Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — The United States and Europe stayed away from a United Nations General Assembly tribute to the late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. The so-called “Butcher of Tehran,” said to be responsible for the killings of thousands of Iranian dissidents, died on May 20 in a helicopter crash that also killed the country’s foreign minister and six others. “The United States will not attend today’s United Nations tribute event for President Raisi in any capacity,” Nate Evans, spokesperson for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said in a sta...
(JNS) — In part due to the unleashing of Jew-hatred in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, antisemitism in the United States spiked by a record 140%, according to figures released by the Anti-Defamation League on Tuesday. Nearly 9,000 incidents of assault, harassment and vandalism—including more than 5,000 in the post-Oct. 7 period—were reported across America last year. The figure not only blew away the totals from 2022—itself a record year—but outpaced the marks from the previous three years combined. The ADL began tracking relevant da...
(JNS) — The U.N. Security Council’s committee on new members reported on Tuesday that it could not reach a consensus on the revived application for full Palestinian U.N. membership. Algeria, the Arab world’s de facto representative on the council, has drafted its own resolution and plans to put the application up for a decisive vote on Thursday afternoon. Washington has suggested that it would veto such an application. The Committee on the Admission of New Members, which includes representatives of all the members of the Security Counc...
(JNS) — Forty-eight countries condemned Iran and its proxies for the Apr. 14 missile and drone attack on Israel in a joint statement issued on Wednesday evening. “We unequivocally condemn” the attacks, read the statement, specifically naming Iran and its “militant partners” and noting that “this large-scale attack could have caused significant damage and loss of life.” While garnering broad support, the statement was only signed by Western nations. The effort was led by the United States and included five other members of the U.N. Security...
(JNS) — The Biden administration is privately pressing several United Nations agencies to take over the responsibilities of the beleaguered UNRWA but is being rebuffed by U.N. chief António Guterres, according to a report by Devex. Anticipating that the U.S. Congress will pull funding for UNRWA, the Palestinian-only refugee and social services agency with extensive ties to Hamas, Washington has approached the heads of the World Food Programme, UNICEF and other U.N. relief agencies, requesting they begin assuming the work traditionally ca...
(JNS) — While a senior U.N. aid official said on Tuesday that a quarter of the Gazan population is one step away from famine, Israel and the United States laid blame at the feet of the United Nations and Hamas, respectively. The U.N. Security Council met on Tuesday afternoon to discuss food insecurity in Gaza. Much of the enclave’s agricultural and food production infrastructure has been severely impacted by the war between Israel and Hamas. But Robert Wood, the U.S. deputy ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters that ultimately, Ham...
(JNS) — For the United Nations’ point man on the Middle East, all options are on the table when it comes to the future of Israel and the Palestinians. “I am very sure of one thing: The divide and the distrust that has come out of this conflict has made it necessary to look at the options that we thought were dead,” Tor Wennesland, the U.N. special coordinator on the Middle East peace process, told reporters in a rare press briefing on Wednesday. The Norwegian longtime diplomat said that the “one-state reality” that many critics of Israel deem...
(JNS) — Despite the presence of a Hamas terror tunnel system in the Gaza Strip now thought to be larger in scale than the London Underground, the United Nations insists it had no idea the tunnels were being built. Asked on Wednesday whether, given the United Nations’ sizable presence in Gaza via a variety of agencies, there had been any indication to the global body that tunnels were being constructed underground, a spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said, “No is clearl...
(JNS) — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was set to meet on Tuesday with major donors to the embattled U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, the United Nations’ Palestinian-only refugee organization. A number of major donor countries announced in recent days the suspension of their contributions to the agency amid revelations that 12 UNRWA employees participated in Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre. The information was provided to UNRWA by Israel. Nine of the 12 employees had their contracts terminated, while anoth...
(JNS) — Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan ripped the U.N. General Assembly during a Tuesday morning meeting, while holding up a cake with the face of Kfir Bibas, who will turn one year old in the coming days. Bibas, along with his family, was taken hostage by Hamas during their massacre on Oct. 7. “A quarter of Kfir’s life has been spent as a hostage. He was kidnapped before he could even learn to say ‘mama’” said Erdan. “Is he getting the food and vitamins he needs to grow and develop? Is he crawling? How can a baby be a...
By (JNS) — An investigative report published earlier this month purports to show that senior Israeli and American officials had in hand financial intelligence showing the flow of tens of millions of dollars to Hamas and failed to act on it. That funding, the report alleges, helped Hamas pay for its military infrastructure, laying the foundation for its Oct. 7 massacre. As Israel now looks to take apart Hamas piece by piece militarily, there is a renewed focus on disrupting its funding. Erel Margalit, Israeli hi-tech entrepreneur and former m...
(JNS) — Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) sits on the House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Armed Services Committees, giving him a 360-degree perspective on both the context surrounding Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre in Israel and its aftermath. “At the end of the day, this administration has an Iran policy problem,” Waltz said of the White House’s reported efforts to appease Iran in exchange for restarting the 2015 nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action from which the Trump administration withdrew in 2015. “It has been obsessed wi...
(JNS) — The United Nations Security Council was scheduled to hold an emergency session on Wednesday morning following an explosion at a Gaza hospital that has set the Middle East on edge. Russia and the United Arab Emirates called for the open meeting shortly after the explosion, in the courtyard of Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, which according to Hamas sources killed some 500 Palestinians. The explosion rocked the hospital as Palestinian terrorists in Gaza fired heavy barrages of rockets at southern and central Israel. Alarms sounded i...
(JNS) — In January, Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, said during an International Holocaust Remembrance Day event that the international body was “founded upon the ashes of the Holocaust. It was established to ensure such darkness would never be felt by humanity again,” but “when it comes to fighting antisemitism, sadly, the U.N. ignores its purpose.” António Guterres, the United Nations secretary-general, was present at the time, and the U.N. point man on antisemitism, Miguel Moratinos, later told JNS that “Israel and...
(JNS) - It was partly a celebration of life and partly an outpouring of anger. Several hundred Israel supporters-religious and secular, Israeli and American born-joined together in tight, barricaded quarters at the corner of Second Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan on Monday afternoon, countering an ugly pro-Hamas rally across the intersection outside the Israeli consulate. A rally supporting the terror group's massacre of Israelis and foreign nationals turned violent in Times Square on...
(JNS) - "The era of reasoning with these savages is over," Israel's ambassador to the United Nations told an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting on Sunday, referring to the Hamas terrorist organization. Following the weekend's unprecedented terrorist assault on Israel by the Gaza-based Iranian proxy group, envoy Gilad Erdan said the time has come to "obliterate Hamas terror infrastructure, to completely erase it, so that such horrors are never committed again." He continued: "These...
(JNS) — Nearly every notable U.S. State Department official is on pilgrimage to New York this week for the United Nations General Assembly’s annual general debate. Barbara Leaf, the Biden administration’s top diplomat for the Middle East, and Dan Shapiro, senior adviser for regional integration and former U.S. ambassador to Israel, have been spotted in the Big Apple, as has Amos Hochstein, the Israeli-American U.S. energy envoy, who brokered an Israeli-Lebanese maritime border agreement. Deborah Lipstadt, U.S. special envoy for monit...
(JNS) —America’s ambassador to the United Nations emphasized at Monday’s U.N. Security Council meeting last week, the Biden administration designated a Hezbollah-linked group—one that purports to be an environmental organization—a terror group. Linda Thomas-Greenfield also stamped the “terror” label on two Israelis who have been charged, but not yet tried, in a deadly incident earlier this month. “We strongly condemn the terror attacks by settlers in Burqa on August 4 that killed a 19-year-old Palestinian,” said the ambassador, notin...
(JNS) - A deli chef prepares roast pork sandwiches as a museum official quotes from the Mishnah in Pirkei Avot, often translated as "Ethics of the Fathers." Saturday's Borscht Belt Fest was decidedly not kosher, but there was a clear Jewish vibe to it as attendees flocked to Ellenville, N.Y., to reminisce about the golden age of the Catskill Mountains as a Jewish summer getaway. The first-ever festival, held on July 29 in the searing summer heat, included a street fair, comedy shows, lectures,...
(JNS) — The Israeli ambassador to the United Nations implored its Security Council to help clamp down on Hezbollah’s repeated provocations along the Israeli-Lebanese border. “The Middle East is a powder keg on the cusp of being ignited” due to “Hezbollah’s violent escalations, blatant violations of Security Council resolutions and dangerous military advancements,” Gilad Erdan wrote late last week to the U.N. council. The Iran-backed, Lebanese terror group Hezbollah controls Southern Lebanon. Security Council resolutions and pronouncement...
(JNS) - Just as Israel's president was settling in following a busy day in Washington, a gift came his way from the Capitol, courtesy of the Jewish state's opponents. Less than 24 hours before he was to address a joint session of Congress, the House passed a Republican-sponsored resolution stating that Israel is not a racist or apartheid state. The resolution's filing was inspired by a flippant insult hurled at Israel by the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who, under heavy...
(JNS) - Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, took to the stage on Monday evening at the annual Christians United for Israel Summit in Washington. The former governor of South Carolina played to an adoring, pro-Israel crowd as a darling of its movement. Haley, who trails well behind former President Donald Trump in polls very early in the presidential primary cycle, spoke with reporters before assuming the stage. She seemed prepped for a foreign-policy debate, covering an ar...
(JNS) — Ahead of a one-on-one meeting on July 19 at the White House, Israeli President Isaac Herzog and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled a new climate technology partnership, which will draw up to $70 million of U.S. and Israeli investment to support climate-healthy agriculture and use new technologies to protect critical Middle East and Africa water resources. “We are harnessing today the broad infrastructure of our cooperation to introduce a new joint initiative to address a primary challenge of our time,” said Herzog. He said...
(JNS) — JNS reported last April that Morningstar and its subsidiary Sustainalytics had flagged 26 companies for doing business beyond the so-called Green Line in Israel. Its “controversy ratings” could dissuade socially-conscious investors from placing funds in those companies. Under pressure from a growing list of state-level investigations for potential anti-Israel BDS practices, Morningstar and Sustainalytics, an environmental, social and corporate governance rater, have trimmed the list down substantially. Multiple sources told JNS that...
(JNS) — Sometimes, kids just need a hug. That’s especially true of children who have endured the horrors of war. In 2006, Israeli psychologists invented a plush dog called Hibuki—Hebrew for “hug”—to help kids cope with trauma from the Second Lebanon War. The stuffed toy, with its elongated arms and sad eyes, has expanded globally. Last year, it was introduced in Ukraine, and now Hibuki is comforting many Ukrainian refugee children who have made their way to New York, at a Brooklyn school that...
