Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — The debate on Thursday evening between U.S. President Joe Biden and predecessor Donald Trump is a gift that keeps on giving. Every syllable spoken by the two presumptive nominees continues to be the focus of both serious and comedic discourse. Only a handful of desperate straw-graspers are rejecting the consensus opinion that the incumbent’s performance revealed an unacceptable level of age-related brain fog. Even those of his ardent supporters in the media who’ve been telling us not to believe our lying eyes realized that the jig w...
(JNS) — U.S. President Joe Biden’s bait-and-switch speech last Friday evening, timed to prevent religiously observant Israelis from watching and Jerusalem officialdom from issuing a proper response, was as worrisome as it was oxymoronic. Though talking out of both sides of his mouth is typical of the confused incumbent who’s seeking re-election in November, his Shabbat performance was a doozy. Taking credit for his and his team’s “intensive diplomacy” to end the war in Gaza, he announced that Israel had “offered a comprehensive new proposal:...
(JNS) — U.S. President Joe Biden began his Earth Day speech at Prince William Forest Park in Virginia on Monday by singling out a few prominent climate-change figures in attendance. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who introduced him, was one of them. “You know, I learned a long time ago: Listen to that lady; listen to that lady,” he said. “We’re going to talk more about another part of the world, too, real quickly.” It doesn’t take a genius to guess what region he had in mind. AOC—as the member of his party’s radical...
(JNS) — Marking on Sunday six months since the Oct. 7 massacre, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened his weekly Cabinet meeting by listing what he called the “considerable achievements” of the war in Gaza. “We have eliminated 19 of Hamas’s 24 battalions, including senior commanders,” he said. “We have killed, wounded or captured a large number of Hamas terrorists. We have cleared out Shifa [Hospital in Gaza City] and other terrorist command centers.” He went on, “We have destroyed rocket factories, command centers and weapons caches. A...
(JNS) — In a social-media post on Friday night, Israel Defense Forces Maj. Gen. (res.) Tal Russo urged fellow anti-government activists to skip the demonstrations scheduled for the following evening. “In light of the difficult events throughout the country, security and police forces are on high alert and deployed in central locations from the Gaza Strip to the northern border,” he tweeted. “I therefore call on my comrades-in-protest against the coup to cancel tomorrow’s countrywide rallies. The situation demands it!” Russo, who served in v...
(JNS) — In a social media post on Sunday, Prime Minister-designate Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu blasted the Gray Lady for its gall. “After burying the Holocaust for years on its back pages and demonizing Israel for decades on its front pages, The New York Times now shamefully calls for undermining Israel’s elected incoming government,” he tweeted, in response to a weekend editorial titled: “The Ideal of Democracy in a Jewish State Is in Jeopardy.” He was right to fight back, as the piece not only asserted that his coalition-in-fo...
(JNS) — Let’s set aside speculation as to why President Joe Biden has yet to congratulate Israel’s former and soon-to-be prime minister, Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, on his victory in the Nov. 1 Knesset elections. One could argue that U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides’s call on Thursday—to wish Netanyahu well and say that he’s “looking forward to working together to maintain the unbreakable bond”—was a sufficient temporary stand-in for the real thing. It’s worth remembering that Biden’s got his own political hurdles to cross at the moment. P...
(JNS) — Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli, the head of Israel’s falsely dubbed “center left” Labor Party, doesn’t even bother these days to temper the radicalism that makes her indistinguishable from Meretz leader Zahava Gal-On. This isn’t the sole reason that the outspoken feminist — who has boasted of carrying on the legacy of the late (assassinated) prime minister Yitzhak Rabin — is polling so poorly in the run-up to the Nov. 1 Knesset elections. Her drawing of such a comparison would be merely comical if it didn’t serve a purpose b...
(JNS) — The latest brouhaha surrounding former U.S. President Donald Trump pertains to comments he posted on Sunday about—and directed to—American Jews. “No president has done more for Israel than I have,” he wrote on his platform, Truth Social. “Somewhat surprisingly, however, our wonderful Evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the U.S.” All true, other than the “surprisingly” part. The majority of Jews in the United States wouldn’t support a Republican if their...
(JNS) — In an interview last week at the White House with Israeli Channel 12’s Yonit Levi, U.S. President Joe Biden reiterated his administration’s desire to return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran from which his predecessor, Donald Trump, withdrew in 2018. “The only thing worse than the Iran that exists now is an Iran with nuclear weapons,” he said during the one-on-one chat that was taped on the eve of his trip to the Middle East and broadcast in Israel after his arrival in the country. “And if w...
(JNS) — Despite managing to raise $160 million in New York on Thursday, at a pledging conference of the Ad Hoc Committee of the U.N. General Assembly, the head of the United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees was not pleased. Trying to sound grateful for the ill-deserved windfall, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini simultaneously boasted about the international community’s “firm commitment” to the organization and bemoaned that the funds pledged were far from sufficient to keep the place running past the end of the...
(JNS) — The moment that some Israelis have been dreading and others happily anticipating finally arrived on Monday. Though the announcement by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid of a call for the disbanding of the Knesset was virtually a foregone conclusion, it came as a bit of a surprise. Earlier in the day, it was reported that Bennett had bought his teetering coalition an additional week. This was attributed to the fact that Likud Party and opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu was postponing a no-confidence m...
(JNS) — The May 24 slaughter of 19 children and two adults at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, provided fresh ammunition for the rhetorical and ideological battle over gun control. Combatants in this ongoing war tend to be diehards on the left and right. The former hold firearms and those who champion the constitutional right to bear them responsible for such horrific acts of violence. The latter hail the Second Amendment and support the National Rifle Association, which backs the right of law-abiding citizens to defend t...
(JNS) — According to an old Israeli quip, the way to remove 500 Canadians from a swimming pool at closing time is to whisper, “Everybody out of the water, please.” The implication is both clear and amusing to each group. Israelis are famous for and proud of being disobedient and unruly; Canadians are considered and view themselves as well-mannered and orderly. But the joke, apparently, is on all concerned, now that the latter’s truckers have entered the picture. These guys aren’t exiting the proverbial premises with a subservient bow. On the co...
(JNS) — Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz must have known that hosting Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas at his home in Rosh Ha’ayin would arouse the ire of the right. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have cloaked the outcome of his tête-à-tête last Tuesday night with the octogenarian honcho in Ramallah in typically euphemistic language. Following the meeting, Gantz tweeted that he and Abbas had “discussed the implementation of economic and civilian measures, and emphasized the importance of deepening security coordination and preventing...
(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s announcement on Sunday evening of additional steps to confront the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus illustrates how easily government policies can be inherently contradictory. Even when giving the benefit of the doubt to hysterical health authorities — and refraining from the natural inclination to suspect ulterior motives for fanning the flames of a crisis — it’s hard not to be disdainful of the double-speak surrounding anything coronavirus-related. This isn’t exclusive to Israeli dec...
(JNS) — Renewed negotiations over a return to or revision of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers from which former President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018 — kicked off in Vienna on Monday with feigned fanfare. The Islamic Republic has made it clear that no agreement can be discussed, let alone reached, unless all sanctions hindering the regime’s operations are removed. It has also been engaging in double-speak, bragging about its strides in uranium-enrichment, on the one hand, while i...
(JNS) — When Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced on Friday that he is listing six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist groups, all hell broke loose on the left. The outcry, which emanated not only from Washington and Brussels, but from the halls of the Knesset in Jerusalem and Muqata in Ramallah, could have been anticipated. There’s no sacred cow as holy as a self-described “humanitarian organization,” especially when it’s associated with and financed by equally untouchable foundations. Thus, though the impetus behind Gantz’s move was perfe...
(JNS) — Comedian Dave Chappelle’s latest Netflix special, “The Closer,” is making the rounds but not for its hilarity. No, its high ratings can be attributed to the venom that it has elicited from the mainstream press and social media. Nothing piques curiosity more than public outrage, after all. There’s no doubt, then, that a huge portion of viewers tuned in just to see what all the fuss was about. As a longtime fan of the irreverent performer, I would have watched the show anyway. But many of my peers hadn’t paid the slightest attention to Ch...
(JNS) — The diplomatic crisis unfolding between Jerusalem and Warsaw is unfortunate. Eastern European countries have been staunch supporters of the United States and Israel in a way that their counterparts in the Western continent have long ceased to be. As a result, conservative columnist Amnon Lord is among those stressing that Israel needs to be smart, not just right, when it comes to its relations with Poland. Despite its nationalism, he recently wrote, Poland “is a type of ally. … The cooperation with it in terms of military aviat...
(JNS) — The United States transferred $135 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees on Saturday. This was in addition to the nearly $33 million that it gave to the organization in May to help the Gaza Strip, ravaged by Hamas rockets and Israel’s response to them during “Operation Guardian of the Walls.” The latest cash bonanza also came three months after Washington provided an initial gift of $150 million to “restore” the aid that was cut in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump. It’s not necessary to...
(JNS) — The latest scandal surrounding the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is noteworthy. This isn’t because of the ire that it’s been arousing, however; righteous indignation is literally and figuratively all the rage during these days of “woke.” No, the element that sets this brouhaha apart from its predecessors is the absence of mass murder. Yes, when the ink dries on the current pages of the Paris-based periodical and the Twittersphere moves on to the next hashtag, there won’t be any corpses to count. The current storm involves a...
(JNS) — Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla was scheduled to arrive in Israel on Monday to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials. One ostensible purpose of the visit — slated to coincide with the completion of the delivery of 10 million doses of BioNTech — was to examine the possibility of Pfizer building a vaccine-production plant and R&D center in Israel. On Thursday, however, Pfizer announced that it was postponing the trip. According to the pharmaceutical giant, Bourla and the members of his team who were part of his entou...
(JNS) — Reading a biography about a friend is a mixed experience. On the one hand, the protagonist is familiar. On the other, he’s a complete stranger, whose story unfolds like that of a fictional character being introduced in a novel. This is the sense of duality that I had while curled up with “Lone Voice: The Wars of Isi Leibler,” a tome by renowned Australian-Jewish historian Suzanne D. Rutland. Before meeting Leibler in person 20 years ago, I knew about the human-rights activist from Australia and his long-standing fight on behalf of Sovi...
(JNS) — In an open letter posted last week to his website, young-adult novelist Barry Lyga called for like-minded colleagues in the industry to join him in blocking the publication of bodies of work written by anyone associated with the outgoing administration in Washington. Titled “No Book Deal for Traitors,” the letter begins, “We all love book publishing, but we have to be honest—our country is where it is in part because publishing has chased the money and notoriety of some pretty sketchy people, and has granted those same people both the...
