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September 2015

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Netanyahu’s American lobby has been discredited and smashed. Rabbi Shmuley Boteach compares its stand against the Iran deal to Masada, a mass suicide. Victorious Democrats must now begin a debate over Palestinians’ rights.

Hatim Kanaaneh writes: Today we woke up to a sandstorm blanketing the entire country. In Arrabeh it is so thick streetlights are on at noon. It is obvious that somebody up there is upset with someone down here. So, who is doing this to whom? I’ll leave figuring out the angry party to others and invest some thought in figuring out who angered Him or Her. Since this all is happening in Israel and Palestine, let me try and guess who is to blame.

Israeli A4 fighter jet with solo Star of David.

Once Israel used the Star of David symbol on the Israeli Air Force’s coat of arms and in the “kanfey tayis” (aviation wings), the coveted pin worn by IDF pilots, it lost the ability to claim that critics of Israel who use the traditional symbol of Judaism are anti-Semitic.

Haaretz correspondent Or Kashti describes the takeover by religious figures of Israel’s Ministry of Education, to form religious Jewish identity in Israeli schools. “We’re talking about 20 years of deliberate systematic and very formal outsourcing of the issues of Jewish identity to a whole range of all Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox NGOs with no kind of supervision.”

People are openly counting Jewish vote in Congress on Iran Deal. So far 15 in favor, 9 against, 4 to announce. We grant Jews greater influence because of the Jewish connection to Israel and the Jewish organizations pressuring them, saying it’s anti-Semitic to support the deal.

Following the Israeli High Court decision that African asylum-seekers must be released from the Holot desert detention center, the mayor of the southern Israeli town of Arad ordered local law enforcement to prevent any Africans from entering the city. Dan Cohen, Rebecca Pierce and David Sheen travelled to Arad to interview local residents and ask them what they thought of their mayor’s announcement.

Thousands poured into the West Bank hamlet of Duma for a third funeral over the past five weeks, this time mourning Riham Dawabshe who died Sunday on her 27th birthday from injuries sustained during a settler arson attack on her home on July 31st. Riham’s youngest son, 18-month year old Ali Dawabshe was killed in the blasts that destroyed two apartments. Her husband Sa’ad Dawabshe, 32, died last month on the couple’s anniversary, also from wounds inflicted during the firebombing. Although the arsonists left a graffiti tag in Hebrew indicating the killings were a nationalist crime, to date Israel has not charged anyone with the murders.