Angela Merkel sought to prevent Romania from moving embassy to Jerusalem

Germany's premier just demonstrated why the country still has a serious antisemitism problem:

In an effort to stop Romania’s government from relocating its embassy to Jerusalem, German chancellor Angela Merkel called Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis in April, urging him to stop Bucharest’s declared announcement to move its diplomatic building to Israel’s capital.

A Western source told The Jerusalem Post that Merkel lobbied the Romanian president to put a halt on the relocation of its embassy to Jerusalem. It is believed that Merkel called other European politicians as part of a campaign to block the relocation of European embassies to Jerusalem.

The president of Romania’s Chamber of Deputies and a member of Romania’s governing party, the social democratic politician Liviu Dragnea, told the television station Antena 3 in April that the “government adopted a memorandum deciding to start the procedure to effectively move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”

The dramatic and apparent anti-Israel intervention by Merkel, who proclaimed in a Knesset speech in 2008 that Israel’s security interests are “non-negotiable” and part of Germany’s raison d’être, was not denied by the governments of Romania and the Federal Republic. [...]

In addition to waging an ostensible campaign to stop the relocation of European embassies to Jerusalem, Merkel rebuffed President Reuven Rivlin’s request last month during her visit to Jerusalem to join US sanctions against Iran’s regime. The US state department considers the Iranian regime to be the top international state-sponsor of terrorism.

This is most revealing about where Merkel really stands, and if she's on her way out after years of ultimately proving an unreliable leader for Germany as well, as they now have only so many Muslim migrants running rampant. Her refusal to visit Jerusalem at Rivlin's request only furthers the perception she doesn't recognize the capitol, nor the threats imposed by Iran.

And that's one more reason she stands to be remembered very negatively in history.

The AirBNB company turns anti-Israel

Looks like there's another company giving themselves a bad image by joining the BDS insanity:

On Monday, AirBNB, the home-rental company that is often used by tourists to rent apartments in locations around the globe, announced that it would not allow Jewish settlements to be listed in Judea and Samaria. AirBNB stated:

We concluded that we should remove listings in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank that are at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians.

This is the sheerest form of corporate anti-Semitism in recent memory. Not only did AirBNB specifically target “Israeli settlements,” according to Professor Eugene Kontorovich of George Mason Law, they’ve announced that they will only disallow listings in Israeli settlements when those listings are owned by Jews. In other words, if a Jew owns an apartment in East Jerusalem, that won’t be allowed for listing; if an Arab owns an apartment in the same neighborhood, it’s fine for listing.

Well now everyone concerned can withdraw investments in the company and certainly not use it for research. How many of these businesses are giving such awful impressions of themselves now, I have no idea, but they should by all means be avoided.

Update: Knesset member Michael Oren's called for boycotting AirBNB in response, and this article notes:

Oren said on Monday that no one should use the low-cost service, because its policy is “the very definition of anti-Semitism.”

Hmm, good that they remind us this is a business situated in increasingly leftist California, and in SF, which is one of the worst places where leftism spawns in the same state. This could explain a thing or two about them.

Likewise, Israeli Tourism Minister Yariv Levin demanded the management of the Airbnb site cancel the move.

“This is a miserable decision and a disgraceful surrender by the company,” Levin said. He has ordered ministry staff to implement measures to restrict the activity of Airbnb throughout Israel, while encouraging tourism and hospitality throughout Judea and Samaria.

Strategic Affairs and Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan called the move a “submission to the anti-Semitic BDS organizations… a choice to take a racist political stance against some of Israel’s citizens.”

It's very sick what the company's doing, and they shouldn't even be doing business in Israel if that's how they're going to manage themselves.

A pop star makes the right decision to leave Islam

A British born pop singer who was a Muslim adherent has wisely left the practice:

Former One Direction member and pop superstar Zayn Malik revealed he is no longer a practicing Muslim, principally because he does not believe in the teachings of Islamic theology.

The pop superstar was raised in a Muslim family of both Pakistani and Irish descent in the British town of Bradford, and as a young boy studied the Qu’ran and attended mosque. However, the 25-year-old admitted he no longer follows the religion, and instead prioritizes simply being a “good person.”

“I don’t believe you need to eat a certain meat that’s been prayed over a certain way,” Malik said in an interview with Vogue magazine. “I don’t believe you need to read a prayer in a certain language five times a day. I don’t believe any of it. I just believe if you’re a good person, everything is going to go right for you.”

That's an interesting way of putting things. Well, he's doing the right thing to distance himself from Islam, and that too helps make him a good person. Congratulations to Mr. Malik for his courage.