Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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WASHINGTON (JTA)—While the Iran nuclear deal gets fleeting attention in the presidential race, it is shaping up as a key issue in at least nine states integral to Democrats’ hopes of regaining control of the U.S. Senate. Rival pro-Israel factions are pouring money into many of those races, and candidates are using support or opposition to the controversial deal as a means of tarring their opponents. And depending on what happens in November, the election could redefine what it means to be “pro-Israel.” Democrats are seeking four to five wi...
(JTA)-Seven times during the vice presidential debate, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said the deal his running mate, Hillary Clinton, worked on had helped "stop Iranian nuclear weapons." Seven times, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence said no, it did not. Twice, Kaine said Israel's military "says it stopped." Both times Pence, the running mate to Republican nominee Donald Trump, disagreed. Who's right? It's a mixed bag. The jury is still out on whether the deal has stopped Iran's suspected nuclear weapons quest...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-When President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met for what was likely to be the last time as leaders of their countries, the most important thing they said was "see you soon." Netanyahu's invitation to Obama to visit Israel post-presidency augured a thaw in U.S.-Israel relations, which was also seen in remarks by Israel's diplomatic corps and signals from the pro-Israel lobby. Their friendly, relaxed interaction was in marked contrast to meetings like the...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-President Barack Obama's near parting gift to Israel, a guarantee of $38 billion in defense assistance over a decade, distills into a single document what he's been saying throughout eight fraught years: I have your back, but on my terms. The agreement signed Wednesday in the State Department's Treaty Room here increases assistance for Israel over the prior Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2007 under the George W. Bush administration and guaranteeing Israel $31 billion...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-A Florida state senator caught up in a boycott-Israel controversy. A Wisconsin state representative who combated anti-Israel bias on his campus. The diversity of Israel-related outlooks among the 63 candidates endorsed by Our Revolution underscores the eclecticism of the left-leaning movement launched by Bernie Sanders. The endorsed candidates represent an opening salvo by Sanders, the Independent senator from Vermont to build on the progressive following he earned in his...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Hillary Clinton is a chameleon, her critics say, ready to adopt the colors of her environment: dove, hawk, social conservative, social justice warrior, friend, backstabber. Hillary Clinton is a Rorschach test, her supporters say, a projection of her haters' deepest fears and insecurities: the strong woman distorted into a witch, the progressive distorted into a radical, the pragmatist distorted into an empty vessel. Hillary Clinton, in her first autobiography, "Living History,"...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-If Hillary Clinton is indeed courting Henry Kissinger, what happens to her relationship with Bernie Sanders? Reports that the Democratic presidential nominee is actively pursuing endorsements from Kissinger, who like her is a former secretary of state, and other former Republican officials have raised alarms on the left. It also has provided an opportunity for Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, who has lumped his Republican critics with Clinton as part of an elite that has...
PHILADELPHIA (JTA)-Amanda Renteria, the national political director for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, was running through the campaign's messages for minorities and women: immigration for Hispanics, land use for Native Americans, various policies for defending children and women. She didn't mention Jews in her briefing Tuesday morning for specialty media, and there's a reason for that: There wasn't a Clinton issue that was unique to the Jews. When I asked her to mention some,...
PHILADELPHIA (JTA)-When Debbie Wasserman Schultz spoke to the Florida delegation as the national Democratic convention got underway, some delegates cheered. Other delegates booed. The chaos at the Marriott Hotel here demonstrated the degree to which the Florida congresswoman, perhaps the party's most prominent Jewish leader, had become a divisive figure since she emerged a decade ago as the tyro no one in the party could praise enough. Wasserman Schultz, 49, was forced over the weekend to step...
CLEVELAND (JTA)-Wednesday night's gripping tale of a dramatic, sudden repudiation of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz by Sheldon Adelson, the major pro-Israel philanthropist and Republican donor, seems a little less consequential in the light of Thursday morning, according to folks who are close with Adelson and his wife, Miriam. There is no rift, they say, only a cooling off until after Nov. 8, Election Day. Until then, the Adelsons are invested in Donald Trump, while Cruz remains a darling of the...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-They're elusive, but show up in the right place at the right time-and you might find one! No, we're not talking about the latest iteration of Pokemon Go. This is about tracking prominent Jewish GOPers and Jewish organizational representatives attending the Republican National Convention next week in Cleveland. They'll be barely visible, and the reason has everything to do with the presumptive nominee, Donald Trump. The Republican Jewish Coalition usually rolls out major sheb...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg launched a broadside against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump over the last week, calling him unfit for office. She subsequently apologized, but not before voices on the right and left criticized her for seeming to compromise the high court's dignity and objectivity. "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg needs to drop the political punditry and the name-calling," The New York Times editorial board said. The Washington Post...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-The conventional wisdom has it that earning the sobriquet "the most right-wing government in Israeli history" does not lead to diplomatic successes. In recent weeks, on the Turkish, Egyptian and African fronts, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is proving the conventional wisdom wrong. How is it that the head of a government beating a hasty retreat from the two-state solution scored a triumphant tour of Africa, hosted a convivial summit with an Egyptian foreign minister for the...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-"I am proud to be a Vlach," says Yiannis Boutaris, the mayor of Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city. Ostensibly, we're here at the Washington Hilton to discuss Boutaris' bid to put the Jewish back in Thessaloniki, a city-perhaps best known as Salonika-once home to the largest numbers of Jews in Greece. But I'm the one who brought up the Vlachs, a dwindling minority of speakers of an ancient Latin dialect, scattered throughout the Balkans. When he ambles over, I greet him...
(JTA)-Dirty, hot and exhausted Israeli soldiers waiting for their bus home from the army base tend, understandably, to be in a hurry to get on board. But when I was living in Israel during the first intifada, or Palestinian uprising, soldiers didn't jostle to be first in line. Rather, the most coveted position was second. That's because the bus driver had the right-under rules issued by the army and made clear to each armed soldier before she or he left the base-to order any soldier to sit in...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-An exhibit over 20 years old against an iPhone: Docents at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum are increasingly noting the battle with hand-held devices to keep the interest of young people. Now a $20 million gift to help revitalize the Washington, D.C., museum will aim to assist the docents while focusing on the challenges posed to democracies by rapid changes in technology. Allan and Shelley Holt announced their grant for the Washington, D.C., museum on Monday, June 13, in...
(JTA)-Hillary Clinton is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, The Associated Press reported Monday. With more super delegates telling the AP they're committed to her, Clinton now has the votes she needs to win the nomination. But that's not the end for Bernie Sanders, by far the most successful Jewish presidential candidate in American history. The Independent Vermont senator is defiant and says he's taking the fight to the Democratic National Convention. He's said he'll try to flip...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-In a rare and sharp split with Israeli government policy, a group of Jewish community leaders want to get a proposal for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the next president's desk. Two complementary U.S. and Israeli working papers to be launched next week propose immediate actions Israel can take to prepare the ground for two states and a longer-term security structure that aims to satisfy Palestinian ambitions for sovereignty and Israeli security need...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Yes, there’s the Avigdor Liberman who wants to behead bad guys, mandate loyalty oaths and pay Arabs to leave the country—the one who makes fun of the disabled and who dodged a fraud charge. But Israel’s onetime foreign minister and maybe-next defense minister is not quite the cartoon he’s made out to be—OK, the cartoon he at times seems determined to make himself out to be. As defense minister, Liberman would double to two the Cabinet ministers who have seriously considered a two-state outcome: himself and Prime Minister Be...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-The Democratic Party platform drafting committee is top heavy with veterans of political battles over Israel-some friendly, some critical, and including at least one major backer of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. The Democratic National Committee named the committee May 23, a day after reports emerged that Bernie Sanders, an Independent senator from Vermont running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, wants the platform to elevate the issue of...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—A bill unanimously approved by the U.S. House of Representatives would extend religious protections to advocates of circumcision and ritual slaughter as well as atheists, addressing what its sponsors describe as an increase in religious persecution in recent years. The bill, passed Monday, would broaden the definition of “violations of religious freedom” in the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 to include the persecution of advocates of male circumcision or ritual animal slaughter. Atheists would become a new prote...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—When it comes to Israel, Democrats and Republicans simply do not see eye to eye, and for all their love of Zion, evangelicals will turn out for a candidate who is less than 100 percent on the issue. Welcome to the 2016 presidential election, when the conventional pro-Israel wisdom has been turned upside down. For years it was sacrosanct that whatever else divides the parties, backing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s line on Israel unites them. And Republicans who want to be elected better count on eva...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-The top Democrat handling foreign relations in the Senate says he will endeavor to get Congress to reauthorize Iran sanctions before year's end, a key goal of pro-Israel activists. "There's general agreement we have to extend the sanctions against Iran, and we need to do it before they expire at the end of this year, " Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told JTA on Thursday. Last month Cardin toured Israel, Saudi Arabia...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-You get to listen to Jews yelling at you. You get to listen to mandarins tell you why they won't listen to Jews. You get to emcee a cappella competitions. Who wouldn't want to be White House Jewish liaison? Matt Nosanchuk lasted nearly three years in a post-officially titled associate director of public engagement-that may be the apotheosis of thanklessness. He stepped down last week. Notably, Nosanchuk wound it up with plenty of thanks from some of those who made clear their...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Hear out Donald Trump. Ignore Donald Trump. There were two distinct approaches to the Trump moment last week at AIPAC's annual conference here, and there were mutual warnings that one or the other side would get burned. The burn came fast, and it came to those who said listening to the front-runner in the race for the Republican presidential nod was the right thing to do. After days of repeated warnings to its activists not to disrupt Trump, and to treat speakers with respect, t...
