Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — It is appalling that Israel’s recent airstrike, accidentally killing seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen in Gaza who were bringing food to its besieged residents, has aroused as much international fury, if not more, as Hamas’s slaughter of 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7 in the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust. President Joe Biden has become the fickle leader of this anti-Israel assault. As the November election looms and his re-election prospect shows signs of fading, he is clinging desperately to the hope that he ca...
(JNS) — In a life full of accomplishments, Joe Lieberman will almost certainly be best remembered as the answer to a trivia question. Even more significant was his role as a supporting player in one of the most intense political controversies as well as one of the great “what ifs” in American history. But as much as the 2000 presidential election—during which he became Al Gore’s running mate and the first Jew ever to achieve such a distinction—and its denouement over recounts in Florida was his moment in the sun, his life should be recalled wit...
(JNS) — On March 24, Al Jazeera posted a video on YouTube that accused the Israel Defense Forces of raping Palestinian women during their recent operation in Shifa Hospital. IDF Arabic spokesman Lt.-Col. Avichai Adraee immediately and categorically rejected the rape claims. The next day, the Al Jazeera video was removed without comment or retraction. A subsequent post on X by Yasser Abu Hilalah, Al Jazeera’s former managing director, admitted that the rape accusations were fabricated and that the woman who made the claims, Jamila al-Hissi, adm...
I was a battalion physician in Sinai during the Yom Kippur War. Those who fought and survived the 1973 Yom Kippur War hoped that the bitter lessons of that war had been learned and that Israel would never experience a similar catastrophe. Tragically, one day after the 50th anniversary of that war, history repeated itself with the devastating Hamas attack of Oct. 7. The similarities between these events are chillingly striking. The Yom Kippur War began with an attack by Egypt and Syria on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. There were many...
(JNS) — Trying to understand current events in the Middle East without knowing its history is doomed to failure. Trying to understand Israel without an understanding of Jewish history and Zionism is equally futile. Over 100 years ago, the Jewish people began to realize they would never be safe without their own land, government and army, along with the power to determine their own future. For its entire history, the State of Israel they founded has been under attack. Although Israel has extended its hand in peace to its enemies from the b...
(JNS) — The United States has a law called the Taylor Force Act that forbids the United States from transferring money to the Palestinian Authority so long as the P.A. transfers money to terrorists. Since 10 percent of the P.A.’s budget is used to reward terrorists and their families for the Jews the terrorists murdered in terror attacks, the United States has been unable to transfer money to the P.A. for the past few years. Unfortunately, even though the Biden administration knows that the P.A. pays terrorists, it still considers them a pea...
(JNS) — It’s been more than 160 days since Hamas terrorists invaded my homeland, Israel, the only home for the Jewish people, leaving behind a trail of blood, devastation and destruction. It’s been more than 160 days since innocent Israeli families have been torn apart, loved ones murdered, brutalized and taken from their homes. It’s been more than 160 days since husbands, wives, children, grandparents, family and friends have lived in agonizing uncertainty, not knowing whether their loved ones are still alive. It’s been more than 160 days sinc...
(JNS) — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has never been a friend of Israel. But her recent blood libel that Israel is committing an “unfolding genocide” in Gaza puts her squarely in the Jew-hating camp. AOC needs a refresher course on the Bible. God says, “I will bless those who bless you and him who curses you I will curse.” Evangelical Christians understand this better than any other group. I doubt AOC has ever heard it before. It’s a shame that AOC was educated by a self-hating Jew—Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). I missed my chance to...
(JNS) — As some of us have long feared and that has now become undeniable, Israel is fighting not one but two wars of defense against a malevolent foe. The first is against the axis of Iran and its proxies: Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis of Yemen. The second is against America. The Biden administration is to construct a pier off the Gaza shore to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid. This week, Israeli TV’s Channel 14 reported that, astoundingly, the Americans have handed over the financing and management of this pier to Qatar, the...
(JNS) — Starting in the 1920s, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union pioneered the art of dezinformatsiya. A hundred years later, the Communist Party of China has developed disinformation into a high-tech science. You probably know how the Kremlin did propaganda: Thousands of KGB operatives would feed false information to journalists in dozens of countries to advance Moscow’s goals. Increasing anti-Americanism and anti-Israelism were high on the list. Some of those journalists were fellow travelers. Others were what the Soviets called “us...
(JNS) — Sigmund Freud always took a somewhat jaundiced view of the human psyche, but in the wake of the horrors of World War I, it turned even darker. Confronted with mankind’s capacity to destroy itself, Freud concluded that within every living thing, there is a drive towards senescence and homeostasis—a state in which things do not change. The ultimate form of such a state, of course, is death. Thus, Freud believed, all life contains within it the seed of its own destruction and dissolution—a death drive. But Freud understood that this was no...
(JNS) — With settlers in the headlines because of recent U.S. sanctions on four Israelis in Judea and Samaria who have been linked to violent attacks against Palestinians and talk about a unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, one would think it was enough unwelcome news for the week. But now along comes U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and his criticism of Israel’s announced plan to add 3,000 homes to settlements in Judea and Samaria. Saying that Israel’s expansion of settlements in the territories was “inconsistent with interna...
(Jewish Journal via JNS) — Israelis may have been shocked by the recent Israel Defense Forces military intelligence report that Hamas will survive the war in Gaza. Leaked to the press in an apparent attempt to shame Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials, the internal report belies their repeated pledges to destroy Hamas completely. “The bottom line,” said Israeli investigative reporter Ilana Dayan, an outspoken critic of the government, about the report’s findings, is that “Hamas will survive this campaign as a terror gr...
(FLAME via JNS) — The clamor for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war is reaching a crescendo—from world leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, and a recently failed U.N. Security Council resolution to ordinary people demonstrating around the globe. But a ceasefire now offers virtually no benefits and would have disastrous consequences—satisfying only the insidious goals of Hamas. A permanent ceasefire would not liberate Gaza, and it would not stop Hamas’s war against Israel—nor would it stop the deaths of innocent Palestinians. Above all...
(JNS)— At the moment, 26 out of the 27 E.U. member states support an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas without requiring Hamas to unconditionally release all its hostages and surrender. At the same time, Hamas is demanding that Israel release 5,000 terrorists in exchange for the remaining hostages and exit Gaza, which would leave Hamas with a significant terrorist force intact. The sheer arrogance of such demands appears irrational, given the crushing military defeat Hamas is suffering and its likely destruction once Israel fully ent...
(JNS) — It’s challenging to remember life in Israel before the Simchat Torah massacre of Oct. 7., but it’s possible. We can remember the horrid Yom Kippur, just 12 days before the massacre, that required police to control and then stop a prayer service. For over a year beforehand, Israelis were at each other’s throats over proposed judicial reforms. Lines were drawn between right and left, religious and secular, north and south, the center and the periphery. On Oct. 7, however, we realized that in a divided society everyone is distrac...
By Mitchell Bard (JNS) - The Biden administration is trying to pressure Israel to accept its idyllic vision of the Middle East by threatening to recognize a Palestinian state. The Israeli government should answer in the immortal words of actor Clint Eastwood in the "Dirty Harry" films: "Go ahead. Make my day." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should explain what will happen the day after the United States makes its announcement. Israel will recognize "Palestine" and inform the...
(JNS) — When I was a child, my grandmother called me her “little shiksa.” In Yiddish, shiksa means a non-Jewish woman. This was meant as a compliment. My grandmother was a glamorous woman who knew a thing or two about beauty and fashion. I loved her immensely, so I clung to the nickname she gave me with pride. At the time, American beauty as shown in magazines and movies was pretty singular: white skin, blue eyes and an upturned nose, the likes of Farrah Fawcett and Christie Brinkley. Dark-skinned Barbie dolls did not exist. At the time, it wa...
(JNS) — While Israeli commandos rescued two elderly men being held hostage in Gaza, Hamas supporters in America were taking an elderly man hostage in Washington, D.C. Hamas may be losing in Gaza, but it’s winning in Michigan. U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib is now the latest Michigan Muslim terror activist to urge Hamas supporters in the state to reject Biden in the primary by casting an “uncommitted” vote. According to Tlaib, who became the only member of Congress to refuse to vote to condemn Hamas rapes of Jewish women, her goal is to “create...
(Jewish Journal via JNS) — It is hard not to despair when one reads about the billions of dollars poured into Gaza, where a “Singapore on the Mediterranean” could have been created. Instead, the funds were used to purchase weapons and build tunnels in an attempt to destroy Israel. It is hard not to despair when, 80 years after the Holocaust, antisemitism has returned with a vengeance, including on the campuses of many universities. It is hard not to despair when political correctness—a movement intended to be inclusive and non-dis...
(CAMERA via JNS) — Her history is so replete with antisemitic rhetoric that multiple governments have condemned her. She doesn’t believe Israel has a right to self-defense. She has legitimized Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre by claiming that Palestinians “are actually forced to resort to armed struggle.” Just over a week ago, she even claimed that the Oct. 7 attack—the deadliest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust—was not antisemitic. Yet, bewilderingly, CNN once again decided to amplify this antisemite’s horrific allegations against the Jew...
(FLAME via JNS)— Refugee crises have afflicted millions of innocent war victims in the last century, but only one has stretched for a record-breaking seven decades — a problem precipitated and perpetuated by Israel’s Arab enemies, including Palestinian Arabs themselves. In 1948, following Israel’s declaration of independence, five Arab nations launched a genocidal war to destroy the nascent Jewish state and annihilate its Jewish population. Despite overwhelming odds, Israel managed to repel the Arab invasion and preserve its indepen...
(JNS) — The media defies satire. “Palestinians in Rafah Describe ‘Night Full of Horror’ During Israeli Hostage Rescue”—New York Times “Dozens reported dead in Rafah strikes as Israel rescues two hostages”—Washington Post “Israeli military says it’s rescued 2 hostages during Rafah raid; Palestinian officials say dozens of Palestinians killed”—CBS News “Israel frees two hostages in Rafah under cover of air strikes, Gaza health officials say 67 killed”—Reuters How bizarre is this coverage? Here’s what normal coverage of a hostage rescue look...
(JNS) — I once heard a story about two Jews back in Russia who got into a terrible argument. Their blood pressure was rising fast. One fellow got so incensed that he shouted, “I am so angry at what you’ve done to me that I… uh… I uh… I know: I won’t go to your funeral!” Whereupon the other guy very calmly replied: “I don’t take revenge. I will go to your funeral.” While other cultures sanction and may even encourage revenge, in Judaism revenge is explicitly forbidden (Leviticus 19:18). Some Muslim countries still practice amputation as a punis...
(JNS) — It is time that the Jewish establishment infrastructure worldwide—and Israel’s government, in particular—recognizes that at this time, the “pro-Palestine resistance” campaign we now witness seeks to terrorize Jews. It is not the “normal” type of antisemitism that we have studied, polled and prepared for. It is the extension of the war of extermination against Israel by eradicating the support of the Jews, and their allies, for the State of Israel. In a recent tweet I saw, Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll expressed her understanding o...
