Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(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...
Israel’s 17-year coexistence policy with Hamas died on Oct. 7. Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip from 1948-1967 until they lost it to Israel in the 1967 6-Day War. Between June 5-10, 1967, Israel conquered the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Egypt, Jordan, and Syria attacked Israel on three fronts, outnumbering the Jewish people three to one, and failed to destroy the State of Israel. The Right of Conquest is a right of ownership to land after immediate possession via force of arms. Israel owns t...
(JNS) — The world feels like it’s on fire, with flames spreading in diverse directions. If the Jewish state was not at center stage, however, there would not have been any smoke. Ukrainians wonder why no fuss was made over Russia’s invasion of their country nearly two years ago. Twenty thousand Ukrainian children were kidnapped. No posters exist for them; no one is tearing down posters, insisting that it’s all propaganda. What a difference a change of scenery and age-old antisemitism makes. Ukrainians shouldn’t feel too neglected, though. T...
(JNS) — In the end, not even the support of former President Barack Obama and one of his former cabinet members was enough to save Claudine Gay from being forced out as president of Harvard University. Nor did the initial support of the Harvard Corporation itself, the endorsement of much of the Harvard faculty or the student newspaper allow Gay to remain in office at one of the nation’s most prestigious academic institutions. After a month of controversy that began with her appalling testimony in front of Congress on Dec. 5, along with the pre...
(JNS) — Forty-five years ago this month, a revolution was underway in Iran. It was called an Iranian revolution but its leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, had a more ambitious project in mind: the founding of a new Islamic empire that would project power throughout the Middle East and far beyond. In 1989, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei succeeded Khomeini as “supreme leader” of the misleadingly named Islamic Republic of Iran. Like his predecessor, he has repeatedly and relentlessly vowed “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.” And he’s elaborat...
(JNS) — I have a secret that I’ve never told anyone before. For more than 20 years, it’s been too embarrassing and traumatic to revisit. But the time has come to share the story. Believe it or not, the whole situation arose because I was completing a college assignment. I studied at the University of Rhode Island and, for the most part, loved every minute of it. The education was classically liberal, although it seemed that the student body was not as politically motivated as, say, the Ivy League schools. In my senior year, I took a commu...
(JNS) — In his final book, “No Room for Small Dreams,” former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres wrote: “I have spent most of the better part of my life in pursuit of peace, and in doing so I have learned … making peace is not a simple endeavor. It is a constant struggle. But its complexity should not overshadow its purpose.” Today, Israel is at war with the terrorist group Hamas in the pursuit of long-term peace, and Shimon Peres’ words are more important than ever. Though the world expressed its horror at Hamas’s inhuman Oct. 7 massacre...
(JNS) — While antisemitic riots in support of Hamas are breaking out in cities across America, few if any such protests seem to be taking place in the Arab or Muslim world. One does not hear about outbreaks of violence in support of Hamas in the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Jordan. In that part of the world, one can find support for Hamas only among America’s enemies like Iran and its terrorist proxies: Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and gangs of jihadis in Syria and Iraq. There is a good reason for this: Our all...
(JNS) — Following Israel’s 2006 war in Lebanon, veteran journalist Marvin Kalb, senior fellow at Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, detailed how Hezbollah manipulated the press. A similar report can be written when the war with Hamas is over. In the following excerpts, substitute Hamas for Hezbollah. Israel is automatically at a disadvantage in any conflict because it is an open society. “During the war,” Kalb noted, “no Hezbollah secrets were disclosed, but in Israel, secrets were leaked, rumors spre...
(JNS) — The coming of a New Year is an appropriate time for retrospection. I’ve been thinking about December 2001. Like many Americans, I was traumatized by the horrific images of the Sept. 11 attacks. And like many Americans, I wanted to do something useful in response. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t make the cut for Delta Force. But, with help from former U.N. Amb. Jeane Kirkpatrick and former Rep. Jack Kemp, I began setting up a research institute to study the regimes, organizations and ideologies driving and justifying terrorism, to formu...
Yes, that’s right. I agree with AOC. No, these were not words I ever expected I’d put together in the same sentence much less in that order. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is hateful, reckless, dangerous, factually challenged, and a member of the extremist wing of the Democratic Party. Other than the sun rising in the day and setting at night, and the existence of gravity (I assume she agrees), there’s nothing I can think of that I ever would have agreed on with her. This highlights the saying that even a broken clock is right once...
(JNS) — Yemen’s Houthi terrorist movement recently made international headlines due to its attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. Initially a Zaydi Shi’ite response to perceived marginalization, the Houthis have become a powerful force in Yemen’s brutal civil war thanks to the Iranian regime’s sponsorship, as shown by the Houthis’ successful conquest of the capital Sana’a in 2014. The Zaydi Shi’ites are located in Yemen’s Saada province. Once dominant, Zaydism declined in the 20th century, and the Houthis first emerged in the 1980s as a Zaydi...
(JNS) — The repeatedly proposed remedy for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a “two-state solution,” with Arabs and Jews living side by side, happily ever after. But these magical words, as enticing as they may seem, are little more than fantasy. Its recent proponents, predictably in The New York Times (Dec. 21), are R. David Harden, a senior adviser to former President Barack Obama’s special envoy for Middle East peace, and Larry Garber, a former U.S. Agency for International Government mission director to the West Bank and Gaza Strip....
There are reports circulating Israel of high-level talks involving negotiations to release more of the hostages brutally kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 and held captive in Gaza since. Reports of the hostages’ conditions from the 100+ who have been released are horrifying. They have suffered physical and psychological torture, starvation, held in underground cages in complete darkness, and suffered violent sexual assaults including gang raping women. Speculation is that many are dead, as some of the hostages’ bodies have been fou...
By 5 p.m. EST., on Tuesday, Dec. 19, the U.N. Security Council was supposed to vote on a resolution to stop the war in Gaza to deal with the humanitarian crisis in the enclave. By 3:45 p.m., word came out the vote was delayed for a day and is expected today, on Wednesday, if consensus is achieved. The reason for the delay is simple: the draft demanded a “cessation” of the war, effectively blocking Israel’s stated objective to decimate Hamas terrorist organization. And ignored Israel’s right to self-defense. The clearest indication that such a...
(JNS) — An Israeli mental-health professional shared with a small group of visiting Americans how the remains of those who were savagely murdered on Oct. 7 were lovingly handled. Breathing slowly, she described how ZAKA, the volunteer organization that handles victim identification after disasters and terrorist attacks, diligently goes about collecting body parts, and then arranges refrigerated transportation and ritual observances for the dead. She humbly said that when a deceased person was inappropriately handled, maybe bumped, the worker w...
I suddenly woke up this morning at 3:16 a.m., and knew I had to write this article. I recently went on a trip to Israel. The country is in the middle of a war and the people are grieving. I went with a Christian organization, CityServe, and also with the support of another Christian ministry. When I boarded the EL AL plane, a woman said “you know there is a war going on there, right?” The trip changed my life. I am a neurosurgeon in Orlando, and I have lived here since 1999. As I get older, I am constantly looking for a purpose to justify my...
