Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — Among many journalists who seem to know little about Jewish history or international law, New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Patrick Kingsley and unrelenting critic of Israel Thomas L. Friedman (among others) share a common misnomer. They repeatedly refer to Israel’s “occupied territory,” located in what became known as Jordan’s “West Bank” after Israel’s war of independence in 1948. Two decades later, following its stunning victory in the Six-Day War, Israel regained the biblical homeland of the Jewish people in Judea and Samar...
(JNS) — It is appalling that Israel’s recent airstrike, accidentally killing seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen in Gaza who were bringing food to its besieged residents, has aroused as much international fury, if not more, as Hamas’s slaughter of 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7 in the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust. President Joe Biden has become the fickle leader of this anti-Israel assault. As the November election looms and his re-election prospect shows signs of fading, he is clinging desperately to the hope that he ca...
(JNS) — The repeatedly proposed remedy for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a “two-state solution,” with Arabs and Jews living side by side, happily ever after. But these magical words, as enticing as they may seem, are little more than fantasy. Its recent proponents, predictably in The New York Times (Dec. 21), are R. David Harden, a senior adviser to former President Barack Obama’s special envoy for Middle East peace, and Larry Garber, a former U.S. Agency for International Government mission director to the West Bank and Gaza Strip....
(JNS) — Once again (Sept. 5), New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has offered his wisdom for a solution to the decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. He claims that “far-right Jewish supremacists,” also known as the “right-wing zealots” who lead the Netanyahu government, pose “an internal Israeli Jewish threat” that obstructs the two-state (Israel and Palestine) solution that Friedman has long craved. Israel’s government, he insists, is not normal. Friedman’s discomfort with Israel is hardly new. It dates back to his...
(JNS) — New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman is distraught. Nothing could be worse, he appears to think, than Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent reelection as Israel’s prime minister. Netanyahu’s new governing coalition, Friedman warns, will comprise “a rowdy alliance of ultra-Orthodox leaders and ultranationalist politicians, including some outright racist, anti-Arab Jewish extremists.” This “previously unthinkable reality,” Friedman asserts, raises “a fundamental question” that will “roil synagogues in America and across the globe.” The congrega...
(JNS) — Anyone wishing to understand the historic, religious and political significance of Jewish settlements in biblical Judea and Samaria (commonly misidentified as the “West Bank” under Jordanian control until the Six-Day War in 1967) should read Daniel Kane’s Mosaic article on Aug. 1 called “The Changing Faces of Israel’s Settlement Movement.” Although settlers are often depicted in the media (see The New York Times) as fanatics who have stolen Palestinian land, that reveals bias, not reality. The core of Kane’s analysis is the transformat...
(JNS) — The title immediately engaged my interest. “To Whom Was the Promised Land Promised?” by Abraham A. Sion focuses on the legal right of Jews under international law to the territory of “Palestine” and the British betrayal that thwarted it for three decades. The story began with the Balfour Declaration (1917). It called for the establishment of “a national home for the Jewish people” in “Palestine,” geographically defined by the League of Nations after World War I as the land east and west of the Jordan River. The postwar Mandate f...
(JNS)—A frightening coincidence is upon us. As we are about to recite the plagues that preceded our ancestors’ freedom from Egyptian slavery, we endure the terrible plague that now enslaves us in anxiety and fear, tragically claiming tens of thousands of lives and decimating communities worldwide. It has imposed solitude even upon the most gregarious among us, forcing us to substitute electronic satisfaction for hugs and handshakes.To be sure, the Internet provides ample opportunities for connection, as I have learned from family members and... Full story
