Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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WASHINGTON (JTA)—The Trump administration ended the policy of referring to the West Bank and the Golan Heights as “occupied” by Israel. The State Department’s annual report on global human rights issues, issued Wednesday, drops the “occupied” language from passages on the West Bank, Golan Heights and Gaza. It refers to the Golan Heights as “Israeli-controlled.” A State Department official argued that the change did not signal a shift in department policy on the territories. Why it matters: The Trump team has broken from precedent established by...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-An increase in anti-Semitism, an intensification of anti-Israel activity and decades of neglect have created a crisis in the Jewish community relations field, according to the umbrella group for Jewish public policy organizations, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. In reports published this week at its annual Washington meeting, the group urged a radical shift among its constituent Jewish community relations councils, which advocate for Jewish issues on behalf of the Jewish...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—President Donald Trump called on Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., to resign from Congress for what he said was her anti-Semitism. “It’s terrible what she said and I think she should either resign from Congress, or she should certainly resign from the House Foreign Affairs Committee,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “What she said is so deep-seated in her heart that her lame apology, and that’s what it was, it was lame and she didn’t mean a word of it, was just not appropriate. I think she should resign from Congress.” Om...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—AIPAC sounded relieved by the substantive Democratic backing in the Senate this week for a controversial pro-Israel bill initiated by Republicans. The Strengthening America’s Security in the Middle East Act (S.1), which the American Israel Public Affairs Committee said “contains critical pro-Israel provisions,” passed 77-23, earning yeas from every Republican but one, Rand Paul of Kentucky. It codifies $38 billion in defense assistance to Israel and provides legal cover to states that target the boycott Israel movemen...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The U.S. Senate approved in a 77-23 vote a bill that codifies $38 billion in defense assistance to Israel and which provides legal cover to states that target the boycott Israel movement. The bill, sponsored by Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., had stirred controversy because a number of Democratic senators said that while they oppose the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel, they were also concerned that state laws aimed at BDS impinged on speech freedoms. Among the Democratic d...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—President Donald Trump linked his actions on Iran to the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, pivoting during his State of the Union address from his decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal to a declaration that anti-Semitism must be confronted “anywhere and everywhere it occurs.” Trump also bookended his speech with references to D-Day, including salutes to troops, among them Jewish-American veterans, who helped liberate Europe, and Holocaust survivors who were liberated thanks to the American-led action. The salutes earne...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Kamala Harris, the junior senator from California, is reportedly set to announce her bid for the Democratic presidential nod. Harris, 54, is a progressive on most issues who draws some ire from the left for her tough-on-crime posture when she was California's attorney general. She pleased Democratic hearts, meanwhile, with her tough treatment of President Donald Trump's second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, during his Senate confirmation last year. The daughter of a...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas again called on the United States to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Israel is stepping up its campaign for international recognition of its claim to the strategic plateau. A joint statement by the two Republican senators came on the same day that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged John Bolton, the U.S. national security adviser, to recognize Israel’s claim to the Golan. Israel captured the heights from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War and a...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Sen. Bernie Sanders said it was "absurd" for Republicans to introduce as the Senate's first bill of this Congress a measure that would protect states that penalize Israel boycotters. "It's absurd that the first bill during the shutdown is legislation which punishes Americans who exercise their constitutional right to engage in political activity," Sanders, I-Vt., said Sunday on Twitter, linking to an article in The Intercept about the legislation. President Donald Trump says he...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Bryant Johnson says pressure creates diamonds, and I think I just upped the carat level. Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s personal trainer did not know that his two other clients on the Supreme Court—Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan—are Jewish, too. Until I told him. “I never thought about it that way,” he says when I tell him that he’s responsible in part for the health of the court’s entire Jewish contingent. Ginsburg is 85, Breyer is 80 and Kagan is a spritely 58. Where Johnson takes the conversation from there is interesting—he...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., reintroduced pro-Israel legislation that did not get passed in the last Congress. Rubio, together with Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, on Thursday, the first day of the new Congress, combined a number of Middle East-related bills into a single bill, jump-starting the process. “First item the Senate will take up in the new Congress will be our bill to deal with the crisis in #Syria & support our allies in the Middle East,” Rubio said on Twitter. Among the items is the Ileana Ros-Lehtinen United States-Israel...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—James Mattis is quitting as defense secretary and his extraordinary resignation letter has brought into the open an argument among conservatives on whether to cut and run in the Middle East or whether to stay with no clear outcome. The argument also touches on two subjects near and dear to the hearts of Jewish political players: how best to contain Iran, and how robust a role the U.S. should play in the region. Mattis did not mention Syria in his letter Thursday, but reports said that Trump’s decision earlier this week to pul...
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (JTA)-Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate, his Israeli-born wife, Miriam, and Haim Saban, the Israeli-American entertainment mogul, entered the deck of the pool complex at the Diplomat Hotel here on Saturday night and chose a table to sit around and well, schmooze. Never mind the frantic security detail that scrambled to find ropes and stanchions to create a cordon and to signal to other pool-goers that this bit of territory was occupied, thank you very much. Saban and Miriam...
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (JTA)—Vice President Mike Pence said the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel has “no place” in the U.S. market, and cited Airbnb’s delisting of West Bank Jewish settlements as an example of the movement. “In the wake of Airbnb’s decision to ban Jewish homes in Jerusalem and the West Bank, we made it clear, the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement is wrong and it has no place in the free enterprise of the United States of America,” Pence said at the annual conference of the Israeli American Coun...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Among the 36 Jewish Democrats running for the U.S. House of Representatives in November, 18 are incumbents and an equal number are challengers. Three Jewish Democrats are leaving the House: Sandy Levin of Michigan is retiring, Jacky Rosen of Nevada is running for the Senate and Jared Polis of Colorado is a candidate for governor. Additionally, two House candidates, both Democrats, have Jewish fathers and say that shaped their outlook, but they do not identify as Jewish. At...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-There are 15 Jewish Republican candidates running in U.S. House of Representatives races this fall. Two are incumbents and 13 are challengers. JTA is breaking down the races, assessing where the candidates stand on the political spectrum, noting their Jewish involvement and reporting what the forecasters say. Last week we covered the five Jewish Senate nominees, all Democrats. You can find a breakdown of the Jewish Democratic House candidates here. These are all of the Republica...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-There are 56 candidates for Congress who identify as Jewish. Among them are 41 Democrats: five are running for the Senate-three incumbents and two challengers. Among the 36 in the U.S. House of Representatives, 18 are incumbents and 18 are challengers. (Three incumbent Jewish House Democrats are retiring.) The 15 Republican candidates are running for the House. There are two incumbents and 13 challengers. Additionally, two House candidates, both Democrats, have Jewish fathers...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Nikki Haley, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations and a strong defender of Israel in the world body, will leave her post by the end of this year. President Donald Trump in an Oval Office appearance with Haley on Tuesday morning praised the former South Carolina governor and said that about six months ago, she told him that she was ready to leave by the end of this year. "She's a fantastic person, very importantly, but she's also somebody that gets it," Trump said. The...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Princeton Lyman, the Jewish American diplomat who played a critical role in organizing Operation Moses, the stunning 1984 airlift of Ethiopian Jews, has died at 82. Lyman died Friday at his home in the Washington suburb of Silver Spring, Maryland, the Washington Post reported. He died of lung cancer. The Post obituary celebrated the role of Lyman in helping to midwife the transition in South Africa from apartheid to democracy in the early 1990s when he was the U.S. ambassador...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Rashida Tlaib, the Democratic nominee in a surefire congressional district comprising parts of Detroit, believes in a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and says she would vote against military assistance for Israel. Does she represent a trend? Republicans would like you to think so. "This is the Democrat (sic) party," the Republican Jewish Coalition tweeted, attached to a story about Tlaib's view on military aid. Is Tlaib indeed the future of the Democratic...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—David Kustoff, running for re-election in Tennessee’s 8th Congressional District, had three things in his favor: incumbency, a solid Republican district and President Donald Trump’s endorsement. Kustoff was not taking anything for granted, though: In the Republican primary on Thursday, he faced a challenger, George Flinn, who spent more than twice what he has on the campaign and likes to remind voters that he is a “Christian conservative.” Which is notable because Kustoff is Jewish. “It’s unfortunate that someone would try and...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The media, Congress, the international community—just about everybody is reeling after the joint news conference on Monday in Helsinki bringing together President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Among other remarkable declarations, Trump seemed to agree with Putin by doubting the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Moscow mounted an effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. The American president said he favored Putin’s offer to allow U.S. investigators to interview Russians in the inv...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-The Trump administration has withdrawn the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Council because of its bias against Israel. Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, jointly announced the pullout on June 19. "The Human Rights Council is an exercise in shameless hypocrisy," Pompeo told the media at the State Department. "For too long, the human rights council has been a protector of human rights abusers and a cesspool of...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-It's like finding out that the White House has a mikvah in its basement and no one knows about it. Up an elegant stairway next to the concert hall at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is the "Concert Lounge dedicated by the State of Israel." It's a delicate, quiet refuge from Washington that bursts with, well, Israeliness: Paintings and wooden reliefs feature biblical scenes by Israeli artists who were well known in their time. Forty-seven years after it was...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Amos Yadlin likes talking about the Begin doctrine, which calls for removing existential threats to Israel before they are manifest-maybe because he lived it twice. As an Israeli Air Force pilot, Yadlin flew one of the planes that took out Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981, when Menachem Begin was prime minister. As director of military intelligence in 2007, Yadlin oversaw the operation that eliminated another nuclear reactor, this one in Syria. Watching President Donald Trump sign...
