Benny Gantz insults English speakers, insinuating they're not good enough

The leftist former IDF general has just formed a joint list with Yair Lapid's party, and now, in his latest reprehensible statement, Gantz did a ludicrous attack on prime minister Netanyahu by attacking his English-educated background:

“In a month and a half, we will all choose between a ruler who has English from Boston, heavy makeup, and luxury suits – and an Israeli leadership which is real, caring, authentic and not phony,” Israel Resilience Party leader Benny Gantz said in a speech Tuesday night.

Leave aside the fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s English is from spending most of his childhood in the suburbs of Philadelphia, and not Boston.

What are all the other Israelis from Boston, Philadelphia, New York, London, Johannesburg or Melbourne supposed to think?

Regardless of what Gantz intended, that remark, as well as him saying that Netanyahu was busy in America “to improve your English and practice it at luxurious cocktail parties” while Gantz “lay in muddy foxholes with my soldiers on frozen winter nights,” makes it sound like there’s something inherently wrong with having spent time in America.

It could easily be understood that Gantz is delegitimizing English-speaking immigrants as phonies who can’t be leaders of Israel.

This criticism took off on social media, where Likud MK Yehudah Glick, New Right candidate Caroline Glick (no relation) and others said they saw Gantz’s comment in the same light.

Of course, it’s quite easy to prove Gantz wrong. Like Netanyahu, former prime minister Golda Meir spent most of her childhood in the US. Her English was from Milwaukee. First Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Herzog’s English was from Leeds. Legendary Israeli diplomat Abba Eban’s English was from Cape Town. Haim Weizmann only moved to the UK as an adult, but he was a university professor there for decades before becoming Israel’s first president.

As Netanyahu said in his statement responding to Gantz: “My English was a first-class tool in the war for our public diplomacy that helped me greatly in bringing our foreign relations to unprecedented heights.”

Gantz himself has a record in the US. He has a Master’s Degree from the National Defense University, and it’s highly likely that he went to some fancy cocktail parties when he was Israel’s military attaché to the US for four years.

So what's the big idea Gantz has to make such an offensive attack on English-speaking immigrants, myself included? This would be equally offensive if he'd said the same thing about French/Portuguese/Italian immigrants.

For a party that constantly says “there is no Right and there is no Left,” as their jingle goes, they are behaving astoundingly like the Left did after the establishment of the state. This harkens back to Labor forebear Mapai’s attitude towards new immigrants, especially those from the Middle East, many of whom still remember the condescension and hold a grudge against the Left for it.

This is a dangerous tactic. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be getting much attention, in contrast to Gantz minimizing Netanyahu’s military record.

English-speaking immigrants deserve respect. Many of us left good lives abroad purely out of ideology and love of Israel, in order to help develop and build this country and to be part of its future. We’re not asking for an award or special thanks. But there’s no reason to imply that we’re lesser because some of us may talk differently or appreciate a nice suit and a well-made cocktail.

Well now it should get some attention, as should Gantz's obscuring of Netanyahu's own military record. Something the prime minister already responded to:

“Benny Gantz, shame on you,” Netanyahu said in the Hebrew-language video, which mostly echoed a written statement released by his office immediately after Gantz’s speech.

“You are attacking me, a soldier and officer in [special forces unit] Sayeret Matkal, who commanded many operations behind enemy lines, who was wounded in the [1972] operation to rescue the hostages of the Sabena plane, who almost lost my life in a shootout in the Suez Canal, who risked my life time after time for our state, which you want to endanger with unilateral withdrawals and support for the dangerous Iran nuclear deal,” he continued.

“And what else are you attacking me for? The English I speak, the English which has been a central tool in our public diplomacy war and which greatly helped me improve our foreign relations to an all-time record,” Netanyahu added.

“I want to thank my brothers in arms from Sayeret Matkal, across the political spectrum, who came out against those outrageous remarks and stood up for the truth,” he said.

“Citizens of Israel, in the upcoming elections you will also be required to make a stand and choose between a weak left-wing government headed by Benny Gantz and a strong right-wing government headed by me,” he concluded.

On this note, Netanyahu's not the only one who pointed out Gantz's serious weaknesses. Even independent candidate Orly Levy-Abekasis came out against Gantz, stating he's just a tool:

Gesher party chairwoman MK Orly Levy-Abekasis announced Wednesday evening that her Gesher party will run independently for the next Knesset.

"Since the signing of those agreements anchored by signed documents, a strange flurry has begun in the Israel Resilience party, including the dissemination of disinformation and deliberate media briefings, a sort of hide-and-seek game as though there were no discussions between us, as if there were no agreements and summaries or commitments, while the chairman, to my amazement, shuts his mouth and remains silent,” Levy-Abekasis said of negotiations with Benny Gantz.

"It is amazing how quickly the new politicians have adopted old and rejected tricks that the public has long grown tired of. How disappointing to discover that specifically the one who heralded a new and clean politics failed his first test - the test of reliability. It is a pity that the man they expected to run Israel emerges as a man run by others,” she said.

"Inexperience brought the man to even come to me today and ask me to give him an extension until he concludes his deal with Lapid. I have no other words to describe this behavior but strange and delusional. In light of the situation, I have come to the conclusion that I won’t take part in the misleading of the public, and therefore Gesher will run independently and will succeed," Levy-Abekasis concluded.

Here's some more:

Levy-Abekasis said negotiations fell apart despite her having reached written agreements with Gantz that included Israel Resilience’s adoption of Gesher’s socioeconomic platform as one of the alliance’s main campaign planks, as well as which spots on a unified list her party members would receive.

“To our amazement, since [reaching] these agreements… a bizarre scampering around started in Israel Resilience, accompanied by the spreading of disinformation and biased briefings to the media, a sort of game of hide-and-seek as if there hadn’t been discussions between us,” she said in a statement.

Levy-Abekasis issued stinging criticism of Gantz himself, saying he had failed the “credibility test” and calling his behavior “weird and hallucinatory.”

“It is unfortunately to discover that the man who was expected to manage Israel turns out to be managed by others,” she said.

He's also very startlingly unoriginal in his statements, and that's just one of the things that makes him so dangerous. Levy-Abekasis deserves some credit for calling out Gantz for his grave mistakes too. These are some of the main reasons why it'll be a terrible thing if Gantz wins the election, and even Lapid's bound to be a bad lot at this point, just why, if he too ends up serving as a premier on rotation, he could also be bad for Israel.

National Union will include Otzma Yehudit on their Knesset list

Okay, it looks like at least 2 other political movements will join with the National Union for this election, starting with this one:

The Jewish Home party's central committee approved Wednesday evening the unification agreement with the Otzma Yehudit faction.

The approval came at the end of a tense meeting which included calls against committee members and Knesset candidates.

Prime Minister Netanyahu later called to congratulate Jewish Home Chairman Rabbi Rafi Peretz.

And former Shas member Eli Yishai's party will also join:

Talks towards a united right-wing ticket bringing together four smaller factions continue Wednesday, with Yahad chairman and former Interior Minister Eli Yishai expected to receive the sixth spot on a joint ticket.

If this is so, then that's good too. Unity is vital at this time.

Dearbornistan's mayor wants no mention of Henry Ford's antisemitism

The mayor of Dearborn in Michigan, the bastion of notorious antisemitic car manufacturer Henry Ford, doesn't want an article about the creepy mogul's antisemitism and nazi-backing published there because even Muslims condone his record:

Dearborn was also the hometown of Henry Ford, the auto industrialist whose factories attracted Arab immigrants to Dearborn in the 1920s. “Palestinian Muslims arrived in the second decade of the 20th century, attracted by the prospect of work on the assembly lines that produced Ford’s revolutionary Model ‘T’,” according to a report in the National. While Ford was heralding the arrival of Arab immigrants to this country to work in his factory, he was also widely spreading his virulent anti-Semitic blood libel.

However, the mayor of Dearborn today, John B. O’Reilly, Jr. (pictured above), wants to sugarcoat the unpleasant part of Ford’s biography dealing with his many anti-Semitic writings and pronouncements. Mayor O’Reilly decided to ban the distribution of a city-financed historical journal containing an unflattering article about Henry Ford’s record of anti-Semitism that the mayor deemed to be too much of a "distraction" for Dearborn’s “diverse” population. He also severed the city’s ties with the editor of the publication and long-time Dearborn resident, Bill McGraw, who had written the article to educate Dearborn residents today regarding their hometown hero Ford’s “dark sides.”

Mr. McGraw’s article ran afoul of the mayor’s politically correct speech code. “It was thought that by presenting information from 100 years ago that included hateful messages — without a compelling reason directly linked to events in Dearborn today — this edition of The Historian could become a distraction from our continuing messages of inclusion and respect,” Mayor O’Reilly said in a statement issued last Friday. Although Mr. McGraw’s article can still be read online, Mayor O’Reilly’s moves to block the distribution of Mr. McGraw’s article and to sever the city’s ties with him were punitive acts that most likely violated the First Amendment.

The mayor claimed that Ford’s anti-Semitic views were old news, no longer relevant to today’s "diverse" Dearborn population. The exact opposite is true. Ford’s writings are just as popular with some white nationalist extremists today as when they inspired Adolf Hitler. Ford’s writings also appeal to Jew-hating Islamists. His hate speech against the Jews’ aspirations for a state of their own in the Holy Land has a sympathetic audience amongst Dearborn’s current Arab-American and Muslim population.

And this is why I can't bring myself to buy Ford products (or even the now defunct Mercury brand), and consider it a disgrace the Lincoln luxury brand was bought and owned by them early on. Ford may be long gone, but the grisly legacy he formed continues, as does the devil worship he spawned with his influence.

It is time for Mayor O’Reilly to eat some crow again. He should either reverse his decision regarding Bill McGraw’s article on Henry Ford’s anti-Semitism and reinstate Mr. McGraw, as officials with the Dearborn Historical Commission have urged, or he should resign his office. Henry Ford’s brand of anti-Semitism has no expiration date. To deliberately whitewash Ford's anti-Semitic history is to say that exposing anti-Semitism no longer matters. But it does matter more than ever, including most especially in Dearborn.

And a good way to protest, depending how Ford motors handles its business today, is to boycott their products. I never found Mustangs very appealing anyway; they always seemed so dull in comparison to Chevy Corvettes and Dodge Vipers.

Gantz's defense of a bad step hinders him

Amnon Lord says that when Benny Gantz defended and whitewashed Ariel Sharon's atrocity from 2005, he just exposed who he really is:

Gantz's comments on the 2005 Disengagement Plan show us who he really is. He doesn't think there are any lessons to be learned from the unilateral uprooting of settlements in the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria.

He apparently thinks the plan was so good that Israel should do more of the same and to hell with the consequences this could have on Israel's national security and diplomatic standing. [...]

Gantz's interview with Israeli celebrities Shlomo Artzi and Hanoch Daum shows that he wants to be at the heart of the Israeli mainstream and to harp on the nostalgia associated with Artzi and his songs.

Gantz has stepped into a minefield without having a map to guide him. In fact, a party headed by Artzi and Daum would have been much more appealing than Gantz's Israel Resilience Party.

Advocating a second disengagement plan was a misstep. It shows that despite his denials, he sees eye-to-eye with the ideological leaders of the Left, including former Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

Gantz was a remote-controlled candidate until that interview. Everything was staged and scripted down to the finest of details. He even knew what questions he would get from the handpicked crowd. He even had the answers prepared in advance.

Artzi and Daum are good people but they cannot be programmed. As their interview shows, even a shallow rut in the ground can cause an unfit paratrooper a sprained ankle.

It's important to remember that the PLO's been stripped of their office in the USA, and the Trump administration stopped funding them, and that doesn't exactly help the platform Gantz wants to run on. So far, if there's any bad entity who's been supporting Gantz, it's the PLO:

With peace talks frozen for years, Gantz's comments were welcomed by the Palestinians, who have been boycotting the Trump administration since its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, praised "the signs coming from Gantz about settlements," calling them a step in the right direction should he win the election and prove "willing and ready" for peace.

"It's encouraging if he succeeds and he sticks to this opinion," Rdeneh told reporters.

This is telling too. What next, will Gantz attack the most positive of US policies? It wouldn't be shocking if he did. One more reason why he has to be opposed.

An Israeli-Arab woman was murdered in Turkey

Here's an example of Israeli Arabs falling victim to Muslim honor murders over in Turkey:

Siwar Keblawi, 20, from Umm al-Fahm in the Lower Galilee, has been killed in Izmit, Turkey, the Foreign Ministry confirmed on Thursday.

Turkish media reported that the body of Keblawi, a student who had been living in Izmit for the last few months and was enrolled in a local university, was found on Wednesday night outside the building in which she was staying, adding that her neighbors claimed she had been thrown from the balcony. According to a report by Haaretz, police are investigating the suspicion that she was murdered.

The young woman’s father and brother were arrested on suspicion of being involved in her murder.

However, Turkish authorities reported that she had jumped from the third-floor balcony to escape her father and brother after a fight broke out between them.

After surviving the fall, it’s alleged that she was then murdered by the pair. Local media reported that she had been strangled to death.

What are the odds the Turkish police will let the two monsters off the hook? Tragically, the chances are very high that's what'll happen, as anybody who studies the conduct of Islam carefully knows. And this being Turkey where it took place, their hostility to Israel could easily play a part in any exoneration of the perpetrators that's bound to happen.

Grenoble closing jihad-preaching mosque

Here's one positive step being made over in France, with the Grenoble council shutting a mosque that was preaching jihadism (via Jihad Watch):

Fearing potential terrorist attacks, the south-eastern city of Grenoble will temporarily close a mosque in which imams were allegedly calling for “armed jihad.” Over 400 worshippers attended the mosque each day.

The Al-Kawthar mosque, located in a populous Rue des Trembles district of Grenoble, has become fertile soil for disseminating “ideas and theories that provoke violence, hatred and discrimination,” the local prefecture said. It claimed the imam legitimized “armed jihad… Sharia and discrimination against women.”

The imam’s sermons allegedly stirred up hatred towards those practicing other religions. It is thought that over 400 Muslims attended the Al-Kawthar each day, according to French media.

The mosque will now be shut for six weeks and its assets will be frozen. To do so, Grenoble authorities invoked a specific French law which deals with prevention of terrorist attacks and threats to national security.

The city, which is home to over 162,000 residents, accommodates 20 mosques, including the Al-Kawthar, according to a local Muslim-oriented website.

Last year, it emerged that mosques in Aix-en-Provence, Sartrouville and Marseille were also closed for preaching radical Islamism. The move came after a string of terrorist attacks sent shockwaves across France, leaving multiple people killed and injured.

Grenoble itself witnessed a terrorist attack in 2015, when a man was found beheaded at a local factory and an Islamist flag was seen flying over the facility. A 35-year-old man, Yassin Salhi, was arrested in the manhunt that followed. It later transpired that the victim of the attack was his boss.

In 2016, French authorities closed around 20 mosques considered to be spreading violent extremism.

All mosques in the city should be shut down to prevent more terrorism.

Benny Gantz lets more of the mask slip

The politician who's become the media darling because of his leftism regurgitates old, dangerous cliches:

Israel Resilience Party chairman and former IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz said Israel must find a solution to the settlement crisis.

“We are not looking to control anyone else,” Gantz said in his first interview since announcing his candidacy for prime minister.

Speaking with the Hebrew daily Yediot Aharonot in an article published Wednesday, Gantz said, “We must find a way that does not require us to exercise control over other people.”

Which implies he wants to separate Arabs from Jews, plain and simple. It gets worse:

When asked if he would solve the settlement problem through means similar to the 2005 Disengagement from the Gaza Strip, Gantz praised that unilateral move.

“The Disengagement was carried out with a lot of political consideration,” he said. “All sides had a lot at stake and the state managed to do it without tearing the country apart. It was done legally, carried out by the State of Israel and the IDF, and even though it was very painful for the settlers, it was handled well,” he said.

“We must take the lessons of the Disengagement and implement them in other arenas.”

There were only bad "lessons" in an act carried out by a man who turned out to be a monster - Ariel Sharon, including how it was done most brutally, without any consideration for the people expelled from Gaza, or even the disaster that followed as the Hamas used this to launch rockets at Israeli targets. Now, Gantz is basically saying he's willing to do the same as Sharon did, and enable further disaster for Israel. He's probably even willing to divide Jerusalem for the sake of his futile beliefs. That's what makes Gantz dangerous, aside from how he's far from having any experience as a diplomat.

And that's why the right-wing had better make sure they're united for this election, because to have a repeat of the 1992 election disaster could easily make it possible for such an awful man to come to power, at a time when Iran's also a serious threat with their nuclear weapons.

Update: Dror Eydar, who was appointed Israel's ambassador to Italy, makes another case for why right-wing unity is important.

Political parties and public alike on the right must do everything they can to avoid a repeat of the 1992 election

With the Israeli election underway, it's strongly advised for anyone who cares about the country to make sure they're not making the mistake of throwing away votes over parties whose electoral chances are very uncertain. Especially since the threshold wasn't lowered, so far as I know. As Ariel Kahana notes, this is what it was like in 1992:

That year, no fewer than six parties were vying for right-wing votes, both religious and secular: Rafael Eitan's Tzomet; Tehiya, led by Yuval Neeman; Moledet under Rehavam Ze'evi; the National Religious Party; and the parties of Rabbis Eliezer Mizrahi (Geulat Yisrael) and Levinger (Torah Ve'eretz Yisrael), who planned to take votes from the NRP.

At the time, some warned that votes would be wasted and Knesset seats lost, but the party leaders didn't heed their warnings. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir wasn't good enough for them and they started splitting ideological hairs. Certain that the Right would win, the parties stayed in the election until the end, which led to disastrous results. Tehiya, Mizrahi, and Levinger failed to reach the minimum electoral threshold, which cost the Right precious seats and led to the establishment of a left-wing government and – two years later – the return of PLO founder Yasser Arafat.

It's been 27 years, and it looks as if the national camp, particularly the wing that is more to the Right than the Likud, is on the same path. In 2019, we're also seeing six parties jockeying for position in the small sector to the Right of the mother party: Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked's New Right; Habayit Hayehudi under Rafi Peretz; the National Union under MK Bezalel Smotrich; Zehut and Otzma Yehudit, led by far-right activists Moshe Feiglin and Baruch Marzel, respectively; and former Shas leader Eli Yishai's Yachad party. Every one of these party leaders is convinced that he can draw enough support to make it into the even though the minimum electoral threshold (3.25%) is higher now than it used to be, and it takes about 150,000 votes to reach it.

This situation will undoubtedly lead to a loss of votes on the Right. Even if some of these parties were to merge, it wouldn't be enough, because too many players are crowded onto too small a field. In the 2015 election, Yishai and Marzel ran together but didn't make it over the minimum threshold, which led to the Right losing at least four seats. This time, with more parties competing in the exact same sector, it will be even more complicated to arrange a joint ticket.

Well that's why I'm honestly angry that Moshe Feiglin, who said some very distasteful things in the past, is now crowding the field with his own new party, probably so he can deliberately harm the right. Considering he never actually attacked the left-wing parties in past campaigns, that's one more reason why he's not qualified and doesn't deserve to be in the Knesset.

What's really disturbing now is if polls mean anything, and Benny Gantz, the new darling of the left, could take over from where Labor leaves off, and what if he does manage to unite some leftist parties into one? It could be bad.

Former Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat said:

Barkat responded to the poll results: "Now, as the Left is uniting and posing a threat, we must put together a strong team that will strengthen Likud and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and thwart attempts by Benny Gantz and the Left to topple the right-wing government."

And it's entirely possible the left will try to unite, so the right had better make sure they don't make mistakes by running separately, and do some mergers to help the cause of Israel. This is serious business, and it would do everyone a lot of good if they'd prove their capability of remaining united for the election.

PELOSI SHUT DOWN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT OVER .0011% OF OUR BUDGET!!!

Why do people blame Trump for the government shutdown?

Pelosi is the one who shut down the government.

The total budget is $4.4 TRILLION.

Pelosi shut down the government because she does not want to give Trump $5 Billion for a Border Wall.

5,000,000,000 /4,400,000,000,000 = .0011%

Or, in other words,

PELOSI SHUT DOWN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT OVER .0011% OF OUR BUDGET!!!

To put that into perspective. The average annual household income in the United States is $59,039.

59,039 divided by .0011 = $64.94 

or, in other words, the equivalent of $1.24 per week.

Saladin Ahmed and his anti-Jewish/Israeli rhetoric, and eyebrow-raising revelations about Sana Amanat's family background

Here's some horrific tweets I found by awful novelist/comics scripter Ahmed, who has no business being in entertainment or writing for Marvel if this is how he's going to act, from the past 5 years:

(•_•)
<) )╯
/ \
EVANGELICAL SUPPORT OF
( •_•)
\( (>
/ \
ISRAEL IS ROOTED
(•_•)
<) )╯
/ \
IN ANTISEMITIC THEOLOGY

— Saladin Ahmed (@saladinahmed) February 26, 2016

absolutely 100% support this. can't wait to see the equivalent bill cutting off Israel for the numerous journalists it has murdered (eg https://t.co/A86VykHBOd) https://t.co/DDD6hQsnj7

— Saladin Ahmed (@saladinahmed) November 11, 2018

Protip: Hamas, Israel's excuse for massacring civilians, was BORN when Israel massacred civilians. ht @MazMHussain pic.twitter.com/tMka4cheBx

— Saladin Ahmed (@saladinahmed) August 5, 2014

Now this is definitely horrific what Ahmed is saying, and makes him as bad as Ardian Syaf, who got fired from Marvel 2 years ago for his own anti-semitic, anti-Israeli writings (and inserting subliminal messages into his art). It's very much like a blood libel a Swedish paper wrote against the IDF, and another example of a blood libel carried over from the Muslim world. And what kind of hypocrisy is that to attack Evangelicals when Ahmed's doing just that against Israel? Makes me wonder what he thinks of Gal Gadot too.

Scores of children in #Gaza have been slaughtered by Israel. But let's talk about the REAL cost here. ht @Bro_Pair pic.twitter.com/bVIwD0DVUi

— Saladin Ahmed (@saladinahmed) July 16, 2014

"You're an Israel-basher!"
Yes, a thousand times yes, I am.
And a US-basher! A Saudi Arabia-basher!
States aren't people.
Bash, bash away.

— Saladin Ahmed (@saladinahmed) July 2, 2014

Yeah, sure he's a Saudi Arabia basher. I don't buy that moral equivalence for a second. Besides the Israel-bashing, the US-bashing is also offensive. Jeff Dunetz wrote about some of the tactics Ahmed was resorting to, which date back a long way.

re: Marc Lamont Hill's absurd firing, here's Rick Santorum, paid CNN contributor https://t.co/tQUC7MrxsA pic.twitter.com/Gbv9nLUeZc

— Saladin Ahmed (@saladinahmed) November 29, 2018

Ah, so now he's even siding with Israel-basher Marc Lamont Hill, who doesn't deserve his job at Temple University either, and is attacking Santorum over a thoughtcrime for defending Israel.

All that aside, if this is how Ahmed's going to behave, then C.B. Cebulski and company should be ashamed of themselves for turning a blind eye to his own reprehensible conduct, which, it goes without saying, is insulting to the memory of Stan Lee, the son of Romanian-Jewish immigrants to the US. Indeed, why is Ahmed still employed at Marvel (where he'll be taking over the Muslim Ms. Marvel book from G. Willow Wilson), or any comics company for that matter? Did they just get rid of Syaf because a foreigner was seen as more convenient for distancing themselves from? Well, it's very cheap, and their failure to ensure dismissals of offensive contributors won't be token only speaks volumes.

Besides the horrific conduct of Ahmed, whose novels I won't be buying, there's even some eyebrow-raising information about Sana Amanat's background. For starters, look at this information from Montville Township:

Hamida Mahmood Amanat introduced her daughter, Sana Amanat, and said her daughter spearheaded the effort to empower women and minorities in an industry dominated by men.

Amanat is Marvel Comics’ Director of Content and Character Development, and oversees Marvel’s continued efforts to expand its library of characters across the company’s various platforms across the globe, according to the event’s program booklet.[...]

And according to World Net Daily, in their coverage of a federal investigation of Huma Abedin's family for fraud, it shows that the Amanats are related to the Abedins:

Abedin’s relatives were major donors to the Clinton Foundation. And Abedin drew a salary from the Clinton Foundation, while at the same time working for the government.

Records show that her first cousin, Omar Amanat, is under federal indictment for cheating investors in Kit Digital Inc. of millions of dollars between 2009 and 2012, forcing the tech start-up to go bankrupt in 2013. He has been placed under house arrest as he awaits trial, which is scheduled for Oct. 2. [...]

In fact, Omar Amanat’s parents, Sharif and Hamida Amanat, once hosted Huma Abedin’s parents, Syed and Saleha Abedin, at their New Jersey home when Huma’s ailing father had to move back temporarily from Saudi Arabia to undergo a kidney transplant. The Amanats helped the couple continue publishing their Saudi-based journal promoting Shariah law from the U.S. In fact, Omar’s mother, Hamida Amanat, has contributed articles to the journal.

“Dr. Sharif Amanat and his precious wife Hamida created an environment so congenial and supportive that without it it would have been impossible to function effectively,” a recovering Syed Abedin wrote in a 1991 issue of his “Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs Journal.” “I have no words to thank them.”

Now this is certainly eyebrow-raising. So the parents of Sana Amanat are more or less related to the Abedins. Which suggests we have quite a propaganda movement here making inroads into political and entertainment mediums, denigrating products they didn't create, and pushing their vicious leftist propaganda into all these items at a whim. These, tragically, are the kind of people we have running the store today at Marvel, and don't be shocked if any contributors to DC now aren't far behind.

Above all, Marvel, DC and other publishers shouldn't be employing these kind of disrespectful propagandists who have no gratitude for the Jewish founders and beginners of the medium like Lee, Kirby, Siegel, Shuster and others. But tragically, it's clear for now they have no intention of letting them go or distancing themselves from such reprehensible writers and executives, and that's why it'll only precipitate the demise of the Big Two for starters.

Israel will have to invade Iran in order to put an end to their tyranny

There's statements being made now that Israel will have to do what it takes to really defeat Iran's autocracy:

Israel needs to prepare for the possibility that its battle to keep Iran from entrenching itself militarily in Syria may have to be expanded to Lebanon or to Iran directly.

That is one of the recommendations that appeared in the Institute for National Security Studies Strategic Assessment for Israel 2018-2019, which was released and rolled out by the Tel Aviv-based think tank at a ceremony at the President’s Residence on Wednesday.

“Israel maintains a very strong basic deterrent against security challenges that are below the threshold of war,” according to the report. “At the same time, most of the fronts facing Israel are very volatile: Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. In all three, despite the existence of mutual deterrence between the sides, there is a potential for escalation toward a broad confrontation and a general war, more than one front at a time.”

According to the report, the most serious threat facing Israel in 2019 would be an all-out war in the north – the First Northern War – that would include Iran, Hezbollah and Syria. Such a confrontation would also likely spill over to the south, and Israel would additionally find itself battling terrorist organizations from the Gaza Strip.

This “whole case” scenario, according to the report, “is a possibility that Israel must be prepared for.”

That “whole case” scenario is also the worst-case scenario.

Given they've got such a huge a nuclear arsenal, that's the biggest reason now why they have to be invaded in order to put an end to their regime and dictatorship. So the government/military had better start making serious decisions, because there is serious danger out there, and it's time to put an end to it.

Jewish-American survivor of 9-11 was murdered in Kenya terrorist attack

A horrible tragedy took place in Kenya, as a Jewish-American who'd survived al Qaeda's jihadist attack on the WTC in 2001 was among several murdered in another Islamic jihad attack at a hotel (via The Algemeiner):

An American Jewish consultant and at least 13 other people were killed when terrorists stormed a luxury hotel complex in Nairobi on Tuesday.

The U.S. State Department confirmed the death of Jason Spindler, who was at a business meeting in the offices of I-Dev International, his investment consulting firm, when he was fatally shot. Eleven Kenyans and one British citizen were also reported as among those killed.

The Jewish community in Nairobi is assisting the Spindler family in the repatriation of Spindler’s body back to the United States.

The Somali Islamic jihadist organization Al-Shabab, reportedly linked to Al-Qaeda, has taken responsibility for the attack, which took place at the Dusit D2 hotel complex just after 3 p.m. The terrorists detonated a bomb in the parking lot and then a suicide bomber exploded in the lobby.

World Israel News says:

The Somali Islamist terror group that carried out Tuesday’s attack on a hotel complex in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi has issued a fresh statement declaring that the atrocity was directed against “Zionist Jews.”

The assault claimed the lives of 14 people, including U.S. citizen Jason Spindler — a survivor of the Sept. 11, 2001 Al-Qaeda atrocity in New York.

On Tuesday night, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta announced that security forces had regained control of the complex, with all the terrorists “eliminated” in the process.

Wednesday’s statement from the Somalia-based Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (more commonly known as “Al-Shabaab”), an affiliate of Al-Qaeda, stated that it had carried out the Nairobi attack as “a response to the witless remarks of U.S. President Donald Trump and his declaration of Al-Quds (Jerusalem) as the capital of Israel.”

The statement accused Trump of having granted “the Zionist Jews the approval to desecrate the sanctity of one of Islam’s holiest sites with their filth and vile policies of ethnic cleansing without considering the suffering of the millions of Muslims languishing under the throes of the Zionist occupation for decades.”

Headlined “Jerusalem Will Never Be Judaized,” the statement was published on Al-Shabaab’s channel on the social media platform Telegram, and subsequently translated by the Washington, D.C.-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). Al-Shabaab claimed to have killed more than 50 “unbelievers” in Nairobi, adding that the attack was carried out “in accordance with the guidelines of Ayman al-Zawahiri in targeting Western and Zionist interests worldwide and in support of our Muslim families in Palestine.”

So here again we have a terrorist cell committing attacks built on lies, and blaming Jews even for their actions even against non-Jews. Such monsters cannot be awarded, and must be hunted down, and barred from every practicing Islam again.

Oklahoma jihadist will be given death sentence

The Federalist reports that the ISIS sympathizer who violently decapitated a mother working at a food processing factory in Moore, Oklahoma, will finally be put to death for his crime:

This fall, the U.S. Supreme Court essentially cemented the execution of America’s least known Islamic terrorist. Jihadist convert Alton Nolen is now set to be put to death in Oklahoma, likely by nitrogen gas inhalation.

The Supreme Court’s October 1, 2018 rejection of Nolen’s final death penalty appeal went unremarked upon by news media so, partly as a result, I missed it. But the Nolen case is very much worth remembering, along with all terror attacks that occur on U.S. soil, if not just for the victims and their survivors but for lessons that can and must be learned.

The September 24, 2014 attack in Oklahoma is somewhat notable in the annals of many officially uncalled terrorist strikes in that Nolen emulated a favorite ISIS death tactic no doubt learned online: he fully beheaded a co-worker—the beloved wife, mother, and grandmother Colleen Hufford—inside the Moore, Oklahoma food processing plant where they both worked. Shouting “Alluah Akbar” throughout the attack, Nolen used the same oversized butcher knife on the neck of a second co-worker, Tracy Johnson, when the company’s chief operations officer, a reserve law enforcement officer named Mark Vaughn, burst in with an AR-15 rifle. He shot and wounded Nolen as Nolen disengaged from his second victim and charged at him with the bloody knife.

Such an attack must generate a particular horror in its witnesses and, when Nolen is finally put to death, one should keep in mind what Hufford must have experienced in her last moments.

Nolen fully deserves to be executed for what he did to that poor woman. And it's shameful that the Obama administration refused to call the tragedy what it was - a terrorist attack. Similarly, it's shameful the press all but ignored the latest developments, in their effort to avoid serious issues. The Trump administration would do well to hold a memorial for the victim, to show that these innocents will not be forgotten after the terrible incidents that took place.

5 leaders of Lev Tahor arrested by Interpol

This was a long time coming, and finally, authorities have done what's required in order to put a stop to the Islamized Haredi cult - collar the leaders in order to cripple the cult and bring them to heel:

Five leaders of Lev Tahor, a fringe Haredi Orthodox sect, were arrested in Mexico.

Their arrest was a joint operation between Interpol and the FBI, Yeshiva World News reported on Wednesday. The group has faced allegations of kidnapping, sexual abuse and child abuse.

Among those arrested are Nachman Helbrans, the son of former sect leader Shlomo Helbrans, who drowned in Mexico in 2017. Nachman Helbrans, who now leads Lev Tahor, is reported to be even more radical and aggressive than his father, according to YWN.

The group was accused last week of kidnapping two children, who the New York Post on Wednesday reported were the children of the founder’s daughter, Sara Helbrans. The children were attending a therapeutic event with other escapees from the sect.

Sara Helbrans fled the sect on October 5 with three of her six children. The three others were discovered and returned to her 10 days later, and her husband detained.

On Saturday, December 8, her two teenage children, Yante and Chaim, who remain loyal to the sect, disappeared from the event in the Catskills.

Helbrans had earlier filed suit in Brooklyn Family Court seeking custody of her children and protection from her husband.

“I am very imminently afraid from the cult and what the [children’s] father and other cult members may do now that we are no longer under their power and manipulation,” she wrote in the filing to the court, according to the New York Post.

There's more in this UK Mail article. It goes without saying this is horrific if they were kidnapped. Especially if they really are still loyal to the sick cult. We must hope the authorities can find them. As for Helbrans and the remaining overlords, they must be held in custody and no longer allowed to run their monstrous operation. Above all, they should be prosecuted and imprisoned for long terms to ensure their evil is totally defeated. This case must serve as a vital lesson why we have to watch out for these repellent, insular cults that wind up abusing their subjects in the worst ways possible.

There will be new Israeli elections in April

It looks like the government's decided the coalition's too narrow to work properly, and based on this, they decided to dissolve and go to elections a few months early:

Coalition leaders voted unanimously Monday afternoon to dissolve the Knesset and go to early elections this coming spring, a Likud spokesperson said.

During a meeting Monday afternoon in the Prime Minister’s Office, leaders of the coalition’s five factions agreed that the current narrow government is untenable, and that the 20th Knesset must be dissolved early and new elections held.

The faction leaders voted unanimously for early elections, which will be held on April 9th, 2019.

“In the name of budgetary and national responsibility, party leaders in the coalition agreed unanimously to dissolve the Knesset and go to new elections at the beginning of April, following a full four-year term,” the spokesperson announced.

The elections for the 21st Knesset will be held just over four years after the previous vote, which was held on March 17th, 2015.

Prior to the coalition’s decision Monday, the next Knesset election had been scheduled for November 5th, 2019.

So it'll be about 4 years of a coalition in the making. Let's hope they know what it takes to convince voters to support their platforms in the next 4 months.

G. Willow Wilson leaves the Muslim Ms. Marvel, and hands it to another propagandist, Saladin Ahmed

So now, one of the most contemptuous SJWs Marvel and DC alike could ever have possibly hired is leaving the low-selling propaganda vehicle misusing the original codename of Carol Danvers, and giving the reins to a fellow propagandist, author Saladin Ahmed:

After five years, G. Willow Wilson will leave Marvel Entertainment’s Ms. Marvel, with the publisher revealing that the series will end when Wilson, who co-created the character in 2014, leaves, ahead of a relaunch with a new creative team later in 2019. [...]

The Ms. Marvel series ends with Wilson’s final issue, only to be relaunched as The Magnificent Ms. Marvel, a new series by Saladin Ahmed and Minkyu Jung in March. Wilson is currently working on DC Entertainment’s Wonder Woman and has a new series for Dark Horse's Berger Books imprint, Invisible Kingdom, on tap for 2019; in a tweet listing future 2019 work, she also mentioned her upcoming novel, The Bird King.

No surprise they'd be so gushy with a new adjective title. That Karen Berger, who founded the imprint, willing to associate with people like her has made me lose respect for DC's former Vertigo editor. Entertainment Weekly also said:

Though a novelist by trade, Ahmed recently broke into writing comics with an excellent Black Bolt miniseries (illustrated with cosmic flair by Christian Ward) and has followed that up with several others, such as Exiles, which features a team of time-traveling superheroes — including a much older, bitter version of Ms. Marvel simply named Khan. But Ahmed says he’s particularly excited to now be writing the real Kamala.

“I think she’s really the face of everything that’s new and fresh and exciting and ‘21st century’ at Marvel, and with superheroes in general. To be given stewardship of that is a big deal to me,” Ahmed tells EW. “It’s always thrilling being given responsibility over a beloved character. It’s particularly meaningful for me to be taking over from Willow. She’s an incredible writer, and she’s a friend. I’ve only been in comics for a couple years, I come from fiction and poetry and stuff like that, and Willow has been one of the folks who’s helped me figure out this whole craft and business. She’s my sister, and it’s very cool to be taking the baton from her. There’s something meaningful there.”

Oh, sure there's something meaningful. A partnership between propagandists, is what. It figures a so-called novelist who played victimology cards while insulting Spider-Fans would be seen as the ideal choice to take Wilson's place, in another relaunch, now long a common practice in this day and age for the sake of short-term sales boosts.

And as sales receipts for the now concluding volume of the Muslim Ms. Marvel have proven (they were at little more than 13,000, last time I looked), it's nothing more than a lot of stale bread, and it's clear not even the social justice advocates they covet for an audience care about their dismal dreck. What's clear is that this is precisely what's bringing down Marvel, by shoving characters heavily built on ideology down the readers' throats. If they won't move away from the "project" and the propagandists they hired, it'll only continue to damage their reputation, sticking out like the sore thumb of propaganda it really is.

The dangers of no-go zones in the west

The Ammo website's got a special guide to the crisis of no-go zones run by Islamofascists in Europe and elsewhere in the west, and the negative impact they've had everywhere. This is very important for reading.

Bush Senior was bad for Israel

Former US president George H.W. Bush died this past week, and predictably, there was a lot of whitewashing of his exact records on foreign policy, which includes his atrocious conduct towards Israel, as well as that of his son, Dubya:

“Go to hell.” That’s what George W. answered a reporter, when questioned about what he planned to tell the Israelis, as he was about to leave on his 1998 Middle East trip. Was he joking? Let’s remember, George W. previously had said in 1993, “heaven is open only to those who accept Jesus Christ,” while discussing his decision to become “born again,” as reported in the Houston Post at the time.

And let’s not forget his heavy campaigning in Michigan (home of the largest Arab-American community) before the 2000 election, his family’s oil interests, and deep ties with the Arab community in America and the Middle East. Then, there was George W’s open support for a Palestinian state during his presidency, the first American president to come out of the closet on the issue.

As the saying goes, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

So, after a cursory look at George W. Bush’s attitudes to Jews, and Israel, let’s look at his recently deceased father, George H.W. Bush, his friends and family.

Well, for starters, there’s the company H.W. kept, for example James Baker who said, “F*** the Jews, they didn’t vote for us anyways.” James Baker was George H.W. Bush’s Secretary of State.

Why didn’t H.W. criticize Baker’s statement?

And H.W. let Baker publicly berate Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir, “When you’re serious about peace, call us,” giving the number for the White House switchboard. Later, as a friend of the family, he acted as a political advisor to Jeb Bush, when he ran for governor in Florida.

George H.W. Bush will go down in Jewish History as the American president who forced Israel into a subservient position and endangered millions of Jews.

During the 1991 Gulf War, Shamir wanted the communication codes, so that Israeli pilots could contact their American counterparts, and avoid a friendly fire scenario. Bush refused, forcing Shamir’s hand, not to respond to Saddam Hussein’s scud missile fire on Israel. Bush sent patriot missiles, and insisted that Israel let America take care of it. That may be the main turning point, in the Israeli mentality, from “we fight our own wars,” to a growing sense of dependence on Uncle Sam.

Bush Sr. damaged morale by acting as though literally nobody should even think about offering altruistic aid to the USA, as though the country could literally handle everything unquestioned, and may have even damaged the USA's ability to manage some subjects properly too.

As the late Rabbi Meir Kahane quipped, “Once we were people who had faith in the burning bush, and now we depend upon George Bush?”

H.W. also pushed off an Israeli $10 billion aid request for loan guarantees, to help settle the million plus Soviet Jewish refugees flooding Israel, after the fall of the Iron Curtain. He insisted Israel stop building “settlements,” and extorted from Shamir, an agreement that Israel would participate in the 1991 Madrid “peace” Conference. Which led to the Oslo Process, the Palestinian Authority, Arafat’s return, and the Death Machine, Israelis suffer with today. After a more cooperative prime minister was elected in Israel in 1992, Yitzhak Rabin, the loan guarantees went through.

Now that too was all an utter abomination, and brought us down very low as a result.

There's also Prescott Bush's historical record to consider, which isn't all that different from Henry Ford's:

But the George HW’s apple didn’t fall far either…

The accusations against HW’s father, Sen. Prescott Bush, go well beyond dislike for Jews and discriminatory practices that were typical of New England WASP culture back then. It seems his father was involved with Hitler’s financiers in the later 1920s and 1930s.

Prescott Bush was co-founder and a director of at a New York bank, Union Banking Corp. (UBC), where German businessmen who supported the Nazis, stashed away millions. According to documents from the US National Archives made public in 2003, Bush was still a director at the bank, when its assets were frozen under the Trading With the Enemy Act in 1942.

It seems, the UBC was not so much a “bank” at all, but a “clearing house” for the many assets and enterprises, of German industrialist Fritz Thyssen, who later admitted to his role, in helping to finance the Third Reich.

The documents also reveal that Prescott Bush worked for, and was later a partner in, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH). By the late 1930s, both BBH, which claimed to be the world's largest private investment bank, and UBC, had bought and shipped millions of dollars of gold, fuel, steel, coal and US treasury bonds to Nazi Germany, feeding and financing Hitler’s military build-up.

Yep, the Bush family's got quite a history alright. One that serves as an embarrassment to conservatives everywhere, though you could argue Bush Sr. was by no means a real conservative, but rather, an interloper.

This is why I can't feel sorry Bush Sr's no longer here, as he may have hurt the USA just as much as Israel back in the early 90s. There's certainly a reason why he only served one term, and it's a shame Clinton had to be the one to succeed him, as he made things much worse.

Even today, Frank Miller's Holy Terror is still victim of censorship

Andrew Harrod at the American Spectator (via Middle East Forum) has given an alert that Miller's notable 2011 graphic novel, Holy Terror, originally planned as a Batman tale before DC under Paul Levitz rejected it, has been shunned at a Texas library because the Council of American Islamic Relations called for it:

The Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Dallas-Fort Worth chapter (CAIR-DFW) recently “applauded a decision by the Plano Library to resolve an issue related to anti-Muslim material in its catalog.” CAIR claims to have convinced this Texas library to remove the book Holy Terror by renowned graphic-novel author Frank Miller, a disturbing act of censorship and a flagrant violation of longstanding library standards.

This author asked the Plano Library Director Libby Holtmann about the book’s removal. She stated that the library “did not remove the subject item from its collection from a request by anyone including CAIRDFW,” but rather “was alerted by a comment sent through social media.” Examination of Holy Terror revealed “that it did not have any professional reviews,” which she claimed is a “necessary component for maintaining an item.” She also cited library records showing little reader interest in Holy Terror.

In fact, dozens of reviews of the comic book have been published, including by prominent newspapers and peer-reviewed journals. Plano library’s dubious response leaves several troubling questions. What was this social media comment that led to an immediate “evaluation” of Holy Terror? Why does Plano Library appear to be kowtowing to CAIR? Does the very controversy itself surrounding Holy Terror raised by groups such as CAIR not justify keeping a copy for the sake of healthy public debate?

CAIR’s opposition to Holy Terror, a story of comic superheroes battling Al Qaeda in New York City, goes back to when it first appeared in 2011. CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad had condemned Holy Terror as a “shameful” example of how “Islamophobia is becoming mainstream.” That same year, journalist Spencer Ackerman wrote that “Holy Terror is a screed against Islam.”

Accordingly, CAIR-DFW Executive Director John Janney asked the Plano library about “standards, policies or code of ethics that the publicly funded library followed when faced with publications that dehumanize or marginalize minorities.” This applied, he claimed, “especially when those publications are targeted at children” (which the adult graphic novel Holy Terror is in fact not). Although paying lip service to First-Amendment free speech guarantees, CAIR-DFW’s argued that “imposing hate literature on a captive audience of children is not appropriate” for a library’s mass holdings.

Well this does tell something besides the sad fact CAIR, which was founded by Hamas sympathisers, is still active: they have a backwards view of the comics medium itself, taking the antiquated vision that it's only for children.

CAIR-DFW also claimed that Miller had in 2018 “expressed regret for the book” — implying that Miller would support the censorship of Holy Terror. Yet he actually stated, in a Guardian interview, that he did not “want to go back and start erasing books I did.” Importantly, he described Holy Terror in a 2011 interview as a specific “screed against Al Qaeda,” not Islam. “The issue here is a method of killing. It’s not a religion,” he explained. “I can tell you squat about Islam,” but “I know a goddamn lot about Al Qaeda and I want them all to burn in Hell.”

Ironically, CAIR-DFW’s announcement appeared during the annual Banned Books Week of the American Library Association (ALA), the “oldest and largest library association in the world,” founded in 1876. During Banned Book Week, ALA promotes a “Stand for the Banned Read-Out” for people to “declare your literary freedoms by reading from a banned book or discussing censorship issues on camera.” Since the Week’s 1982 beginnings, “libraries and bookstores throughout the country have staged local read-outs, continuous readings of banned and challenged books.”

What the Plano library did was a slap in the face to anybody opposed to book censorship. But most curious is where the CBLDF stands in all this? Unsurprisingly, this hasn't been in the mainstream comics press from what I can tell, proving where they actually stood all these years, and if the CBLDF won't give Miller any backing in this case, then they've rendered their mission meaningless.

I think it's a shame Miller reverted back to leftism, if he supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 elections. Though this current case can demonstrate the unforgiving positions of social justice advocates - he dared do something the late Will Eisner also did with his last graphic novel, The Plot, and for this, the SJW leftists shunned Miller for all eternity by not coming to defense of his work.

Marc Lamont Hill Fired by CNN After Speech at United Nations Calling for a '"Free Palestine from the River to the Sea'

I'm glad he's out at CNN.

See, "How Many Times Can You Justify the Murder of Jews before CNN Fires You?"

*****

At FrontPage Magazine, "Marc Lamont Hill’s Years of Anti-Semitism Finally Catch Up to Him."

And here it is, Marc Lamont Hill calling for a "free Palestine from the river to the sea" (video via @bennyavni) pic.twitter.com/E7ugrByKyf

— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) November 28, 2018

The Marc Lamont Hill speech is such an easy test for my friends on the left but they’re gonna fail it and I will go on loving them just as much but drinking a bit more

— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) November 29, 2018

Using "Palestine from the river to the sea," is a fairly strong analogy to dropping a "1488" into your Twitter account in terms of what its import is intended to mean to its target audience. Any person who act differently reveals themselves to be an idiot or...worse.

— Jeff B. (@EsotericCD) November 29, 2018

On Tuesday @CNN aired a devastating report on antisemitism in Europe. Today CNN's @marclamonthill echoed Jihadist calls for Israel's violent annihilation, calling for "resist[ance]" to achieve "a free Palestine from the river to the sea." Not a great look. pic.twitter.com/r26Q1BU0lR

— Avi Mayer (@AviMayer) November 29, 2018

I'm shocked, shocked to find you burying your company's scandal again.

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) November 29, 2018

"Free Palestine from the river to the sea"

I get that it's hard to spin your call for genocide but this is just a sorry effort https://t.co/ey38YYPS5S

— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) November 29, 2018

And there it is: Marc Lamont Hill appears out at CNN https://t.co/Dh2vrvk7qo

— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) November 29, 2018

Lamont Hill called for the elimination of the State of Israel from the map. Previously he expressed his admiration for antisemite Louis Farrakhan. MLH is a racist, a bigot, an antisemite. The fact that he is all this while in the payroll of @CNN and @TempleUniv is appalling

— Dani Dayan (@AmbDaniDayan) November 29, 2018

You said Palestine should be "from the river to the sea," not that Israel should return to the 1967 borders alongside a Palestine. You didn't call for an Israel and a Palestine. You said Israel should be replaced by Palestine. It is on video. This is what we call "gaslighting." https://t.co/TQJH5J99cH

— (((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) November 29, 2018

"River to the sea" isn't the point, @MarcLamontHill. It's a free country; you can call for anything you wish.
But have the integrity to stand by your words. You have repeatedly justified murderous #Palestinian violence against #Israel. Don't pretend now to be a champion of peace. https://t.co/455TVpzAO0

— Jeff Jacoby (@Jeff_Jacoby) November 30, 2018

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.