Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Just when you thought things couldn’t get any messier over at the Center for Jewish History, a New York Times columnist who was invited to speak at an event there has unleashed a barrage of verbal attacks on Israel. The columnist, Roger Cohen, was invited to deliver this year’s Leo Baeck Memorial Lecture. The Leo Baeck Institute is one of six Jewish organizations that operate from the Center for Jewish History building. I did not attend Mr. Cohen’s lecture Oct. 15. But in a pre-lecture interview with the Baeck Institute’s newsletter, LBI New... Full story
European countries are not exactly known for their love of Israel. Yet recent actions taken by the governments of Norway and Belgium suggest that, in at least one important respect, those two nations have gone much further than the U.S. in confronting the problem of Palestinian incitement against Israel. Belgium, which has been giving the Palestinian Arabs more than $20 million annually, announced this week that it “will put on hold any projects related to the construction or equipment of Palestinian schools.” This followed a report by Pal... Full story
The Trump administration is pressuring Israel for further delays in the construction of Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria, according to apparently reliable media reports. If true, friends of Israel have good reason to be concerned. Ynet, the news site of the Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, reported Sept. 25 that “at the request of the Trump administration,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has delayed a meeting of the government committee responsible for construction in the territories. The meeting is necessary to proceed with con... Full story
Public figures occasionally misspeak. That is, they say something that is clearly untrue, not because they are intentionally lying but because they innocently stumbled in their articulation of some thought. A famous example occurred during the 2008 presidential campaign, when Democratic nominee Barack Obama was interviewed by George Stephanopoulos on the ABC-TV news program “This Week.” At one point, Obama used the phrase “my Muslim faith.” Now, Obama obviously did not intend to say that. He had already said many times that he is a Christi... Full story
A little-reported stabbing incident, coupled with a large dose of Palestinian Authority-generated fake news, have revealed pretty much everything you need to know about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It all began Aug. 18. Qatiba Zahran, age 17, left his hometown of Alar, near the city of Tulkarm, armed with a large knife. He was looking for an Israeli Jew to stab. He couldn’t find any Israelis in Alar, or in Tulkarm, because they have been under the control of the Palestinian Authority since 1995. That was when then-Prime Minister Yitzhak R... Full story
The U.S. government’s reluctance to demand the immediate creation of a Palestinian state has sent J Street into a panic. With its candidates having been defeated in elections on both sides of the ocean, and its proposals crumbling in the face of reality, J Street is trying one last desperate strategy: rewriting history so that it appears Palestinian statehood has been supported by everybody, everywhere, for as long as anyone can remember. Asked by reporters Aug. 24 about the Palestinian state issue, State Department spokeswoman Heather N... Full story
On a recent Friday, several-dozen Jewish hikers happened to pass near the Palestinian village of Kobar. Some locals reacted to the sight of Jews by trying to stone them to death. News reports noted that Kobar is the home town of the terrorist who recently stabbed three Jews to death at their dinner table in the town of Halamish. On Aug. 12, Palestinians attending a funeral of a dead terrorist decided they would try to complete his life’s mission by murdering some Jews themselves. They gathered on the road near the Israeli town of Tekoa and bega... Full story
The newly appointed Middle East director at the State Department has a long record of criticizing and pressuring Israel. Isn’t anybody at the White House paying attention to who’s being hired over at Foggy Bottom? David Satterfield, who is slated to become assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs next month, played a significant role in U.S. policy and diplomacy concerning Israel and the Palestinians in the late 1990s and early 2000s. A look at some of his comments from that period reveals he repeatedly suggested a moral equ... Full story
The newly appointed Middle East director at the State Department has a long record of criticizing and pressuring Israel. Isn’t anybody at the White House paying attention to who’s being hired over at Foggy Bottom? David Satterfield, who is slated to become assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs next month, played a significant role in U.S. policy and diplomacy concerning Israel and the Palestinians in the late 1990s and early 2000s. A look at some of his comments from that period reveals he repeatedly suggested a moral equ... Full story
When presidential adviser Jared Kushner said in a recent private discussion that “there may be no solution” to the conflict between the Palestinian Arabs and Israel, he was just stating the obvious. For nearly a century, self-appointed wise men have been claiming to have the solution, but every such proposal has proved to be a mirage. The British thought they had the solution in 1922, when they sectioned off the eastern part of Mandatory Palestine—78 percent of the original mandate territory—and set up an Arab kingdom there, which came to be k... Full story
The pressure has begun. The State Department’s “evenhanded” statement regarding the Temple Mount. The U.S.-backed Middle East Quartet’s call for “restraint.” The announcement that President Donald Trump’s international negotiations representative is going to the region to “mediate” between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA). It all adds up to one thing: American pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians. The July 14 terror attack that killed two Israeli policemen at the Temple Mount is a clear-cut case of Palestinian ag... Full story
The U.S. consul general in Jerusalem recently set off on the first leg of a 200-mile hike that will simultaneously promote one pro-Palestinian myth while inadvertently exploding another. That’s quite a “twofer!” Consul General Donald Blome is an avid hiker. For some reason, he has decided to ignore Israeli hiking trails in Judea and Samaria, and instead is making his way across the “Masar Ibrahim Al-Khalil,” or the Ibrahim Path, which runs from northern Samaria to southern Judea. The website of the U.S. consulate general in Jerusalem quotes Bl... Full story
The newly released details about a recent terrorist attack in Jerusalem show how easily Palestinian terrorists can enter Israel—thus contradicting the phony claims that Palestinians’ movements are severely restricted by Israel. The attack in question took place June 16. Three Palestinian terrorists killed a teenage Israeli policewoman named Hadas Malka, in Jerusalem. They also stabbed and shot several other Israelis, before they were killed. The BBC rubbed salt in the victims’ wounds by headlining its reports of the attack: “Three Palesti... Full story
The headlines of the Jewish press this week were filled with stories about angry American Jews arriving in Israel and denouncing the Israeli government’s decision regarding egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall. Jerry Silverman, head of the Jewish Federations of North America, called the government’s decision “a direct insult” to diaspora Jewry and vowed to launch a “campaign” to “fight back.” Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, said the battle to reverse the decision is “worth fighting for.” A statement issued by the... Full story
The Israeli authorities last week confiscated two tractors, a hydraulic excavator and other equipment used by Palestinians to carry out illegal quarrying that has been damaging a rare nature reserve in the Judean Desert. If major American newspapers reported the story, the headline would probably read: “Israel Confiscates Palestinians’ Tractors.” I say “if,” because there’s really not much chance The New York Times or Washington Post would ever cover a story that reflects badly on the Palestinian cause. That would undermine their drive to pr... Full story
Anybody who thought the new Jerusalem bureau chief of The New York Times would be any less pro-Palestinian than his predecessor was sadly mistaken. Ian Fisher replaced Peter Baker as head of The Times’s Jerusalem bureau in January. Many of Fisher’s articles in recent months have been slanted against Israel, but his coverage of the lynching attempt in the Palestinian Arab village of Hawara May 18 was the worst so far. The facts of the Hawara episode are well-documented in a graphic video that can be seen on YouTube. Arabs waving PLO flags and... Full story
The Palestinian Arabs, who are constantly being described by the Jewish left as disenfranchised and subjugated, went to the polls last weekend. That’s right—the same Palestinians whom Israel supposedly deprives of the right to vote freely cast ballots in a democratic election. Henry Siegman, former executive director of the American Jewish Congress, wrote in a recent issue of the London Review of Books that Israel is “Palestine’s occupier” and the Palestinians live under “permanent subjugation.” Likewise, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), at t... Full story
The Washington Post’s chief correspondent in Israel has discarded all pretense of objectivity and is now openly lobbying for a political cause—and it’s one of the most distasteful causes imaginable: justifying the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) policy of paying imprisoned terrorists and their families. William Booth, the Post’s longtime Jerusalem bureau chief, has never been very careful about keeping his personal opinions out of his news articles. But his May 3 report on PA payments to terrorists crossed the line from journalism to outright advo... Full story
J Street, the left-wing group that claims to be staunchly opposed to Israeli settlements, has embraced an Israeli settlement. What? How can that be? This strange but true story began when the Israeli Knesset overwhelmingly adopted a law to prohibit the entry of foreign citizens who actively promote the BDS movement against Israel. The law does not prevent Israeli citizens from boycotting Israel. Their right to seek the destruction of their own country remains protected. The law does not block the entry of foreigners who happen to agree with... Full story
Those cruel Israelis! Palestinian residents of Gaza just want some soccer balls and perhaps a few Frisbees, to help break the monotony of life under siege. Yet the insensitive Israeli authorities, enforcing their ruthless blockade, recently intercepted a shipment of innocent, humanitarian sporting goods that would have brought a little light to the dark of lives of Gaza’s children. That’s what you can expect pro-Palestinian human rights groups and their media supporters to report. The truth, however, is different. Very different. In an attempt... Full story
A group of Palestinians tried to burn some Israeli Jews to death March 23. Just another day in the Middle East. The four attackers drove up to the perimeter of the Jewish community of Beit El, north of Jerusalem, and began hurling firebombs toward homes there. A firebomb, also known as a Molotov cocktail, is of course a deadly weapon. It explodes on impact and unleashes a torrent of flames. We can all easily imagine what would happen if those firebombs had struck people or homes. Fortunately, Israeli soldiers immediately fired at the would-be m... Full story
Israel critic Peter Beinart has announced that when his children “near adulthood, I’ll encourage them to visit the West Bank.” Why? “So they can see for themselves what it means to hold millions of people... without free movement or due process,” he wrote in his column for The Forward. The Beinart children are in for quite a surprise. In his various articles and media appearances, Papa Beinart regularly accuses Israel of occupying and oppressing the Palestinians. I imagine that’s what the Beinart kids hear at the dinner table, too. But when th... Full story
Diplomats never pretend to be experts on acting, yet for some reason actors constantly present themselves as experts on international affairs. Hollywood award ceremonies are now dominated by awardees delivering pretentious political diatribes. The latest presumed fount of wisdom is Richard Gere, who visited Israel last week to promote a film in which he plays a character modeled on the American Jewish businessman from whom Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accepted large bribes. In an interview with Haaretz, Gere rattled off all the shallow... Full story
For the past 15 years, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has been promoting the so-called “Saudi Initiative,” a plan he says proves that Saudi Arabia sincerely wants peace with Israel. But this week, a senior Palestinian leader revealed that at the very moment the Saudis were launching that plan, they were financing a major wave of terrorism against Israel. It’s time for Friedman to publicly admit he was wrong and apologize for the harm he caused to Israel. It all started Feb. 6, 2002, when Friedman devoted his New York Times colum... Full story
An extremist Arab Knesset member who endorses violence and has been condemned by the Likud and Labor parties alike was cheered at the recent J Street national conference. For an organization that supposedly promotes peaceful coexistence, they sure have some strange bedfellows! The object of J Street’s enthusiastic applause was Member of Knesset Ayman Odeh, leader of the parliamentary bloc known as the Joint Arab List. Odeh is well-known in Israel for his extremist rhetoric. Last year, for example, he claimed that Israel murdered Yasser Arafat.... Full story
