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Jewish Journal

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April 14, 2016

Trump ‘disappointed’ with Netanyahu over cancelled Israel trip

Leave a Comment / Election 2016, United States /

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement repudiating his proposed plan to ban all Muslims entering the United States was disappointing, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told Jewish Insider on Thursday.

“He said something that wasn’t as positive as I would have liked, and I cancelled it,” Trump told Jewish Insider. “I did not particularly like his statement.”

Trump ‘postponed’ his planned trip to Israel in December 2015, just a day after Prime Minister Netanyahu condemned his proposal to ban U.S. travel for all Muslims. “I have decided to postpone my trip to Israel and to schedule my meeting with @Netanyahu at a later date after I become President of the U.S.,” Trump tweeted.

Trump had planned to meet with Netanyahu December 28 in Israel, but shortly after the meeting was reported, the prime minister’s office sent out a statement rejecting Trump’s comments about Muslims. “Prime Minister Netanyahu rejects Donald Trump’s recent remarks about Muslims,” the statement said. “The State of Israel respects all religions and strictly guarantees the rights of all its citizens. At the same time, Israel is fighting against militant Islam that targets Muslims, Christians and Jews alike and threatens the entire world.”

“I like him. I have always liked him,” Trump said on Netanyahu. “I was disappointed in his statement. He didn’t say, ‘Don’t come.’ In fact, it was the opposite. But I didn’t like his statement. That wasn’t necessarily the reason I didn’t go, but I didn’t like his statement.”

Trump made the comments in an on-the-record meeting with representatives of Jewish news media outlets and community leaders on the 25th floor of Trump Tower in Manhattan. He answered questions about Israeli settlements, the peace process, U.S. foreign aid and his relationship with the Jewish community.

When asked a question about his views on Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Trump pointed to his aide Jason Greenblatt, whom he said advises him on Israel-related issues, to respond.

A recent poll  Trump ‘disappointed’ with Netanyahu over cancelled Israel trip Read More »

In America, politicians pay for bucking Netanyahu

Leave a Comment / United States /

This article originally appeared at ” target=”_blank”>Sienna Institute Research poll shows her leading Sanders 52 percent to 42 percent, and 60 percent to 38 percent among Jews.

Sanders is up against a powerful voice. Netanyahu has become a force in trying to get American Jews to support his policy of expanding settlements in Israel and taking an increasingly harsh line against Palestinians. He is a great ally of Republicans and a dedicated foe of any American president supporting an acceptable Israel agreement with the Palestinians, going back to the first President Bush and most especially singling out President Barack Obama.

His political team in Israel and in the United States has helped create a network of conservative Jews, mostly on the Republican side, which supports ” target=”_blank”>meeting with the New York Daily News editorial board and was a bit muddy in his answers.

Asked about negotiations with the Palestinians, he said, “I lived in Israel. I have family in Israel. I believe 100 percent not only in Israel’s right to exist, a right to exist in peace and security without having to face terrorist attacks. But from the United States’ point of view, I think, long-term, we cannot ignore the reality that you have large numbers of Palestinians who are suffering now poverty rates off the charts, unemployment off the charts, Gaza remaining a destroyed area. … [T]here are good people on both sides, and Israel … cannot just simply expand when it wants to expand with more settlements. So I think the United States has got to help work with the Palestinian people as well. I think that is the path toward peace. … If the expansion [of settlements] was illegal, moving into territory that was not their territory, I think withdrawal from those territories is appropriate.”

That all makes sense to Zionists like me, who can’t stand Netanyahu’s persona or his expansionist policies. But Sanders was being interviewed in New York, where the slightest slip means trouble.

And slip he did. Talking of the number of Palestinians killed when the Israelis assaulted Gaza to stop terrorist attacks on Israel, he said, “My recollection is over 10,000 innocent people were killed in Gaza. Does that sound right? … My understanding is a whole lot of apartment houses were leveled. Hospitals, I think, were bombed. So yeah, I do believe and I don’t think I am alone in believing Israel’s force was more indiscriminate than it should have been.”

As he later admitted, Sanders got the numbers wrong. The Intercept wrote that a week after the conclusion of the fighting, the U.N. reported that 2,131 Palestinians had been killed in the Israeli bombardment, ” target=”_blank”>she told the Daily News editorial board, “that I will continue, as I did as senator, as I did as secretary of state, to do anything and everything for their security; that I will continue to speak out against the ” target=”_blank”>J Street, a liberal Jewish organization that favors a two-state solution, he expressed sympathy for innocent Palestinian victims.

That no doubt doomed him with the Netanyahu set. But Clinton, if she wins the nomination and the presidency, will also come up against Netanyahu’s no-compromise insistence on more settlements and more limitations on Palestinian power. And with his perpetual campaigning for support among right-wing Republicans, he probably won’t give up American politics.

In the end, an American president will have to—as Obama has done—remind Netanyahu that he is prime minister of Israel, and that he can’t dictate American policies.

In America, politicians pay for bucking Netanyahu Read More »

The Malicious Anti-Israel Lie Told by Jews.

Leave a Comment / Blogs, Election 2016, United States /

“Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic!”

That is a great lie.  It’s told by Jews.  It hurts Jews.  It damages Israel.

It’s a lie because it’s meant to silence those who speak against anti-Israel rhetoric.

It’s a lie because it’s propagated by those who are the enemies of Jews and of Israel.

It’s a lie because it hits us as a truth embracing the ideology of critiquing without judgment, but…

It’s a lie because it misses “unless…” at its end.

The truth is that “not all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic, unless…”
1- The critic is anti-Semitic;
2- The critic is anti-Israel;
3- The critic has not spoken, nor acted lovingly toward Jews or toward Israel.

The “N” word can only be used by African Americans and even then it’s damaging.  In fact, blacks who use this word diminish the race.  We Jews must guard our tongue and be careful when criticizing Israel.  People of high stature who publicly and harshly critique Israel merely hand over ammunition to our enemies who use these words against us.

There is a joke about two Jews in a room having three opinions.  Our Talmudic studies are based on argument and disagreement.  But there is a huge difference between healthy discourse among family members and singing in the choir with our enemies.  Israel is a tiny country among a sea of foes who would love to see her total annihilation.  Just read the headlines from neighboring Iran.  We Jews too are few in number.

When, last year, Amos Oz declared that he will no longer attend events hosted by Israeli embassies abroad, as a protest against “extremist Israeli policies” he gave support to the BDS movement.

When Bernie Sanders does not attend AIPAC, exaggerates Gaza casualties twice and places no blame on Hamas, he emboldens anti-Israeli terrorist groups.

When Sanders’ Jewish outreach director, Simone Zimmermann writes “F&ck you, Bibi… you sanctioned the murder of over 2,000 people this summer…”  who needs enemies with such “friends?”
David Ben-Gurion said a long time ago – and he was right – that our conflict is not about Jews and Arabs, but about Jews and the world- a world that is by large not Jewish, a world that should  bear certain responsibilities toward its Jewish minority.

Natan Sharansky, an Israeli leader and former Soviet “refusenik” identified the “3 D’s” to determine when anti-Israel criticism crosses over into anti-Semitism:  demonization, delegitimization and when Israel is held to a double standard.  We must speak up against injustice.  We must hold Israel to a higher standard. 

But, we should criticize our beloved land cautiously and responsibly without arming our enemies.
 

The Malicious Anti-Israel Lie Told by Jews. Read More »

You’ll Never Forget the Word Hyssop – A poem for Metzora

Leave a Comment / Blogs /

Two live birds, a cedar stick, a strip of crimson, and hyssop.
(I’ll give you a minute to look up “hyssop”…still here? OK
it’s a plant.) Sounds like Better Homes and Gardens gone wild.

Parents: you may want to send the children into the other room.
Not indoors? Have them commingle in the hyssop shrubbery.
(Once you use a word twice, you own it.)

Let’s cut to the chase: One of the birds isn’t going to make it,
and after all the slaughtering and the dipping and, I’m really
not sure what’s happening with the cedar plank, but

all of this is leading to you being purified. Did I mention
you’re going to have to shave off all your hair? My Adonai!
If that happened to me, we’d be here ’til the end of Deuteronomy.

The priestly class would be growing entire beards while I
painstakingly shaved mine off. Please don’t picture this.
Please don’t picture any of this. If you’re the children,

why on Earth are you reading this and not frolicking
amongst the hyssop? For the love of Yud Hey Vav Hey
don’t, under any circumstances, read chapters fifteen on.

There are certain things you don’t need to know about.
Not yet anyway. But take comfort knowing the Torah
covers every possible circumstance. Every bit of knowledge

you will need is in there. You’ll know what to do when
lesions appear on your house. You’ll know what to do
when they migrate to your clothes. You’ll know what to do

when it reaches your skin. The birds, the stick, the crimson,
the hyssop. Now’s a good time to put in a ritual jacuzzi.
You’ve got immersing to do. But don’t forget what

got you here. A slip of the tongue. A mistranslated word.
An evil sentiment voiced against another. This is the
kind of thing that can get your house purified out

of existence. This is why the gas leaks come. This is why
the pipes sometimes break. This is why every person you meet,
despite their appearance, should be treated like a goldmine

of possibility. You are the living bird. You are the spring water.
You are the fields of hyssop along the Mediterranean coast.
If you can use the word hyssop seven times in a single poem

you can do anything.

You’ll Never Forget the Word Hyssop – A poem for Metzora Read More »