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Joe Biden wins over new fans after standing by Israel in its war with Hamas

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Fred Zeidman is a longtime Republican Jewish Committee leader who has been deeply critical of Joe Biden. He is backing Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations, in her bid to unseat him.

So it was uncharacteristic when he praised a speech Biden gave before flying to Israel this week. 

“I said, ‘I’m not going to say one thing bad about this guy,’” Zeidman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I think this is probably the most genuine impassioned speech I have ever heard from a sitting American president.”

Zeidman was far from the only right-wing Jew to be won over by Biden during the last two weeks, as the president has delivered unqualified support for Israel’s war against Hamas, launched in response to the terror group’s deadly invasion on Oct. 7. 

“While I have been, and remain, deeply critical of the Biden Administration, the moral, tactical, diplomatic and military support that it has provided Israel over the past few days has been exceptional,” David Friedman, Donald Trump’s ambassador to Israel, said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter

In Israel, where Trump was popular, Biden’s approval rating has shot up. A commentator on Israel’s Channel 14, a right-wing outlet that has lacerated Biden since his election, addressed him directly four days after the attack.

“Forgive us, for all that hard things that we said, and all that we thought,” said the commentator, Shay Golden. “Thank you, Mr. President, truly, thank you, thank you.”

For those who have long been on Biden’s side, his support for Israel comes as little surprise. His diplomatic ties to the country are longstanding, his affection frequently expressed. 

“He gets the DNA of Zionism,” David Makovsky, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who was a staffer in the Obama administration working on Israeli-Palestinian peace. “He just gets the idea of Israel. He has said no Jew is safe if there’s no Israel and basically, that’s what Zionism says, which is that stateless Jews are defenseless.”

Yet in a polarized political climate, even Biden’s pro-Israel bona fides have been dismissed by many on the right. The pro-Israel community in the United States and Israeli officials disdained the Middle East policy of President Barack Obama, under whom Biden served as vice president; in particular, they felt that Obama’s deal with Iran put Israel at risk. Many Republicans have mocked Biden’s age and foibles, saying they are evidence of his inability to serve at 80. And even those who might not have quarreled with Biden himself have worried that the Democratic Party is coming under the sway of progressives who are deeply critical of Israel.

Biden’s actions since Oct. 7 appear to have put all of those concerns to rest. Immediately after the attack, he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and warned Israel’s enemies not to exploit its vulnerability. Two days later, he draped the White House in the blue and white colors of the Israeli flag, saying “this is not some distant tragedy.” The next day, he addressed the nation, calling the attack “pure, unadulterated evil”.

Biden instructed his Jewish liaisons to brief the Jewish community, including on the measures he was taking to protect American Jews. He personally dropped by a White House briefing for Jewish leaders and said he was doing everything he could to release hostages. 

He sent his secretary of state, Antony Blinken, on an extended Middle East tour to show support for Israel and garner backing from regional allies. He also ordered two aircraft carriers to the region.

“My message to any state or any other hostile actor thinking about attacking Israel remains the same as it was a week ago: Don’t. Don’t. Don’t,” Biden said on Wednesday.

The comment came during Biden’s lightning trip to Israel, where in less than 24 hours he sat in on a government meeting, met with and hugged survivors of the attack and delivered a searing speech in which he described the stages of Jewish mourning.

The visit came amid surging calls for Israel to cease bombing Gaza in its effort to quash Hamas. Seth Mandel, writing in the conservative Commentary magazine, praised Biden for resisting those calls from within his own party. “Everything in Biden’s speech today and his general demeanor …  suggest he takes the inevitability of a ground incursion for granted and is uninterested in saving Hamas,” Mandel said.

Rejecting widespread criticism of Israel, Biden said upon his arrival in Tel Aviv that he believed Israeli claims that an explosion at a Gaza City hospital was the fault of Islamist terrorists. 

He repeated that insistence during his Oval Office address on Thursday night, a rare step signifying special concern. “I am heartbroken by the tragic loss of Palestinian life, including the explosion at a hospital in Gaza — which was not done by the Israelis,” he said.

In his speech, he said attacks on Israel (and Ukraine) amounted to an attack on democracy and appealed to Congress for billions in additional defense assistance for Israel.

“He has absolutely come through in the clutch,” Zeidman said.

A photo of Biden’s face, with the massive caption, “Thank you, Mr. President,” newly graces a billboard overlooking Tel Aviv’s Ayalon highway.  Moshe Lion, the mayor of Jerusalem and a member of the right-wing Likud Party, draped Jerusalem monuments with coupled Israeli and U.S. flags, and in a statement said the display was to honor Biden’s visit, although the president did not come to Jerusalem.

“From the beginning of the conflict, the president has stood with us firmly, assisting Israel and providing a powerful and meaningful voice against the terrible acts that have occurred in the South and against the threats from our enemies in the North,” Lion said. (Israeli troops are exchanging fire with Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terrorist group that, like Hamas, is backed by Iran.) 

The Israeli satirical show “Eretz Nehederet” aired a joke similar to the comments that crop up among Israelis on social media: Israelis need a leader, and it is Biden, not Netanyahu.

Biden’s lightning visit, his vivid empathy in his departure speech, and his visits with victims and heroes of the Oct. 7 attacks filled a leadership gap in Israel, said Tal Schneider, an Israeli political journalist who is closely watching the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

“People are in such shock, but they were heartwarmed and they felt embraced and many people said to me, ‘This is the first time that we see a leader,’ because since the war began… they did not hear anything with empathy, “ she said. 

“The government here, it seems like they don’t really care,” she said, referring to widespread dissatisfaction with Netanyahu, and the perception that in addition to failing to prevent the attack, he has been absent since it occurred.  “People thought that this is our father, you know, what I mean?” she said of Biden. “He came to the rescue, with all the American might.” 

The display has rehabilitated Biden’s image in the country, according to Amir Tibon, a journalist for the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz whose father rescued his family on Oct. 7 and who was among the Israelis to meet with the U.S. president this week.

“Most Israelis heard over the last few years derogatory things about Biden due to his advanced age,” Tibon wrote in Haaretz. “Those who had the honor of meeting him Wednesday afternoon saw his age from another perspective, one of life experience and wisdom.” Tibon called Biden “the most important Zionist leader in the world.”

At home, too, the perception of Biden among many of his critics has shifted.

“In a world that pretends Israel has no right to exist, much less defend itself, Biden has shown tremendous moral courage at a key moment, despite criticism from his own party,” said a statement from Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer,  the chairman of the Rabbinic Circle of the Coalition for Jewish Values, a right-wing Orthodox group that has also consistently criticized Democratic policies.

“The president’s actions since the massacre reflect the American people’s steadfast support for the Jewish state and underscore the shared Western values that serve as the foundation for the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Shari Dollinger, the co-executive director of Christians United for Israel, a group consistently critical of Democratic policies, said in a text message.

And a rabbi from the Orthodox community in Woodmere, New York, a redoubt of Jewish Trump supporters, solicited and delivered 18,000 letters of thanks to Biden.

Non-Jewish right-wing voices have also been won over by Biden. “I think It may be remembered as one of the best, if not the best, speeches of his presidency,” Brit Hume, a commentator on Fox News, said after the Oval Office speech. “He was as strong as he has been, particularly in recent days — before he went to Israel and while he was over there.”

Some Republicans remain skeptical if not hostile. Trump continues to say that he would do better than Biden at protecting Israel (although he alienated Israelis by praising Hezbollah and blaming Israel’s leadership for the Hamas incursion). Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, citing differences of policy with the Biden administration over humanitarian funding for the Palestinians, and an aid-for-hostages deal with Iran, accused Biden of helming the “most consistently and virulently anti-Israel administration America has ever seen.”

And even those Jewish conservatives praising Biden in the moment, including Zeidman, Friedman and Mandel, remain in a watchful wait-and-see mode. Zeidman said he wants Biden to more directly identify Iran as a hostile actor behind the attack.

“If there’s one thing that might have concerned me just a little bit, he has yet to mention Iran,” he said. (Biden’s aides have said that Iran bears some blame to the extent that it funds and trains Hamas, but they have yet to see direct evidence that Iran was involved in the Hamas invasion.)

Republicans have in the past sought fodder to attack Biden on Israel-related policy. One story that persistently crops up describes his encounter with the late Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. According to the story, penned by a Begin confidante just after the former prime minister’s death in 1992, a decade after the fact, Biden had yelled at Begin, and threatened to cut aid to Israel if Begin did not stop settlement building.

“Don’t threaten us with slashing aid,” Begin said in their 1982 meeting in a room in the U.S, Capitol, according to that account. “Do you think that because the U.S. lends us money it is entitled to impose on us what we must do? We are grateful for the assistance we have received, but we are not to be threatened. I am a proud Jew. Three thousand years of culture are behind me, and you will not frighten me with threats.”

Except, according to someone in the meeting, that’s not quite how it happened: Biden, who was solidly pro-Israel, asked Begin how he planned to explain controversial Israeli policies. The senator was not criticizing the policies, but Begin, famously prickly, took it as criticism, said Mike Kraft, who at the time was a staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“It wasn’t a hostile or critical thing, but Begin just kind of let loose on him,”  Kraft recalled in an interview this week. 

“We’re just like, pretty neutral question,” Kraft said of the people in the room. “And Begin fired back, and I remember a couple other staff who were looking around saying what’s going on?” He chuckled at the recollection.

The Republican Jewish Coalition over the years deployed the purported Begin encounter against Biden, including in a Facebook post in 2019, just after Biden announced his intention to unseat Donald Trump.

Yet last week, its CEO, Matt Brooks, was praising Biden to the New York Times — just two weeks before all the major Republican presidential candidates will speak to RJC donors at its annual conference in Las Vegas.

“This will sound surprising, but by and large, the president has shown tremendous support, unwavering support, for Israel at a critical time,” Brooks told the Times.  “Can we quibble on aspects of policy differences, over Iran’s complicity, for instance? Sure. But by and large, the American people and the international community have seen a president who has stood shoulder to shoulder with Israel.” (Brooks declined to comment to JTA, instead referring to his Times interview.) 

And then there’s Biden’s famous Golda Meir story. When Joe Biden spoke to an Israeli embassy Independence Day bash in 2015, he knew the anecdote was old hat — he’d been telling versions of it for 42 years — but he wanted to tell it anyway.

“I’ll conclude — and my friends kid me and I imagine Ron does as well,” the then-Vice President said, glancing at the then-Israeli ambassador, Ron Dermer. “I’ll tell you the story about my meeting with Golda Meir.” 

There was knowing laughter on the balmy April evening in the cavernous Andrew Mellon auditorium across from the National Mall: Jewish media reporters, who had for years covered Biden, glanced at each other and knocked back a little wine. Biden recalling Golda had become a drinking game.

The parameters of the story were familiar: He was a neophyte Delaware senator in the fall of 1973, barely 30 years old. She was the wizened, chain-smoking prime minister. He conveyed to her his sense that Israel’s enemies were about to launch a war. She seemed pessimistic too. (The Yom Kippur War would surprise Israel within days.) She asked him if he wanted to pose for a photograph. They stepped outside of her office.

“She said, ‘Senator, you look so worried,’” he said. “I said, ‘Well, my God, Madame Prime Minister,’ and I turned to look at her. I said, ‘The picture you paint.’ She said, ‘Oh, don’t worry. We have’ — I thought she only said this to me. She said, ‘We have a secret weapon in our conflict with the Arabs. You see, we have no place else to go.’”

The 2015 speech was aimed at assuaging tensions between his boss, President Barack Obama, and Dermer’s boss, Netanyahu, over the Iran nuclear deal Obama was brokering that year. That tension was what led the coverage of the speech.

But buried toward the end of the speech was a prophecy, made by a vice president and fulfilled by the same man once he became president: America would bring its military night to bear on Israel’s behalf, if it came to that.

“The most admirable thing about you is you’ve never asked us to fight for you,” he said in 2015.  “But I promise you, if you were attacked and overwhelmed, we would fight for you.”

Biden has repeated the Golda story — now 50 years in the telling — more than once since Oct. 7. And now, the quote he attributes to Meir is emblazoned on a cafe wall in Tel Aviv, with his signature and Meir’s.


The post Joe Biden wins over new fans after standing by Israel in its war with Hamas appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire

Explosions send smoke into the air in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, July 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen

The spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing said on Friday that while the Palestinian terrorist group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations it could revert to insisting on a full package deal to end the conflict.

Hamas has previously offered to release all the hostages held in Gaza and conclude a permanent ceasefire agreement, and Israel has refused, Abu Ubaida added in a televised speech.

Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than 10 days of talks on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce in the war.

Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on a call he had with Pope Leo on Friday that Israel‘s efforts to secure a hostage release deal and 60-day ceasefire “have so far not been reciprocated by Hamas.”

As part of the potential deal, 10 hostages held in Gaza would be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.

“If the enemy remains obstinate and evades this round as it has done every time before, we cannot guarantee a return to partial deals or the proposal of the 10 captives,” said Abu Ubaida.

Disputes remain over maps of Israeli army withdrawals, aid delivery mechanisms into Gaza, and guarantees that any eventual truce would lead to ending the war, said two Hamas officials who spoke to Reuters on Friday.

The officials said the talks have not reached a breakthrough on the issues under discussion.

Hamas says any agreement must lead to ending the war, while Netanyahu says the war will only end once Hamas is disarmed and its leaders expelled from Gaza.

Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Over 250 hostages were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.

Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.

The post Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel

People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas

Iran on Friday marked the 31st anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires by slamming Argentina for what it called “baseless” accusations over Tehran’s alleged role in the terrorist attack and accusing Israel of politicizing the atrocity to influence the investigation and judicial process.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the anniversary of Argentina’s deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.

“While completely rejecting the accusations against Iranian citizens, the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns attempts by certain Argentine factions to pressure the judiciary into issuing baseless charges and politically motivated rulings,” the statement read.

“Reaffirming that the charges against its citizens are unfounded, the Islamic Republic of Iran insists on restoring their reputation and calls for an end to this staged legal proceeding,” it continued.

Last month, a federal judge in Argentina ordered the trial in absentia of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of orchestrating the attack in Buenos Aires.

The ten suspects set to stand trial include former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, all of whom are subject to international arrest warrants issued by Argentina for their alleged roles in the terrorist attack.

In its statement on Friday, Iran also accused Israel of influencing the investigation to advance a political campaign against the Islamist regime in Tehran, claiming the case has been used to serve Israeli interests and hinder efforts to uncover the truth.

“From the outset, elements and entities linked to the Zionist regime [Israel] exploited this suspicious explosion, pushing the investigation down a false and misleading path, among whose consequences was to disrupt the long‑standing relations between the people of Iran and Argentina,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.

“Clear, undeniable evidence now shows the Zionist regime and its affiliates exerting influence on the Argentine judiciary to frame Iranian nationals,” the statement continued.

In April, lead prosecutor Sebastián Basso — who took over the case after the 2015 murder of his predecessor, Alberto Nisman — requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the attack.

Since 2006, Argentine authorities have sought the arrest of eight Iranians — including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 — yet more than three decades after the deadly bombing, all suspects remain still at large.

In a post on X, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, released a statement commemorating the 31st anniversary of the bombing.

“It was a brutal attack on Argentina, its democracy, and its rule of law,” the group said. “At DAIA, we continue to demand truth and justice — because impunity is painful, and memory is a commitment to both the present and the future.”

Despite Argentina’s longstanding belief that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group carried out the devastating attack at Iran’s request, the 1994 bombing has never been claimed or officially solved.

Meanwhile, Tehran has consistently denied any involvement and refused to arrest or extradite any suspects.

To this day, the decades-long investigation into the terrorist attack has been plagued by allegations of witness tampering, evidence manipulation, cover-ups, and annulled trials.

In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out.

Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.

Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.

The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.

The post Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns

Murad Adailah, the head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, attends an interview with Reuters in Amman, Jordan, Sept. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jehad Shelbak

The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements, has been implicated in a wide-ranging network of illegal financial activities in Jordan and abroad, according to a new investigative report.

Investigations conducted by Jordanian authorities — along with evidence gathered from seized materials — revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood raised tens of millions of Jordanian dinars through various illegal activities, the Jordan news agency (Petra) reported this week.

With operations intensifying over the past eight years, the report showed that the group’s complex financial network was funded through various sources, including illegal donations, profits from investments in Jordan and abroad, and monthly fees paid by members inside and outside the country.

The report also indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken advantage of the war in Gaza to raise donations illegally.

Out of all donations meant for Gaza, the group provided no information on where the funds came from, how much was collected, or how they were distributed, and failed to work with any international or relief organizations to manage the transfers properly.

Rather, the investigations revealed that the Islamist network used illicit financial mechanisms to transfer funds abroad.

According to Jordanian authorities, the group gathered more than JD 30 million (around $42 million) over recent years.

With funds transferred to several Arab, regional, and foreign countries, part of the money was allegedly used to finance domestic political campaigns in 2024, as well as illegal activities and cells.

In April, Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, and confiscated its assets after members of the Islamist movement were found to be linked to a sabotage plot.

The movement’s political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, became the largest political grouping in parliament after elections last September, although most seats are still held by supporters of the government.

Opponents of the group, which is banned in most Arab countries, label it a terrorist organization. However, the movement claims it renounced violence decades ago and now promotes its Islamist agenda through peaceful means.

The post Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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