Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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WASHINGTON (JTA) — In 2015, the Zionist Organization of America gave John Bolton a standing ovation when he said he wanted to be U.S. president. In 2018, the ZOA gave him its Defender of Israel Award. This week, Bolton is about as far away from the presidency as he’s been in his life, and the ZOA doesn’t appear interested in defending him. Nor does the broader centrist and right-wing pro-Israel community, which lobbied for Bolton just 3 1/2 years ago to be secretary of state. Bolton is dominating headlines this week with his new tell-all book,...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - House Democrats have put together a letter that they hope will unite their entire caucus in warning Israel against annexation of part of the West Bank. The letter, now circulating among the party's House caucus and obtained exclusively by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, warns Israel about the dangers annexation would pose to Israelis and to the region. But it does not hint at any danger to the U.S.-Israel relationship and restates the signers' commitment to the relationship....
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Four Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives — Jan Schakowsky, Ted Deutch, David E. Price, and Bradley S. Schneider — are circulating a letter among their colleagues that would warn Israel of the perils of annexation. The full text is below. Dear Colleague, Recent reports indicate the Israeli government may soon consider annexation in the West Bank. We believe unilateral annexation, and unilateral action by any side, would jeopardize long-standing efforts to achieve a viable two-state solution that addresses the aspira...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - As many Jewish organizations across the United States sent out statements decrying racism over the past week, the head of the Zionist Organization of America took a different approach. Black Lives Matter "is a Jew hating, White hating, Israel hating, conservative-Black hating, violence promoting, dangerous Soros-funded extremist group of haters," ZOA President Mort Klein tweeted on Saturday. That tweet, expressing anger as others sought to show solidarity with nationwide...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - The leading pro-Israel lobby in the United States is telling lawmakers that they are free to criticize Israel's looming annexation plans - just as long as the criticism stops there. Two sources - a congressional aide and a donor - say the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, is delivering that guidance in Zoom meetings and phone calls with lawmakers. The message is unusual because the group assiduously discourages public criticism of Israel. But these are...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - Israel's announcement last week that an Israeli consortium would build Sorek 2, the world's largest desalination plant, surprised many who had been watching the deal: The contract had been expected to go to a Hong Kong-based company. But that was before the Trump administration ramped up pressure on Israel to diminish its ties to China. For years, Israel has been working to dramatically expand trade with China, one of the world's largest markets. That push is suddenly running...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared an end to all agreements with Israel, including security cooperation, effectively turning over to Israel’s government the running of the entire West Bank. “The Palestine Liberation Organization and the State of Palestine are absolved, as of today, of all the agreements and understandings with the American and Israeli governments and of all the commitments based on these understandings and agreements, including the security ones,” Abbas said in a speech in Ramalla...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Former Vice President Joe Biden marked the one-year anniversary of the deadly shooting at a synagogue in Poway, California, with a proposal to add protections for Jews and other targets of hate attacks. “These are acts of terrorism, plain and simple,” Biden said Monday in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “They are bound together by the common thread of perpetrators using fear and violence to undermine individuals’ ability to freely exercise their faith.” Biden’s three-point plan would increase the $90 million t... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Monday was supposed to have been a good news day for Joe Biden: The venerable New York congresswoman Nita Lowey convened hundreds of women on a phone call to launch a new group, Jewish Women for Joe. The timing, though, was not auspicious. The same day, Business Insider published the first on-the-record corroboration of a sexual assault claim leveled in March by Tara Reade, an aide to Biden in 1992-93. That landed like a bombshell for the feminists and others who hope to oust... Full story
(JTA)—The nominating committee of US Jewry’s foreign policy umbrella has tapped as its next chair the immediate past chairwoman of the lead Jewish immigration advocacy group—one that has clashed repeatedly with the Trump administration. Dianne Lob of HIAS is the pick of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the umbrella group announced Friday. The chair is the lay leader of the Presidents Conference. HIAS and the Trump administration have clashed repeatedly over the administration’s restrictive immigra... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—A pro-Israel group is warning Israeli leaders that reports of planned annexations of parts of the West Bank would cause “long-term damage” to the U.S.-Israel alliance. “Such a move would make a two-state solution harder—if not impossible to achieve—and would likely have far-reaching negative consequences for the U.S.-Israel alliance,” Mark Mellman and Ann Lewis, the president and the co-chairwoman of the Democratic Majority for Israel, wrote to the three leaders negotiating to form a new government in Israel. The warning lette... Full story
(JTA)—With its glittering assembly of stars, jokes that worked and attendees who could, well, sing, it was the Zoom Seder you wished you had. The Saturday Night Passover Seder that aired on YouTube over the weekend brought together dozens of celebrities and raised $2.6 million for the CDC Foundation, the nonprofit wing of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the government agency guiding America through the coronavirus pandemic. The broadcast, which drew more than 1 million viewers, had a distinctive liberal coastal Jewish o... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The Jewish community’s expression of solidarity with Chinese Americans during the coronavirus pandemic has yielded an unexpected return: scads of personal protective equipment for Jewish organizations. David Bernstein, the president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Jewish public policy umbrella that initiated the solidarity letter toward the end of February, said Tuesday that Chinese-American groups have sent thousands of much-needed items to Jewish social service agencies in the Washington, D.C., Boston and New Yo... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—It’s the ninth question on the census, and for many Jewish respondents, it’s a surprising—and sometimes unwelcome—invitation to consider who exactly they are. For the first time, the U.S. Census question on race is asking white and African-American respondents to dig deeper and fill in more detailed origins. “Mark one or more boxes AND print origins,” the printed form says. For white, it adds, “Print, for example, German, Irish, English, Italian, Lebanese, Egyptian, etc.” The request for “origins” has existed for decades f... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The White House has come to an agreement with Democrats and Republicans on a $2 trillion stimulus package, the biggest in U.S. history, in response to the major economic downturn triggered by the coronavirus. Congress passed the $2.2 trillion CARES Act as an emergency relief package in response to the needs created by the coronavirus public health crisis and associated economic fallout. The emergency relief package provides tax rebates, expanded unemployment benefits, and numerous tax-relief provisions aimed at shoring up i... Full story
By Ron Kampeas WASHINGTON (JTA)—Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have much in common when it comes to policy and style. They stand together in recommending tough action to contain Iran, and are comfortable dealing with autocracies (Saudi Arabia) and increasingly nationalist democracies (Hungary, India). Netanyahu has fervently embraced idioms identified with Trump, like “fake news” and “deep state.” But when it comes to how they are both handling the coronavirus, it’s night and day. Netanyahu’s public statements have been clear and pac... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Joe Biden made an appearance via video and Mike Bloomberg turned up in person. So did Mike Pence. Even the coronavirus got a shoutout. Despite threats of a boycott by Democrats and anxieties about communicable diseases, this year’s annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee was a busy, bustling and bipartisan affair. Still, the names that loomed largest were the ones that did not make an appearance: Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Sanders, the Vermont senator who is currently the front-runner for... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—A delegation of members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations visited Saudi Arabia last week, a first for the umbrella body for U.S. Jews, and a move believed to be the first official visit to the kingdom by an American Jewish organization since 1993. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency has learned that the visit from Monday to Thursday included meetings with senior Saudi officials as well as with Mohammed al-Issa, the secretary-general of the Muslim World League who recently led a delegation to A... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Sen. Elizabeth Warren indicated she would skip the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC's conference next month and did not push back against questionable assertions about the lobby from a questioner at a campaign event in New Hampshire. In a sign of how the lobby has become a political lightning rod for Democrats, Warren answered "yeah" when asked if she was planning to skip the conference in Washington in March. "I'm an American Jew and I'm terrified by the unholy alliance that AIPAC is... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-The three-week exhibition at the National Archives showcased documents, video and a marquee sponsor, announced in large font on the banner at the National Archives: "This exhibit is paid for in part by the National Archives Foundation through the general support of the Ford Motor Company Fund." What the small exhibit marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz lacked was any mention of Ford's role in building the Nazi machine. American Ford retained majority... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The Democrats running for president have hewed to the party line in criticizing the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan rolled out by President Donald Trump: Unilateral annexation of settlements is the wrong way to go. The tone was first set by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who each seized on the failure of the Trump administration to include the Palestinians in the peace process and the apparent green light that Israel gets in the plan to extend its law to West Bank settlements. “The pro... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Much of Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign narrative subtly casts her as the anti-Obama, the potential president who will not broker sweetheart deals for big business. That was the subtext—actually it was the overt text—of a buzzy Politico magazine article in September titled “‘Why Are You Pissing In Our Face?’: Inside Warren’s War With the Obama Team.” It chronicled tensions at the beginning of Barack Obama’s first term, when Warren, then a Harvard law professor, was the most prominent critic of the bailout championed... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—We ran a story last week on where the top seven Democrats running for president stood on Iran policy. Try as we could, we could not pin down a position for Mike Bloomberg, the former New York mayor who was not included in the last debate, where he might be forced to elaborate a position on one of the burning issues of the day. (He has high enough polling numbers to qualify for a debate, but has not crossed the outside contribution threshold set by the Democratic National Committee because he is bankrolling his own campaign.) T... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—A decade ago, in a speech in Cairo addressing the Islamic world, President Barack Obama issued a call to understand Israel’s importance in the context of the Holocaust—and it started a political firestorm in the world of Jewish politics. Not so this week. A nonbinding resolution on Holocaust education introduced recently by three Republican lawmakers essentially echoes Obama’s call, but it has barely evinced a peep. Why the differing reactions? First, people tend to pay more attention to the leader of the free world making... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The post-debate analysis this week focused largely on the ongoing spat between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. While we hope they can sort that out soon, the debate featured something else more relevant to JTA readers: Everyone on stage thought that President Donald Trump made a huge mistake in 2018 when he pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal and said outright or implied that as president, they would return to the deal. (To be more precise, Warren did not speak up on the topic, but she has expressed similar sentiments e... Full story
