyrated health-care prices through the roof and forced many to lose their preferred doctors and health plans. Likewise with “Affirmative Action.” Instead of honestly calling it “Quotas,” they call it “Goals and Timetables.” But it is quotas. Here is why.

The government tells an entrepreneur that they will leave her alone if Albanians comprise at least 18 percent of her workforce. (Why Albanians? Why not?) They add, of course, that she should know that America is fair (wink, wink), and she of course will not necessarily get into any trouble if Albanians comprise fewer than 18 percent of her workforce, but the government then might just need to come in and take a peek in her books to figure out why she had so much trouble finding enough qualified Albanians to hire.

She sits down with her husband or her lesbian life partner or whatever else they got and asks herself, “Do I want the government poking around my life, auditing my Widgets business, and do I want to have to fill out dozens of papers explaining why 18 percent of my employees are not from Albania and proving that I am not anti-Albanian and that I reached out to Albanians?” Only an idiot would say, “Yes, please, I want Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch and all the others to come in and poke.” So here is what happens: She double-checks on the “Affirmative Action Goal” that the government has “recommended,” and she sees that they recommend she hire a workforce that is at least 18 percent Albanian. She understands that if she treats the “goal” as a “quota” and hires the necessary quota of Albanians, she will be left alone. So she does. Thus, the “goal” inexorably becomes a “quota.”

Meanwhile, someone else has a job opening and has the perfect candidate for the job. Maybe the entrepreneur knows the guy personally from having served with him under fire in the military. Or maybe he once before worked famously with the guy. Or maybe that potential hire has been recommended by the entrepreneur’s colleague. The problem is that there is “Affirmative Action” for Albanians. And no one wants Eric Holder or Loretta Lynch poking around. So here is what the entrepreneur does: He advertises in Albanian publications, solicits Albanians wherever he can find them, and he interviews 10 or 20 of them — with absolutely no intention to hire any of them.

So these Albanians take time off from work, change their schedules, buy airline tickets and fly to interview for a job they will not get. The entrepreneur takes three days out of his life and productivity to interview 10 or 20 Albanians he never will hire. Each interview runs between 30 to 45 minutes. Maybe he also takes each Albanian out to lunch. He also arranges for two or three others in his mid-level management to interview the unsuspectingly hapless Albanians. He then carefully documents each time-wasted interview copiously, documenting for the government agency that will poke around, and then he hires the guy he wanted to hire three weeks ago. Everyone’s time is wasted. People’s hopes are raised falsely.

Or a white guy has a business. He wants to get a business loan or benefit from some other government business-supporting program. He finds out that his business has all the needed qualifications, except for two small problems: (i) he is White, and (ii) he is … a he. So he finds himself a woman … who is … Blue or Green or Purple or Whatever Color the Government Wants … and even better if she is an Albanian … and he makes a deal: “You be the president of my company, or whatever title the government requires, and I will pay you ‘x’ amount of dollars per year for allowing me to use you as my Front to get the government loan.” Now he is a “minority-owned business.” So he qualifies — er, she qualifies — for the government program.

This all is racism in a society that no longer is racist. Fifty years after “Affirmative Action,” we now are in the third generation; that should be more than enough time to shift any imbalances. Look at the immigrants who came here in the 1880s from Germany, Italy, Poland, Ireland, Russia — even Albania. After 50 years there still was some prejudice. For example, American-born Jewish people who descended from Jewish immigrants who arrived here legally from Russia between 1881 to 1914 still could not get into the Ivy League in the 1940s and 1950s because of the Ivy League’s anti-Semitic admission quotas.

The few who did slip in, say to an Ivy League law school, could not get hired by any respectable law firm in America. So the Jews had to start their own law firms or practice bankruptcy law because the elite major law firms needed some attorneys who specialized in bankruptcy work but found the practice area too greasy and grimy to touch themselves, so they told the Jews to do it if they wanted in. Jews could not get high-level executive positions in American banks or other such corporations, so they had to found their own companies and industries.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. Photo Credit: AP

And so it went with continued latent discrimination against Irish Americans, Italians, Poles, Germans, and others who had arrived here legally, worked hard and honorably, saw their kids still facing discrimination half a century later, but now could not be stopped from achieving great things because they had worked their way into the American dream through honor, honesty, ethics, and hard work. Asian-Americans particularly got the short end of the stick. We encouraged Chinese to come here to build the western half of the Trans-Pacific railroad, and then we passed the Chinese Exclusion Act to deny them citizenship through World War II. We interned 110,000 Japanese Americans. Yet that did not stop their descendants from attaining their slice of the American pie, even in the face of new anti-Asian quotas in the Ivy League and at other major universities.

Fifty years of government programming to offset imbalances is ample. With Affirmative Action, many Americans in newly burned-out neighborhoods now can look outside the window and see what it has wrought. Fifty years of correcting an imbalance. Fifty years of assuring that goals and timetables have been met. Fifty years of college and graduate school degrees. Fifty years of government programs, government loans, government food assistance, government housing programs. Fifty years, paid with taxes collected from the “Haves” on all sides of the spectrum. Fifty years of systemic largesse. If you live in Minneapolis, Chicago, St. Louis, or even down the block from Macy’s at Herald Square — look outside the window.

The only racism in America that is systemic — deeply ingrained into the system — is on the left. It is so disgusting that it is hard even to speak about it. It is shameful, and it exists for one reason only: for White leftists to grab votes, to attract more viewers to their television channels at a time that no Malaysian planes are missing so as to increase advertising revenue, to claw for power in whatever field they practice. How low will they grovel to get power? They will kneel on the floor. They actually will kneel on the floor, groveling for power.

Of course, as Nancy Pelosi just found, she kneeled so long that she could not even get back up. You think she was kneeling to Jesus? Nancy Pelosi is America’s leading Catholic proponent of abortion — though Joe Biden, Andrew Cuomo, and a boatload of other Democrat Catholics would take great offense at Nancy Pelosi getting all the credit for funding the killing of fetuses, especially in the Black community. That Pelosi is kneeling to Jesus?

Fifty years after “Affirmative Action,” we now are in the third generation; that should be more than enough time to shift any imbalances. Photo Credit: AP

And who, pray tell, was Schumer kneeling to? He claims to be Jewish, so he is not kneeling to Jesus. But wait! It is a core tenet of Judaism that kneeling is forbidden except on Yom Kippur during the recitation of the Kohen service that occurred at the Holy Temple in Jerusalem during Talmudic times. Otherwise, it is so fundamentally against Judaism to kneel that every Jewish child learns the story associated with Talmud Tractate Gittin 57b of “The Woman and Her Seven Sons.” During anti-Jewish persecutions, an evil Emperor ordered each of the woman’s sons, one by one, to show fealty to the foreign gods by kneeling since he knew that, as a core tenet, Jews are forbidden ever to kneel. None of the sons would kneel; therefore each was executed. Jews do not kneel. Perhaps nowhere in the Bible is that core Judaic tenet more dramatically central and underscored than in the Book of Esther, Chapter 3:

2 And all the king’s servants that were in the king’s gate bowed down and prostrated themselves before Haman because the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai would not bow down nor prostrate himself before him.

3 Then the king’s servants who were in the king’s gate said unto Mordecai: “Why do you transgress the king’s command?”

4 Now it came to pass, as they spoke daily to him and he did not hearken to them, that they told Haman — to see whether Mordecai’s words would stand, because he had told them that he was a Jew.

5 And when Haman saw that Mordecai would not bow down nor prostrate himself before him, then was Haman full of wrath.

6 But it seemed contemptible in his eyes to lay hands on Mordecai alone for they had made known to him the people of Mordecai; wherefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, that were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus.

So to whom was Schumer kneeling? Why, the Senate Minority Leader was not kneeling at all. Rather, he was groveling, groveling for votes from Black voters and perhaps kneeling to firebrand racist Al Sharpton. Photo Credit: AP

So to whom was Schumer kneeling? Why, the Senate Minority Leader was not kneeling at all. Rather, he was groveling, groveling for votes from Black voters and perhaps kneeling to firebrand racist Al Sharpton. And, oh that cultural appropriation, donning that kente fabric that is unique to the culture of Ghana! Interesting. I searched the internet for a photo of Schumer ever wearing a Jewish prayer shawl. Nope. Just a kente.

The Left kneels. They grovel. They bow down to others, as Obama — then holding the office of president of the United States — bowed down to Arab Muslim oil sheiks. That is their way. They bow. They kneel. They grovel.

And they hate.

If one wants to find systemic hate in America, you will find it among outliers on the right and within the very core and system of the left. The hate that has been shown in burning down even minority-owned drug stores and clothing stores. The looting and the physical violence that awaits us all if the Left and its Ocasio-Hyphen anarchists ever attain their dream of defunding ICE at the border and the police in our cities. And when the mob strikes, nowhere do they let their hate demonstrate itself more manifestly than when they go after the Jews. First they go after the Jews who will not bow, just as Stalin did. And eventually they get to the Schumers and Bernies just as Stalin got to the anti-Semitic Jewish apostates of another time like the Trotskys, Kamenevs, and Zinovievs.

The Left media have been so enthralled covering a few troubling but isolated cases of police roughness that they conveniently have refused to cover the anti-Jewish pogrom that took place in Los Angeles in the name of “Black Lives Matter.” The Black Lives Matter Pogrom saw attacks on Temple Beth El, Baba Sali Congregation, the Kosher Mensch Bakery and Kitchen, Cong. Beth Israel, Cong. Beth Tivereth Avi/Morasha, Shaarei Tefilah Synagogue, Shalhevet Yeshiva High School for Girls, and a Shul wall on which were spray-painted anti-Semitic and anti-Israel slogans. The Black Lives Matter pogromists even — get this! — defaced a statue of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who lost his life during the World War II era by leveraging his diplomatic status to save thousands of Hungarian Jews from being gassed and cremated by Hitler’s Nazis in Auschwitz.

Wallenberg issued thousands of falsified Swedish passports to Hungarian Jews and rented 32 buildings in Budapest, declaring those edifices to be extraterritorial Swedish national property protected by diplomatic immunity. He hid thousands of Jews safely inside them. The haters of Black Lives Matter attacked Raoul Wallenberg’s memory during their anti-Jewish pogrom. Did you see that on social media? Do you remember Don Lemon, Wolf Blitzer, Jake Tapper, Chris Cuomo, Brooke Baldwin, David Axelrod, Erin Burnett, Anderson Cooper, Van Jones, Robin Meade, Brian Stelter, Fareed Zakaria, Lester Holt, David Muir, Norah O’Donnell, Morning Joe, or Rachel Maddow reporting or commenting on the Black Lives Matter Nazi pogrom? No? Neither do I.

Know that the Black Lives Matter Pogrom was so violent and vicious that it even scared the Rabbinical Council of America, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, and Yeshiva University into silence. In the aftermath of the pogrom, each issued mollifying milquetoast statements that were targeted carefully at not getting the Black Lives Matter pogromists and Nazis angry. There was even a non-kosher “Jewish deli” that decided, in light of all the destruction all around them, to put a “Black Lives Matter” sign in their window and to hand out bottles of water to the anti-Semitic Black Lives Matter pogromists and Nazis. Their cowardice worked; their structure was not burned down. Only the Zionist Organization of America had the courage to speak out unequivocally.

The Left is systemically racist. And we see that they welcome as brothers in arms those who are pathologically hateful. They see everyone and everything in racial, gender, and ethnic categories. They cannot simply see people as people. Their hate and violence reveals itself most manifestly when their target is history’s perennial canary in the coal mine — the Jews. The coal miner watches the canary die of a lack of oxygen and knows who is next. When Stalin went after the Jews, it was predictable what would come next for the rest of the USSR.

When Hitler went after the Jews, it was not long before he targeted Holland, France, England, and even America, engulfing the entire world in flames and mass death. Bernie Sanders can waltz with Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, Schumer can kneel and grovel, the whole Democrat apparatus can wear those African kente scarves like they are doing a TV ad for the United Colors of Benneton. But let us all know what would come about if the Antifa-Ocasio-Ellison anarchists and their Pelosi enablers ever defund ICE and the police. Inasmuch as most American Blacks do not walk around all day like Eddie Murphy in Coming to America, those kente cloths will just make Pelosi, Schumer, and their whole murder of crows easier to target after Black Lives Matter’s pogromists and Nazis finish with the Jews.

The writer is adjunct professor of law at two prominent Southern California law schools, Senior Rabbinic Fellow at the Coalition for Jewish Values, congregational rabbi of Young Israel of Orange County, California, and has held prominent leadership roles in several national rabbinic and other Jewish organizations.

The Mother of All Fake News: The New York Times

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Gray Lady gives a free pass to tyrants, conspiracy theorists and serial murderers – but reserves invective for a U.S. senator.

By: Ari Lieberman

I think that by now, it is painfully obvious to all but the most myopic that the New York Times represents the embodiment of fake news. In fact, in this era when false and misleading, partisan leftist propaganda is disseminated with dizzying regularity, it is not a stretch to argue that the New York Times represents the mother of all fake news. It is also fair to characterize the New York Times as a leftist blog akin to Mother Jones or Buzzfeed, rather than a legitimate, newsworthy paper.

Several recent incidents plaguing this troubled paper highlight this unfortunate development. Recently, the New York Times published an article stating that “former President George W. Bush won’t support the re-election of [Donald] Trump,” and cited “people familiar with [his] thinking.” There is no indication that the journalist responsible for authoring this drivel made any effort to corroborate the claim with Bush. In fact, Freddy Ford, a spokesman for Bush, said the report was simply not true and characterized it as “completely made up.”

On June 5, a Rasmussen daily tracking poll showed that black likely voter approval of Trump was at over 40 percent. Rasmussen is a serious, well-respected public opinion polling source and the June 5th polling data, even if considered an outlier, is a significant news story considering historic black voting patterns. In 2016, Trump garnered only 8 percent of the black vote and still won. If this recent Rasmussen polling is accurate, it bodes poorly for Democratic chances to reclaim the White House in 2020. Yet this newsworthy development failed to grace the pages of the Gray Lady. The reason is obvious: the New York Times is the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party and negative polling data that runs counter to the narrative the New York Times wishes to present is all but ignored and censored. Omission of newsworthy events due to political considerations is just as malignant as publication of false facts, and in any event, that strategy worked out poorly for the so-called establishment media in 2016.

Last week, the New York Times announced that its Editorial Page Editor James Bennet was resigning. The reason: Bennet had the gall to publish an op-ed piece written by Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) in which Cotton “called for using military force as a backup—only if police are overwhelmed—to stop riots, not to be used against protesters.” Cotton’s op-ed piece proved to be too much for the cancel culture mob, which called for heads to roll. Times staff members were in open revolt, claiming that Cotton’s op-ed piece endangered black staff. Some refrained from showing up to work in protest. New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger and his editorial board originally defended their decision to publish the piece but pressure from the “Woke,” group-think mob proved too much to bear for the feckless decision-makers at the Times. Sulzberger bent the knee and subsequently characterized the publication of the op-ed as a “significant breakdown in our editing processes, not the first we’ve experienced in recent years…”

Sulzberger is actually correct on at least one point. The New York Times has frequently experienced significant breakdowns in its editing processes. The Times has in the past allowed the likes of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Max Blumenthal and Marwan Barghouti, among others, to grace its op-ed pages without any negative repercussion.

Erdoğan is among the most malevolent, anti-Semitic tyrants to rule Turkey in recent memory and he’s arguably the most anti-Semitic leader in the Muslim world. He is a peddler of numerous anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and routinely denies due process to political opponents. Turkey under Erdoğan holds the dubious distinction of imprisoning more journalists than any other nation on the planet. Turkish journalists and political dissidents, including Kurds, have been imprisoned for contrived crimes such as “insulting the president.”

Max Blumenthal is the consummate anti-Semite, whose works have been featured by neo-Nazi and Hezbollah affiliated blogs. The Simon Wiesenthal Center characterized him as an anti-Semite and his comments earned him a spot in the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s “Top 10” list of anti-Semitic slurs. Frazier Glenn Miller, the KKK murderer who massacred three people at two separate Jewish community centers in Overland Park, Kansas, cited Blumenthal’s comments with approval. The dossier on Blumenthal can fill dozens of pages but you got the picture.

Marwan Barghouti is a convicted serial murderer. He was convicted of five counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. In a brief op-ed bio, the New York Times described him as “a Palestinian leader and parliamentarian,” while glaringly failing to note his murder convictions. Outrage on the deceptive op-ed piece produced instant backlash prompting the dishonest editorial board to acknowledge Barghouti’s murder convictions in a subsequent corrected version of the op-ed piece.

Last year, the New York Times featured a cartoon on its editorial page depicting a blind Trump wearing a yarmulke being led by a leashed dog bearing the face of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A Star of David dangles from Netanyahu’s neck. The New York Times was subsequently forced to apologize but only after enduring a storm of criticism.

To my knowledge, no senior member of the New York Times editorial board resigned over featuring anti-Semitic cartoons or hosting op-eds from assorted tyrants, murderers and Jew haters. Yet a respected United States Senator, who’s responsible for setting U.S. policy and enacting its laws, manages to garner the invective of a hateful New York Times mob simply because he had the temerity to demand an end to looting and called for military force as a backup—only if police are overwhelmed. Sadly, the New York Times has morphed into an irredeemably flawed propaganda outlet and is beyond reformation.

  (Front Page Mag)

American Jews Support Israeli Sovereignty Over Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley

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By Morton Klein and Mark Levenson, Esq.

Poll after poll shows that Israelis overwhelmingly support applying Israeli sovereignty to Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley.

American Jews support applying sovereignty too.  Record numbers of American Jews (over 120,000 people) voted in the recent 2020 World Zionist Congress elections in the United States, and the majority voted for the organizations that favor sovereignty (usually explicitly).  The ZOA Coalition included 27 pro-sovereignty organizations.  Additional slates and groups also support sovereignty.

I (Mort Klein) have spoken all over the United States, to people from every stream of Judaism.  When I explain the facts, my diverse American audiences overwhelming favor sovereignty.

Applying sovereignty is the only rational, humane, security-minded choice – and is legally and Biblically endorsed.  Sovereignty provides Israel with defensible orders, enables Israel to avoid the frightening prospect of an indefensible 9-mile-narrow waistline, and provides stability and normalcy to the lives of the 500,000 Jews currently living in Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley.  Opposing sovereignty ultimately means ethnically cleansing 500,000 Jews from their existing homes in the Jewish homeland, and subjecting the rest of Israel to non-stop rocket attacks.

The opposition to sovereignty comes from fear-mongering leftwing American groups and pundits whose dangerous lectures to Israel have been wrong and damaging every time.  The sovereignty opponents are the same leftist ideologues who pushed for the disastrous Oslo accords (which resulted in thousands of Israelis being maimed and murdered in terrorist bombings and intifadas) and the Gaza withdrawal (which resulted in thousands of rockets being fired at southern Israeli citizens).  The sovereignty opponents are the same groups that wrongly predicted that the entire Middle East would go up in flames if the U.S. Embassy was moved to Israel’s eternal capital Jerusalem.  These groups lost all credibility long ago – and Israel should not listen to them.

The sovereignty opponents rely on subterfuge to promote their views.  They use the false and misleading propaganda terms “annexation” and “annexation of Palestinian territory” – to give the false impression that Israel would be seizing areas that Israel does not have the legal right to.  In fact, there was never a Palestinian-Arab state or a right to one in these areas.

Binding international law – including the San Remo resolution, League of Nations Covenant Article 22, British Mandate, the Anglo-American Convention, and UN Charter Article 80 –  granted these areas to the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish state.  Israel thus has the absolute legal right to apply sovereignty over the Jewish people’s historic heartlands of Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley.

Former U.S. Envoy Jason Greenblatt said that he and the Trump administration have said that it is legal for Israel to apply sovereignty over these areas, and that, moreover, this has never been Palestinian-Arab land.

The opponents of sovereignty also ignore both the 500,000 Jews who live in Jewish cities and towns in Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley today – and the long Jewish history of these areas.  These lands are where the first Jews Abraham and Sarah lived, King David was anointed and ruled, Jacob slept and dreamt, Joseph is buried, the Maccabees established their base, and Jewish kingdoms existed for hundreds of years.

The opponents of sovereignty also trot out some leftwing former Israeli “security officials” to oppose sovereignty.  But, in fact, the Israeli security establishment favors sovereignty.  Over 1,000 high-ranking Israeli Defense Forces officers and commanders have joined the pro-sovereignty “Protectors of Israel” movement, which explains that sovereignty will secure Israel for decades; that the Jordan Valley “is the natural eastern border and defensive barrier for the land of Israel,” and that sovereignty is necessary because Israel must count on her own strength to deter her enemies.

Moreover, behind the scenes, many Sunni Arab states have given tacit approval to Israel’s application of sovereignty.  Jordan is petrified of the Palestinian Authority taking over the Jordan Valley – which would threaten Jordan.

The sovereignty opponents’ biggest weapon consists of raising speculative fears – the very same false, speculative fears that they used to try to thwart the U.S. embassy move.   But, to quote FDR: “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

Jewish history taught us the same lesson.  The 10 (out of 12) meraglim (spies), in the Torah portion Shelach, who allowed fear to cloud their judgment, and wrongly reported that it would be impossible for the Jews to re-capture the land, caused G-d to relegate the Israelites to wandering in the desert for 40 years.  The Jewish people learned that they needed to heed the other two meraglim – Joshua and Caleb’s positive message that the Jewish people, with the help of the Almighty, had the ability to re-enter, live in and govern our homeland,.

We urge Israel to heed the same positive message today.

And we urge even more American Jews to speak up in support of Israel’s rights, security and sovereignty.

Morton Klein is the President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA).  Mark Levenson, Esq. is ZOA National Chairman.

Time for Trump to be Trump, at Home and Abroad

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President Donald Trump addresses the annual U.N. General Assembly in New York on Sept. 24, 2019. Credit: UN Photo/Cia Pak.

Everything the president entered politics to oppose is returning and threatening to take over America for good. Now is his moment to act forthrightly and decisively.

By: Caroline Glick

Donald Trump was elected four years ago because Americans wanted to save their country. Both in domestic and foreign policy, in the eighth year of Barack Obama’s presidency, America was going off the rails. At home, Obama’s identity politics were tearing the country apart. As is now graphically apparent, identity politics are not about expanding justice. They are geared towards tearing Americans away from one another and undermining the very idea of America.

Abroad, America had become the laughingstock of its enemies and the worst nightmare of its friends, as Obama and his merry band of foreign policy “experts” abandoned and denigrated allies and reorganized America’s foreign policy around a commitment to appeasing and kowtowing to America’s worst foes, first and foremost Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Trump rose to the top of a crowded field of Republican candidates because voters believed that the iconoclast who made good deals because he cared about the result and didn’t care what people thought of him would make America great again. They believed they could trust him to tell the truth and do what needed to be done, no matter how many inbred “experts” told him differently.

In 2016, with Obama’s backing, the radical, anti-American, anti-police #BlackLivesMatter group was ascendant. Police had targets on their backs. Photo Credit: AP

And America needed a leader who wouldn’t shy away from controversy.

In 2016, with Obama’s backing, the radical, anti-American, anti-police #BlackLivesMatter group was ascendant. Police had targets on their backs. Two weeks before the Republican Convention in July 2016, five police officers were massacred in Dallas after anti-police protests in the city. Days before the convention, three policemen were murdered and four were wounded in another massacre in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Defending law enforcement officers and pledging to restore safety to America’s cities was a major theme of Trump’s convention address and a major pledge of his campaign. And he delivered.

According to FBI data, after rising sharply in the last years of the Obama presidency, violent crime in America went down in every year of Trump’s presidency.

Those gains are now being reversed now. The radical mobs Trump pledged to remove from America’s streets have returned. Waving the banner of identity politics and spewing hatred of America, they are wreaking havoc, terror, devastation and crime. Last week saw a 100 percent rise in the number of murders and shootings in New York City. Los Angeles experienced a 250 percent rise in shootings and murder. Last weekend, Chicago saw the highest murder toll in a 24-hour period in 60 years.

A mob of Antifa thugs took over six square blocks of Seattle and is working to reenact its conquest in other cities. Progressive mayors and governors are responding by kneeling and blaming Trump. Photo Credit: AP

Businesses have been looted and destroyed. And the violence continues and mutates daily. A mob of Antifa thugs took over six square blocks of Seattle and is working to reenact its conquest in other cities. Progressive mayors and governors are responding by kneeling and blaming Trump.

The police, for their part, are walking away. As police officer Travis Yates wrote this week in a stunning essay at the Law and Officer website, police officers are demoralized by the politically powerful mobs of radical leftists that demonize them. The rational choice for officers today is to quit, he wrote bitterly.

This crisis is tailor-made for Trump’s leadership. Trump was elected to defang the commissars of political correctness who terrorized Americans intellectually, socially, racially and physically. When he said, “We cannot afford to be politically correct anymore,” he was speaking for hundreds of millions of Americans who were afraid to speak out lest they lose their jobs or face social ostracism for harboring dissident views of identity politics.

Now the commissars have become wardens and all of America is their prison. Americans are now expected to kneel when the Star Spangled Banner plays and to disavow American history while swallowing whole a false, malicious new history that claims America has been a force for evil at home and worldwide since it was nothing more than a sparkle in a racist colonialist’s eye.

Trump’s approval ratings dropped 10 points in the space of a week. It’s possible that terrified voters are afraid to tell pollsters the truth and that the numbers are false. But it’s also possible that the drop is real.

In the face of this chaos and madness in the streets of America, Trump is not doing what he does best. He is not standing center stage defending the father and mother holed up at home, terrified of the mob marching down their street or looting their store. He is not protecting high school and college students who must accept the mob’s rules or face ostracism and failing grades. He is doing many things, to be sure. But they are scattershot and uncertain.

The Chinese are betting that their virus, which capsized the Trump economy, will spell the demise of their nemesis. Photo Credit: AP

Trump has the advisers in place to put together a plan for immediate implementation. Roundtable meetings will not suffice. Actions must be taken to end mob rule, restore order, stand with police and protect the silenced, terrified citizens worried about their safety, their families and their freedom to love their country.

Everything Trump entered politics to oppose is returning and threatening to take over America for good.

Now is his moment to act forthrightly and decisively. Now is the time for Trump to be Trump.

The same holds in foreign affairs. Administration officials—Trump loyalists—are down in the dumps right now. Trump’s low polling numbers may or may not reflect the true state of affairs, but they harm his ability to influence foreign actors. The leaders of Germany and France are practically frothing at the mouth in expectation of deliverance from the first U.S. president in memory who actually expected them to act like real allies, pay their share of the NATO budget and stand with the United States and against Iran as it sprints towards the bomb and against China as it uses its 5G network to leapfrog over the United States.

The Chinese are betting that their virus, which capsized the Trump economy, will spell the demise of their nemesis. And the Iranians are so sure that he will be defeated that they are enriching uranium in broad daylight.

When he came into office, the first step Trump took was to make clear to all takers that America would no longer be abandoning its interests and its allies and would stand with Israel. This wasn’t a move—as his haters claimed—to rally his evangelical base. It was a strategic play.

Israel is not just the United States’ most loyal and steady ally in the Middle East. It is also the ally that was most brutally betrayed by Obama and despised by Obama’s progressive supporters. It makes sense that the likes of Black Lives Matter and the BDS thugs are joined at the hip and united in their hatred of the Jewish state.

Police are the guarantors of America’s domestic peace. They are charged with keeping Americans safe,  and they make it possible for America to succeed and prosper.

The strength of America’s alliance with Israel is a reflection of the strength of American power. Since Israel shares the same values and interests as the United States, a strong Israel serves as an extension of U.S. power in the Middle East. So too, Israel is the bogeyman of the foreign policy establishment worldwide. So when America stands with Israel it is standing against the foreign policy mob. Standing up to the mob is not for the faint of heart. So by standing with Israel, the United States proves its courage and power.

Trump’s reversal of Obama’s hostile policies towards Israel got the world’s attention. They made the likes of Iran and China realize he meant it when he said that he was adopting policies that would be good for America and bad for its foes. By standing with Israel, Trump also showed other spurned allies that America could be trusted again.

On January 27, Trump presented his vision for peace in the Middle East. It is based on a rejection of the “experts”” collective “wisdom” regarding the region that had formed the basis for 25 years of failed U.S. Middle East policy. Contrary to the consensus view, Trump understood that Israel wasn’t responsible for the absence of peace.

The source of war, radicalism and terrorism in the Middle East was radical Islam and the Arab world’s rejection of the Jewish people’s right to freedom and sovereignty in their homeland. The rejectionist Palestinians were the apotheosis of the Arab world’s pathologies.

Trump’s plan recognizes that the first step to peace is for Israel to render permanent its control in Judea and Samaria because only by doing so will it kill the myth that Israel is an “occupier” in its ancestral homeland and extinguish the hope of the Palestinians and their supporters that Israel can be destroyed. Peace can be accomplished only after the questions of Israel’s legitimacy and security are taken off the table.

So the first step on Trump’s road to peace is for Israel to apply its laws to all of its communities in Judea and Samaria and to the Jordan Valley, Israel’s eastern frontier with Jordan. Once that step is implemented, the Palestinians will be expected to take specific actions, like ending payments to terrorists, to show that they are willing to make peace. Peace itself, which can lead to a Palestinian state, requires the Palestinians to do basic things like accept Israel and dismantle Hamas.

It is hard to know if peace will ever come. But if it ever does, it will be on the basis of the Trump plan. Because unlike all the plans that preceded it, Trump’s peace plan is based on reality.

Unfortunately, the excitement that greeted Trump’s plan was overtaken by the multiple crises of more recent months. Moving it forward is likely not on the top of Trump’s list of priorities.

That list ought to be reconsidered though. Now is the time for decisive action. Trump’s domestic enemies and international rivals are using his distraction to try to undermine his revolutionary accomplishment. Democrats are threatening Israel with a downgrading of relations if Israel dares to apply its laws to the areas envisioned in Trump’s plan. Germany is leading Europe’s passive-aggressive charge with threats of sanctions if Israel implements its sovereignty plan in accordance with Trump’s vision for peace. Threatening Israel is seen by these forces as a means to begin dismantling all of Trump’s foreign policy achievements and undermining the public’s perception of his competence.

If Trump wishes to defeat his opponents and restore his credibility, the first thing he should do is call on Israel to apply its sovereignty to its communities in Judea and Samaria and to the Jordan Valley in accordance with his blueprint for peace. Doing so will restore faith in Trump’s seriousness of purpose, and increase his credibility at home and abroad.

The American voters elected Trump to be Trump. They will reelect him if he sticks to his guns. Staring down the mob, defending the police and protecting the public; standing with Israel, and advancing his vision of reality-based peace are the two legs on which he built much of his pre-coronavirus success. Now they are the two main bases on which he will reassert his leadership and win his second term.

(JNS.org)

Caroline Glick is an award-winning columnist and author of “The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East.

This article first appeared in Israel Hayom.

American Jews Seek Real Estate in Israel Post-COVID-19

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A vacation villa near the Kineret, or Sea of Galilee, in northern Israel. Credit: Courtesy.

With the mix of the “idealism of a Jewish person owning property in Israel” and positive real estate trends over the last year, purchasing apartments is a safe investment in the long term, said U.S.-based investor and investing consultant Nathan Silver

By: Eliana Rudee

While the world waits to see how the coronavirus pandemic will affect real estate trends worldwide, Israel’s real estate is seeing a boom in interest—from investors purchasing properties as long-term investments, to families expediting their aliyah and purchasing a home in the face of COVID-19 and rising anti-Semitism.

Israeli real estate lawyer Debbie Rosen-Solow works primarily with the Anglo community of new olim and investors making real estate transactions in Israel. In the field for 20 years now, she expressed “seeing amazing trends and finding it a little bit overwhelming that there is so much interest right now.”

“I have clients who started the process of purchasing a home, and I wasn’t sure if they’d follow through because of the coronavirus,” Rosen-Solow told JNS, noting that “documents have taken more time with consulates and banks closed, so processing has been more difficult.”

“Not only are they following through,” she reported, “but many are expediting their aliyah dates because they are feeling more anti-Semitism in their communities, and because they believe that Israel has been handling the corona situation so well. They feel Israel is on top of things and in Israel, every person really matters, whereas in America the public policy was affected by business decisions over the importance of a person’s life, especially the elderly.”

In one of the organization’s recent virtual programming, Rosen-Solow led a webinar about purchasing real estate in Israel with more than 300 people tuning in.

Other trends that she reported include properties that used to be rented out through Airbnb coming onto the market fully furnished. And while mortgage interest rates have gone up slightly in Israel, banks have been “a bit more flexible and lenient” in the process of loan approval.

 

‘Properties will only go up in value’

In another show of increasing interest in Israeli real estate, Natan Silver, a U.S.-based investor and investing consultant, recently opened a WhatsApp group for potential buyers and renters in Israel, finding that despite market failures and uncertainty caused by the coronavirus, “there’s still a high volume of potential buyers, renters and investors, and the real estate market in Israel is going up.”

With the mix of the “idealism of a Jewish person owning property in Israel, yearning and desiring to return to our land,” and positive real estate trends over the last year, he told JNS, purchasing apartments anytime in Israel is a safe investment in the long term.

In the United States, Silver said, “people are holding back on selling, afraid of having to sell their properties for a lower price.”

But in Israel, he countered, “everyone was expecting prices to go down; however, for that reason, everyone immediately ran to the market in Israel to see what’s going on. So sellers are seeing an increase in demand, and all of a sudden they are upping their prices now.”

While Silver estimated that “prices will drop” in American real estate as banks shut their doors to loan requests, there will be no similar trend in the Jewish state.

“Israel is a great place to invest because the risk is very, very low compared to other places—there hasn’t been a decrease in prices in over 10 years, and the positive immigration and birth rates are one of the highest in the world,” he noted. “There is simply not enough development to match the demand, and for simple statistical reasons, properties will only go up in value.”

Outside of the coronavirus, another recent news item that has led to a greater interest in real estate, said Rosen-Solow, is the planned application of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria in July. Currently, foreign investors enjoy a tax exemption (amounting to up to 10 percent of the purchase price) when purchasing property there, though it is unknown if this exemption might still be available after July.

Becky Richter, a client of Rosen-Solow from Monsey, N.Y., told JNS that her family is rushing to purchase a property in Agan Ayalot near Givat Ze’ev “so we can avoid foreign taxes, as it is over the Green Line,” and out of fear that the “dollar’s value will drop.”

The pandemic, said Richter, “has given us a push to use our money while it still has value. Also, of course, we see we are on the wrong side of the ocean when it comes to policy dealing with coronavirus.”

(JNS.org)