Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — Nick Ut, a Vietnamese American photographer, snapped the Pulitzer Prize-winning picture on June 8, 1972 of nine-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc, burned by napalm, running naked down a road. She has been known throughout her life as “the girl in the picture.” That war correspondent’s poignant image both captured the brutality of the Vietnam War and greatly influenced American attitudes. A Feb. 8 article in The Wall Street Journal describes the accomplished Sheryl Sandberg “… and Her Mission to Make Sure Oct. 7 Horrors Aren’t Forgotten.” T...
(JNS) — Staffan Tillander, a retired Swedish diplomat, wrote an assessment of terrorist-stronghold territories published by the Jerusalem Strategic Tribune. XX is only estimated to have perhaps 4 to 5000 fighters, but it thrives on rifts and conflicts in society … threatening (the people) into obedience and forcing them to supply the group with support and people. It extorts “taxes” from businesses and individuals and kidnaps children and forces them to become fighters. As long as XX controls land in YY, peace and development will remain...
Speaking at a press conference in Israel in the midst of another whirlwind Middle Eastern trip to seek a resolution to free the 136 hostages held in captivity by Hamas, Israel’s war on Hamas, and presumably reducing the immediate threat from Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iran in general, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a series of remarks that were foolish, and not conducive to a resolution of any of these. It’s shocking and embarrassing that the U.S. Secretary of State would do so, not just because it shows his foolishness on full dis...
(MEMRI via JNS) — In two recent articles published by Saudi website Elaph, Palestinian writer Majdi Abd al-Wahhab directs harsh criticism at Hamas, stating that its Oct. 7 attack against Israel brought nothing but disaster upon the Palestinians people. The following are excerpts from the articles, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute: Jan. 9, 2024 article Anyone who sees the destruction in Gaza, in terms of human lives, buildings, and on the economic, financial and psychological levels, cannot but pray to Allah and ask him t...
(Gatestone Institute) — The Associated Press recently made headlines by falsely claiming that the Israeli campaign against Hamas “sits among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history” and was even worse than “the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II.” The Washington Post argued that “Israel has waged one of this century’s most destructive wars in Gaza,” while The Wall Street Journal contended that it was “generating destruction comparable in scale to the most devastating urban warfare in the modern record.” That’s all the more...
President Biden should be thanked for his executive order to sanction four settlers because, in doing so, he essentially undercut its premise, that there are “particular high levels of extremist settler violence.” He has recognized that only .001 percent of the 517,406 Jews living in the West Bank are engaged in such violence. This gives a better indication than media reports of the true extent of the problem. More names may be added, but it will still represent an infinitesimal fraction of the people his administration has demonized. More imp...
(JNS) — International Holocaust Remembrance Day has perhaps never been more difficult to observe. It should be a day to contemplate the antisemitism that murdered six million Jews. It should be a moment to reject viewing history through an opaque glass. It is a moment when we must embrace the moral clarity that prevent us from repeating the atrocities of the past. Instead, we are faced with a world that refuses to learn. Since Oct. 7, antisemitism has exploded despite the images of the atrocities that are now seared into our memories: The c...
(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reputation as a master political schemer and a cynical seeker of power is so deeply embedded in the public consciousness that there is literally nothing he can do without being accused of acting only to seek some sort of advantage over his opponents. Yet in the current crisis as he seeks to lead his wobbly unity government to achieve what may well be two mutually exclusive objectives—the elimination of Hamas and the freeing of the remaining hostages still being kept captive in Gaza...
(FLAME via JNS) — Hamas’s brutal Oct. 7 massacre unleashed Israel’s enemies across the United States and around the world to demonstrate in support of the terrorist group’s primary objectives—the killing of Jews and destruction of the Jewish state. Many protestors falsely designate Israel a colonial-settler state, asserting—also falsely—that Hamas is justly fighting to liberate a people of color—the Palestinian Arabs. They also maintain erroneously that Jews—as white people—hold a socially privileged position. These beliefs are consistent with...
(JNS) — Since the Oct. 7 massacre, American Jews have experienced attacks that are now burned into our souls: On dozens of campuses and nearby streets, Jews have been screamed at, attacked, hectored, threatened and bullied — and did not fight back. These images are humiliating, and all the more so because our historical experience has taught us that not responding with force has consequences: The easier Jews are to bully, the more we are attacked. The bleating of the sheep excites the tiger. Our exclusively non-violent reaction to the current w...
Dear Editor: The following are considerations that I hope reflect in part what will cause the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision by unanimous vote: 1. The purpose of Amendment XIV Section 3 was to keep officials from the rebellious states who violated their oath to support the Constitution of the United States from serving in the U.S. government. 2. The demonstration on Jan. 6, 2021, to cause the vice president to delay certification election results pending appropriate investigations of documented violations of...
(JNS) — The images from the war Hamas launched against Israel on Oct. 7 have tugged at the heartstrings of Americans. By that, I don’t refer to the charred ruins of Israeli communities in southern Israel that were devastated by the Hamas pogroms. Nor do I refer to the horrifying evidence of that terrorist rampage of murder, rape, torture and kidnapping that is too graphic for most people to bear. As far as the international media is concerned, those victims were quickly forgotten almost as soon as the murder spree happened and then erased fro...
(JNS) — Throughout its 75-year history, the State of Israel has always been forced to fight with one arm tied behind its back. In the 1956 Suez Canal crisis, pressure from both the United States and the Soviet Union forced Israel and her allies to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula, thwarting Israel’s war aims. After Israel’s 1967 victory in the Six-Day War, the U.N. Security Council called on Israel to give up the territory it secured by right of conquest. In the 21st century, Israel has repeatedly faced intense pressure from misguided leade...
(JNS) — The Zionist community isn’t used to being accused of hypocrisy. Usually, it feels that it is held to a double and hypocritical standard. But there is one issue on which Israel is seemingly guilty of hypocrisy. Palestinians and their advocates often chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” They display maps of a Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. This erases Israel and implies the expulsion or slaughter of Israeli Jews. When Zionists condemn such maps, they are accused of having similar...
(JNS) — Seven years ago this month, then-Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged that the $150 billion in sanctions relief the Obama administration was providing to Iran’s rulers would—to a greater or lesser extent—fund terrorism. “I think that some of it will end up in the hands of the IRGC [Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] or other entities, some of which are labeled terrorists,” he said in an interview with CNBC. He added: “We are confident that this will not result in an increase somehow in the threat to any partner or any...
(JNS) — The Children of Israel were caught, quite literally, “between the devil and the deep blue sea.” Pharaoh and his chariots were in hot pursuit of the newly freed Israelites and caught up to them as they reached the sea. With nowhere to turn, panic and pandemonium broke out. But Moses told the people to calm down: “Have no fear! Stand fast and see God’s salvation that He will perform for you today! You may be seeing the Egyptians today, but you will never see them again! God will do battle for you and you shall remain silent.” As Moses rai...
(JNS) — It is often said that the purpose of U.S. foreign aid is to project American power and values. Unfortunately, year after year, decade after decade, the only thing consistent about U.S. foreign aid is that the money continues to flow regardless of the behavior of the recipients. In 2023 alone, the U.S. government took over $43 billion in taxpayer money and sent that money abroad. Did the government send that money to our friends? Well, sometimes. But sometimes your tax dollars went to countries better described as “frenemies.” And often,...
(JNS) — The mutilating of the bodies of Jews, beheading and amputating of their organs were known in the 1948 War of Independence. Ilana Hadani-Danieli recalls the destiny of her brother, Amos Danieli, one of eight soldiers whose bodies were left on the battlefield when Battalion 52 of the Givati Brigade had retreated from the Arabic village of Tel Arish near Holon (April 28, 1948): “Many days passed until the extent of the atrocities were discovered—remains of bodies and severed limbs of five soldiers. Due to the vandalism, they could not b...
(JNS) — This is a tough time for American Jews. Antisemitism has erupted to an unprecedented extent. We thought we were at home in America, but no such luck. A few months ago, following the Oct. 7 massacre, a friend who is a major donor to Jewish, Israeli and American organizations said to me that Jews might have to leave America, just as we have left—willingly or unwillingly—many countries in the past. Another friend told me that he and all of his liberal friends are being forced to rethink what it means to be a liberal Jew in America. At th...
(JNS) —When Biden decided to take the Houthis off the Foreign Terrorist Organization list, under the false flag of a “famine” that (like the Hamas Gaza “famine”) was a propaganda ploy by the Iranian-backed terrorists themselves, he helped pave the way for the current Red Sea crisis. And even now, rather than putting the Houthis back on the FTO list, he’s moving them to the specially designated global terrorist list. Most people don’t know the difference, but it’s a huge one; It’s illegal to fund FTO terrorists. The Biden administration ha...
(JNS) — One of the characteristics of Arabists is that they are incapable of admitting or learning from mistakes. Secretary of Arabism (U.S. Secretary of State) Antony Blinken, continues to be the poster adult for their obliviousness. In the latest example, he channels his equally clueless predecessor, former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. For those with short memories, like journalists covering the Middle East, here’s what Kerry said in 2016: I’ve talked to the leaders of the Arab community, there will be no advanced and separate peace...
There are many areas of agreement between Jews and Christians. For example, both emphasize the foundational importance of loving God and loving one’s neighbor, as well as the importance of living by the ethical ideals of the Torah and the Prophets. Both emphasize a final Day of Judgment where we give account for our lives before God. There are many more. Since Oct. 7, there have been obscene and outrageous lies and slander, along with tangible and genocidal threats against Israel and the Jewish people all over the world. One would be f...
(JNS) — Last week, South Africa formally accused Israel before the United Nations’ International Court of Justice of committing “genocide” against the Palestinian people. While it will be years before any final decision is rendered, the court does have the power to issue an injunction against Israel’s war effort and demand a ceasefire. Of course, it has no ability to enforce any such injunction. That would require action from the U.N. Security Council, where the United States would—one hopes and presumes—exercise its veto power over such a r...
(JNS) — A week after the horrors of Oct. 7, when the Biden administration first convinced Israel to open up the siege of Gaza and allow in international aid, it promised Hamas would not get it. “If Hamas in any way blocks humanitarian assistance from reaching civilians, including by seizing the aid itself, we’ll be the first to condemn it. And we will work to prevent it from happening again,” Secretary of State Blinken pledged. The problem with such a promise was obvious once Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer struggled to explain...
(JNS) — Council on American-Islamic Relations Los Angeles executive director Hussam Ayloush recently defended Hamas’s barbaric slaughter of 1,200 Jewish, Thai, Filipino, Bedouin and other men, women and children. He claimed Israel is “an occupier” that “does not have the right to defend itself.” He condemned Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza and said only Palestinians have “a right of self-defense.” His assertions reflect language in the charters of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Hamas. Israel is an “imperialist, colonialist, racist...
