Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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A Palestinian terrorist who murdered two Hebrew University of Jerusalem students has found a new ally, the far-left Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) group. How mainstream Jewish liberal groups respond will be telling. The killer, Rasmea Odeh, is locked in a battle, initiated by the Obama administration, to deport her for lying about her terrorist past. It all began in February 1969, when the 20-year-old Odeh, together with a fellow member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), set off a bomb in a Jerusalem supermarket. Two... Full story
To hear the news media tell it, Israel’s Knesset has approved extreme right-wing legislation that will steal Palestinian land by legalizing illegal outposts and thereby demolish the last hopes for Middle East peace. The truth, of course, is very different. The Israeli government has not authorized the establishment of a new Jewish community in Judea and Samaria since 1992. That was the policy decreed by then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and followed by his successors, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But the 1993 Oslo Accords d... Full story
Like schoolchildren everywhere, Palestinian Arab children occasionally are assigned by their teachers to write poems. But the poetry they produce is not like that of children in the U.S. or elsewhere in the free world. Palestinian Media Watch reports that twice in the past month, a children’s program on official Palestinian Authority Television (PA TV) featured children reciting their poems. Among the most common terms they used: “blood,” “slaughter” and “revolution.” The PA TV program is called “The Best Home,” and the children who were... Full story
Someday, perhaps, a team of sociologists and psychologists will examine the curious question of why Jewish ex-State Department officials are obsessed with Israel. Until that day comes, though, the rest of us will be stuck having to listen to those officials’ relentless harassment of Israel and promotion of the Palestinian cause. With the issue of moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on the front burner, The New York Times trotted out two former State Department hands, both Jewish, to pour cold water on the embassy r... Full story
By Stephen M. Flatow Remember John Howard Griffin's 1961 book "Black Like Me," about a white journalist who posed as an African-American in order to experience what life was like for blacks in the South? An American journalist recently undertook a Palestinian version of that experiment. Hearing complaints about Israeli checkpoints that supposedly restrict the movement of Arabs in Judea and Samaria, filmmaker Ami Horowitz of Fox News decided to see for himself. He hired a Palestinian driver and,... Full story
In his recent speech about Israel and the Palestinians, Secretary of State John Kerry unfairly blamed Israel and minimized Palestinian violence. But he also did something else: he grievously dishonored the African-American civil rights movement, just weeks before Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In his Dec. 28 address at the State Department, Kerry recited a litany of accusations against Israel. The unkindest cut of all was his charge that Israeli policies are creating “segregated enclaves” for Palestinians and a “separate but unequal” system for Is... Full story
Like many others, I sat at my computer with baited breath Wednesday waiting for Secretary of State John Kerry to explain the background to the U.S. abstention on the United Nations Security Council vote. And explain he did. But there were so many things wrong with what I will call Kerry’s farewell anti-Israel speech: • Spending 45 minutes on settlements, and 45 seconds on terrorism. • Claiming the Palestinians “live under Israeli military occupation” when 98 percent of them live under the Palestinian Authority (PA). • Condemning Israeli con... Full story
John Kerry and J Street are worried. They see their cherished dream of a Palestinian state slipping away. Kerry’s criticism of Israel at the Saban Forum Dec. 4 attracted a lot of attention. But the transcript of the U.S. secretary of state’s remarks reveals an important moment that the media overlooked. Just as he was about to denounce Israel’s policies, Kerry suddenly turned to the audience and said: “By the way, just let me ask a question. Raise your hands. I mean, I know some of you may not want to acknowledge, but how many of you believe... Full story
Important government action was taken to protect the environment in the Middle East this week. But don’t expect the government in question to get any credit—because it was the Israeli government that took the action, and the Palestinian Arabs who were the polluters. And the Palestinians, as we all know, are immune from international criticism. The Israeli authorities repeatedly alerted the Palestinian Authority (PA), over the course of several years, about a charcoal factory in the PA-ruled city of Ya’bad that was causing serious air pollu... Full story
Professors at a number of American universities have found a new cause: demanding the release of a terrorist who murdered two college students. This disturbing story begins on Feb. 21, 1969. That was the day a powerful bomb exploded in a Jerusalem supermarket. Two Hebrew University students (and roommates), Edward Jaffe and Leon Kanner, were killed. “They had been buying canned food for a botanical field trip when they were blown to bits,” the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported. “Many housewives brought bouquets of flowers to the employees of [... Full story
Archaeologists have uncovered yet more evidence of the ancient Jewish connection to Jerusalem—the very same week that UNESCO and the Palestinian Authority (PA) were declaring that Jews have no ties to Jerusalem. Talk about irony. The latest discovery of a site where the Roman army assaulted Jewish forces guarding the outer walls of Jerusalem, during the Second Temple period, explodes the lies of the U.N. and the PA. Consider this. The Romans were attacking Jewish forces. No evidence was found of any Palestinian forces in the area. The assault t... Full story
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas suffered chest pains last week and was rushed to a hospital in Ramallah. The episode was an important reminder of the dangers and risks Israel will face if it heeds demands for the quick creation of a Palestinian state. In recent weeks, the S. Daniel Abraham Center has been sponsoring full-page ads in The New York Times calling for a Palestinian state. The Obama administration this week issued an overheated condemnation of Israel for approving the construction of a handful of houses for Jews, because that constr... Full story
While walking through my Jerusalem hotel dining room thinking about the news from the states that a U.S. court has tossed out a $655 million terrorism judgment, a young woman came up and gave me a big “Hi!” Seeing that I was not connecting her face and name, she spared me that now all too frequent embarrassment and quickly said, “Sarah.” She was one of the first girls that my late daughter Alisa met when we moved to West Orange, New Jersey in 1978. She and Alisa attended nursery school and then started yeshiva together, and it was this now 41-y... Full story
It’s one of the most disturbing photos from Israel that I’ve seen in years. I’m referring to last week’s image of the hundreds of Palestinian terrorist weapons captured in Israeli raids. It was enough to send shivers down one’s spine. And it revealed more about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than all the panel discussions, research papers, and expert analyses with which we are always being bombarded. Friends of Israel often complain about what they say is the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s inadequate effort to make Israel’s case to the internati... Full story
It’s not the end of the world just because an Egyptian athlete refused to shake hands with his Israeli counterpart at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro last week. After all, the Egyptian is the one who violated judo etiquette. He’s the one whom the fans booed. I won’t lose any sleep over his petty insult, and I doubt many Israelis will either. But the incident, as small as it was, does offer some food for thought about much bigger issues, such as the prospects for peace between Israel and her Arab neighbors. The Judo Snubber, Mr. Islam El Sheha... Full story
If a bomb was thrown at a prominent synagogue in Brooklyn, the media would treat it as front-page news and politicians would rush to condemn the assault. But watch what happens when Palestinians throw a bomb at a prominent Jewish holy site and synagogue in Israel: editors bury the story, and politicians are focusing their attention elsewhere. On Aug. 7, a Palestinian terrorist hurled a bomb at the Tomb of Rachel, near Bethlehem. The building contains a synagogue, a study area and, of course, the burial site of one of the Jewish biblical matriar... Full story
Israel’s parliament this week took action in response to an Arab Knesset member’s public support of a terrorist who murdered an American-Jewish peace activist. But if you read the account by New York Times correspondent Isabel Kershner, you wouldn’t know anything about the terrorist or his victim—all you would learn is that Israel’s rulers are suppressing dissent and might be infected by “budding fascism.” It’s as if Kershner and her editors are living in some kind of alternative universe, in which Israel is always guilty, Arab extremists are... Full story
In a remarkable turnaround, Democratic Party activists who are known to be pro-Palestinian are calling on their party’s platform committee to condemn the Palestinian Authority (PA). Or am I misreading something? Two pro-Palestinian members of Congress, Reps. Keith Ellison of Minnesota and Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, issued their call last week on the blog of J Street. It happens that Ellison and Gutierrez are members of that same platform committee, so it may seem strange that they are taking a public position before the committee has finished... Full story
Suhair Halabi is very proud of her son, Muhannad. Mrs. Halabi is so proud, in fact, that she recently displayed her pride by visiting the site where Muhannad became famous. We know about her visit because she posted, on Facebook, a photo of herself at the site, flashing “V” for “Victory” signs with both hands. But Muhannad’s “accomplishment” was not a 4.0 grade point average in school or a game-winning goal in a soccer field. It was the cold-blooded murder of an Israeli rabbi on the streets of Jerusalem, the slashing of the rabbi’s wife... Full story
The June 8 terrorist massacre in Tel Aviv exposed all five of the major myths that cloud discussions of Israel and the Palestinians. Myth #1: “The problem is the settlements” This was not a massacre of “settlers.” The attack did not take place in some disputed territory. Nobody can claim that the victims “provoked” the violence by living in some predominantly Arab area. These were people drinking coffee in the heart of Tel Aviv. Myth #2: “It was a reaction to the occupation” The attackers are residents of the village of Yatta. The Israeli occ... Full story
Palestinian terrorist attacks that result in only a few casualties vanish quickly from the headlines. The victims are hospitalized, the politicians issue condemnations, the Palestinian Authority praises the attacker, and then the episode is quickly forgotten. It’s rare that anybody is still paying attention weeks later, when the attacker appears in court. That’s a shame, because sometimes what comes out during the legal process can be very revealing. Consider the attack on May 2, when a Palestinian terrorist named Muhannad Muhtaseb stabbed an... Full story
Have you ever bought a slice of pizza in the Ramot neighborhood of Jerusalem? Have you visited friends at the Hebrew University dormitories in the city’s French Hill section? Or taken the Jerusalem light rail train to the Neve Yaakov stop? Guess what—you just might be a Zionist war criminal! Ramot, French Hill, and Neve Yaakov are decades-old Jewish neighborhoods that are physically indistinguishable from other sections of Israel’s capital city. Ramot (population: 70,000), French Hill (23,000), and Neve Yaakov (40,000) technically are situa... Full story
Israelis of a certain age have a saying that translates from Hebrew as, “We’ve already seen that movie.” It’s the approximate equivalent of, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” It came to mind after seeing the most recent full-page ad in the New York Times that was sponsored by advocates of a Palestinian state. At the top was photo of Jimmy Carter, Menachem Begin, and Anwar Sadat, next to the headline, “Israel Made Peace With Egypt—and Got Peace.” That was followed by a photo of Bill Clinton, Yitzhak Rabin, and King H... Full story
No, the headline doesn’t refer to America’s president. I’m referring to the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Mahmoud Abbas. But let’s keep President Barack Obama’s party, the Democrats, in mind as we examine the latest developments involving Abbas and his Fatah party. Established in 1964—long before there were any settlements or “occupied territories”—Fatah has long been the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and it carried out many of the PLO’s most notorious terrorist massacres. The 1972 Munich Oly... Full story
John Kerry has a new strategy for achieving Mideast peace: mobilize the international community to gang up on Israel. That was the essence of the secretary of state’s disturbing remarks in Paris on March 13. Kerry declared that the Obama administration is “looking for a way forward” to bring about creation of a Palestinian state. He said that Palestinian statehood is “absolutely essential.” Not just “an idea worth exploring”; not just “something to be considered.” Rather, “absolutely essential.” Kerry and President Obama have made up their mi... Full story
