Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 12 of 12
(Ettinger Report via JNS) - FBI Director Christopher A. Wray visited Israel on Feb. 14, 2024, meeting with leaders of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and Israel Police. The goal of the visit was to benefit from Israel's unique urban and tunnel warfare experience against Islamic terrorists, who are advancing the vision of Iran's ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood. Director Wray considers Israel's to be the most effective battle-tested laboratory for the U.S. armed forces, law enforcement...
(The Ettinger Report via JNS) — During the October 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty ceremony, top Jordanian military officers told their Israeli counterparts that a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River would doom the pro-U.S. Hashemite regime. They said it would transform Jordan into an uncontrollable terrorist haven, haunting the highly vulnerable pro-U.S. regimes of the oil-producing Gulf states, as well as Egypt. In June 1967, Israel gained control over the topographically dominant mountain ridges of the Golan Heights, Judea and S...
(JNS) — According to the Washington, D.C.-based White House Historical Association, the 1978/79 U.S. policy on Iran, that embraced Ayatollah Khomeini, betrayed the pro-U.S. shah and failed the pro-U.S. Sunni Arab regimes, was based on a superficial view of Middle East political, religious, cultural and historical reality. “In January 1979, the Shah fled into exile, and the theocratic regime of Khomeini took power. There was little informed understanding in the U.S. government about the political implications of this fundamentalist regime. Gar...
(JNS) — According to the February annual Gallup poll of country favorability, 71 percent of Americans accord Israel a “very favorable” and “mostly favorable” rating. This matches Israel’s average favorability since 2013, compared to 58 percent in 2002, 71 percent in 2012, 69 percent in 2019 and 75 percent in February 2021. Israel’s all-time high favorability was in February 1991 (79 percent) in the aftermath of the January-February Iraqi Scud missiles striking Tel Aviv. Israel is ranked seventh among countries rated by Gallup, trailing Cana...
(JNS) — Jordan’s recent domestic upheaval reportedly involved members of the royal Jordanian family and prominent Bedouin tribesmen, who were arrested and charged with an attempted regime change. Other Arab countries were also said to be involved. Regime change in Jordan could transform the strategically located country into another haven for Palestinian and Islamic terrorism. It would threaten the existence of the current regimes in Saudi Arabia, all other pro-U.S. Gulf states and Egypt, advancing the interests of Iran, Turkey, the Muslim Bro...
(JNS) — It has been suggested that the next prime minister of Israel will be forbidden to annex parts of Judea and Samaria for the next three years due to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s personal commitment to former President Donald Trump on the issue. This ostensible commitment, however, was never ratified by Israel’s legislature. Does a personal commitment by an Israeli prime minister to a U.S. president tie the hands of succeeding prime ministers? Not according to the tradition of democratic societies, which aims to avoid execu...
(JNS) — President Joe Biden’s foreign policy and national security team reflects a resurgence of the U.S. State Department’s worldview. To avoid past mistakes, an examination of this worldview and its track record is thus in order. In 1948, the State Department-led Washington’s opposition to the recognition of the newly established Jewish state, contending that Israel would be helpless against the expected Arab military assault, would be pro-Soviet, would undermine U.S.-Arab relations, destabilize the Middle East, threaten the U.S. oil supply...
(JNS) — The Israeli-Palestinian conflict did not erupt in 1967, nor in 1948. In November 1917, the Balfour Declaration called for the establishment of “a national home for the Jewish People” in Palestine, which was the accepted international name of the Land of Israel since the fifth century BCE. The declaration, by the British foreign minister, stated that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities [Arabs] in Palestine.” The declaration acknowledged the ancient national Jewish r...
(JNS)—The U.S. position on the future of Judea and Samaria should be based on U.S. interests in the context of a violent, volcanic, uncontrollable and unpredictable Middle East, where agreements are as tenuous as are the regimes which conclude them. On Sept. 18, 1970, the pro-USSR Syrian military invaded Jordan in an attempt to topple the pro-U.S. Hashemite regime, an attack which, if successful, would have destabilized the regional balance. The invasion was rolled back on Sept. 23, largely due to Israel’s deployment of its military and Isr... Full story
(JNS)—Contrary to conventional wisdom, U.S.-Israel relations have outgrown their one-way-street mode, evolving into a mutually beneficial two-way relationship. The United States enjoys a well-deserved, high return on its annual $3.8 billion investment in Israel, which it calls “foreign aid,” even though Israel is not like any other foreign country that receives aid from America. The strategic compatibility between the United States and Israel is underscored by the two allies’ national security orientation—allocating 3.6 percent and 4.7 perce... Full story
(JNS)—“The United Nations Human Rights Council” and the principle of human rights are two things diametrically opposed to each other. The makeup of the council, which is determined by geographic location and dictates anti-American conduct by the leadership of nondemocratic regimes, is proof of that. Council member Venezuela, for example, is a dictatorship that puts opposition leaders in prison, is anti-American, and is aligned with the ayatollahs’ regime in Iran. The Congo is ruled by a dictator who murders those who oppose him and is keeping... Full story
(JNS)—US interests in the Middle East and beyond are well-served by a strategically constrained Syria. Historically, Syria has been a tectonic, volatile platform of violent, intolerant and unpredictable Arab/Islamic regional aspirations of grandeur, totally unrelated to Israel’s existence and policies. During the modern era, Syria has been a major arena of anti-U.S. hate-education and incitement, Islamic and international terrorism (e.g., the blowing up of the U.S. Embassy and Marines Headquarters in Beirut and Pan Am Flight 103), nar... Full story