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White House says it will not meet with Israel’s Bezalel Smotrich when he visits the US
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Biden administration officials will not meet with Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli finance minister who called for a Palestinian village to be “wiped out,” then backtracked, and who is visiting the U.S. next week to meet with leaders of Israel Bonds.
At least five liberal Jewish groups want the U.S. government to consider barring Smotrich from coming here. Ned Price, the department’s spokesman, said at Thursday’s daily briefing that questions on Israeli ministers’ travel should be referred to Israel, and that he does not comment on the eligibility of individuals to enter the United States.
The trip comes as Smotrich and his far-right allies in Israel’s governing coalition have upended traditions of comity between establishment U.S. Jewish groups and Israel. Those relationships have become even more strained in recent days, after Israeli West Bank settlers rioted in a Palestinian village. They also come amid raucous protests of the Israeli government’s plan to sap the power of the judiciary, which critics say endanger minority rights.
William Daroff, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said Smotrich’s remarks were “disgusting,” and a spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobby, said the group would not be meeting with him.
Asked by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency whether the minister will meet with the White House, a National Security Council spokeswoman said, “No U.S. government meetings are planned for this trip.” That includes officials in the U.S. Treasury, the counterpart to Smotrich’s ministry, she said.
Smotrich is also responsible for civilian affairs in much of the West Bank. His call to “wipe out” the West Bank village of Huwara came after a settler rampage through the village following a shooting there that killed two Israeli brothers. At least one Palestinian in another village died amid the riots.
“I think the village of Huwara should be wiped out, I think that the state of Israel should do it,” he said in an interview on Wednesday. A few hours later, he walked back his statement: “To remove any doubt, in my words I did not mean wiping out the village of Huwara, but rather acting in a targeted way against terrorists and supporters of terror, and exacting a heavy price from them in order to return security to local residents.”
This week, the State Department’s annual report on terrorism recorded a “substantial rise” in settler attacks on Palestinian in 2021, the first time it had made such an assessment. On Wednesday, Price called Smotrich’s remarks about wiping out the village “disgusting” and “incitement to violence.”
“Just as we condemn Palestinian incitement to violence, we condemn these provocative remarks that also amount to incitement to violence,” Price said in his briefing that day. “We call on Prime Minister Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials to publicly and clearly reject and disavow these comments.”
Netanyahu has yet to do so, and with Smotrich just days away from a visit stateside to give a speech to Israel Bonds in Washington D.C., five Jewish groups are saying the Biden administration should at least consider keeping him out and others will not sit down with him. AIPAC’s declining to meet with Smotrich is particularly noteworthy. It routinely meets with senior Israeli ministers.
“The administration should make clear that comments promoting grave violations of human rights, such as those made by Smotrich, are grounds for re-examination of a visa for entry to the United States,” J Street, the liberal Jewish Israel policy group, said in a statement.
Four other Jewish groups are saying outright that the Biden administration should keep Smotrich out, among them Americans for Peace Now, an affiliate off the Israeli left-wing group; the Israel Policy Forum, a group that advocates for an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel; T’ruah, a liberal rabbinic human rights group; and Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist group.
The T’ruah statement referred to U.S. immigration law, which bans entry to those who have “incited terrorist activity with intent to cause serious bodily harm or death.” It said the threat Smotrich poses is especially acute since he assumed responsibility for administering civilian life in parts of the West Bank.
“Smotrich’s comments are even more dangerous now that Israel’s de jure annexation of the West Bank has made him effectively the governor of the territory, with broad oversight over most areas of civil administration,” the T’ruah statement said.
IPF, a group led by former lay leaders of mainstream pro-Israel organizations, also joined the calls. its policy director, Michael Koplow, told JTA, “We believe that there are sufficient grounds to deny Smotrich a visa.”
The Americans for Peace Now petition, addressed to Biden, garnered more than 1,100 signatures less than a day after it was posted.
“Smotrich wants to bring his hatred to US soil. He has plans to travel to the United States later this month. We’re here to say that he is not welcome,” the petition says. “We have seen how incitement in Israel-Palestine has led to devastating violence and we urge your administration to deny entry to Smotrich and his hateful rhetoric.”
A sixth U.S.-based liberal group, the New Israel Fund, which raises money for social justice organizations in Israel, said Jewish groups should make clear Smnotrich is unwanted here. “Our responsibility right now as American Jews is to say ‘take your hateful racism, your homophobia your plans for an apartheid Israel and get out. We do not want you here’,” it said in a statement. Smnotrich has called himself a “proud homophobe.”
Daroff, of the Conference of Presidents, declined to comment to JTA on whether he would meet with Smotrich.But he tweeted his agreement with Price. “I agree. His statement seeking to ‘wipe out’ Huwara was, as Ned Price said, ‘irresponsible, repugnant and disgusting’,” he wrote.
Israel Bonds, which promotes investment in Israeli government bonds, said in a statement that because it works closely with the Finance Ministry, welcoming the sitting finance minister to its events was a matter of routine. Smotrich will speak to the group’s Washington, D.C. leadership meeting.
“As part of their long-established responsibilities, Israel’s finance ministers from across the political spectrum have historically, over Israel Bonds’ 72-year history, attended our events,” a spokesman said, replying to a JTA query. “One of the organization’s most unique and paramount attributes is that it remains unbiased with regard to any political party or affiliation.”
Hundreds of rabbis have said they would not welcome Smotrich or his allies into their synagogues and would encourage their communities to boycott him. The Presidents’ Conference did not invite ministers from Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party to address its annual colloquy in Israel last month, although they were invited to a luncheon for all Knesset members.
One group that backs settlements, the Zionist Organization of America, said not meeting with Religious Zionism leaders was a mistake.
‘Nobody has to agree with them or disagree with them,” Klein said. “But they should speak and whoever wants to challenge them, challenge them, criticize them, disagree with them.”
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Israel becomes first country to recognize Somaliland, drawing condemnation from Egypt, Turkey and Somalia
Israel became the first country to formally recognize Somaliland, a self-declared sovereign state in the Horn of Africa, in a decision that was immediately condemned by Somalia and other nations.
“The Prime Minister announced today the official recognition of the Republic of Somaliland as an independent and sovereign state,” wrote Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office in a post on X. “The State of Israel plans to immediately expand its relations with the Republic of Somaliland through extensive cooperation in the fields of agriculture, health, technology, and economy.”
Somaliland’s president welcomed the announcement from Netanyahu in a post on X, adding that he affirmed the region’s “readiness to join the Abraham Accords,” the normalization agreements between Israel and a handful of Arab states that was brokered during President Donald Trump’s first term.
Somaliland proclaimed independence from Somalia in 1991 during the country’s civil war, but has failed to receive recognition from the international community in part due to Somalia’s opposition to its secession. Somalia officially rejects ties with Israel, and has consistently refused to recognize the state of Israel since 1960. Somalia and Somaliland are overwhelmingly Muslim.
“The ministers affirmed their total rejection and condemnation of Israel’s recognition of the Somaliland region, stressing their full support for the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Somalia,” Egypt’s foreign ministry said in a statement following a phone call between Egypt’s foreign minister and his Somali, Turkish and Djiboutian counterparts, according to Reuters.
In November, the Israeli think tank Institute for National Security Studies argued in a report that recognizing Somaliland could be in Israel’s strategic interest.
“Somaliland’s territory could serve as a forward base for multiple missions: intelligence monitoring of the Houthis and their armament efforts; logistical support for Yemen’s legitimate government in its war against them; and a platform for direct operations against the Houthis,” the report read.
It is unclear if the United States will follow suit. In August, Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz wrote to Trump urging him to recognize Somaliland.
“Somaliland has emerged as a critical security and diplomatic partner for the United States, helping America advance our national security interests in the Horn of Africa and beyond,” wrote Cruz.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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‘Jesus is a Palestinian,’ claims a Times Square billboard. Um, not quite
“Merry Christmas,” proclaims a billboard in Times Square: “Jesus is Palestinian.”
Countless people will walk by the display or see it on social media, and many will believe it.
So, let’s go through why that statement is such a mistake, once again.
Jesus was a Jew. He was born to Jewish parents, was circumcised under Jewish law — traditionally, on Jan. 1, which is how that day became known as the Feast of the Circumcision — and lived as a Jew. He taught from the Hebrew Scriptures. He worshiped in the Jerusalem Temple. He observed Jewish festivals. He debated Jewish law with other Jews using Jewish modes of argument.
Go back to the Gospels in the New Testament — specifically Luke 4:16: “He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom.” Or, John 4:9, in which a Samaritan woman asks Jesus: “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”
Cross-reference other ancient sources. Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian, refers to Jesus as a Jewish figure executed in Judea. No serious historical study of Jesus elides this basic truth: Jesus was a Jew.
Yet many efforts through history have sought to sever Jesus from his Judaism — often, if not always, in an attempt to denigrate Jews.
In the second century, the theologian Marcion sought to completely sever Christianity from Judaism. For him, the God of Israel was inferior and the God of the Christians was morally superior. Jesus, therefore, belonged to a different moral universe. The early Church condemned Marcionism precisely because it erased Jesus’s Jewish roots, and ultimately dismissed the idea as a heresy that needed to be rejected.
In the twentieth century, Nazi theologians attempted to portray Jesus as Aryan and anti-Jewish, which Susannah Heschel documents in her book The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany.
But it’s not just because of his religion that Jesus shouldn’t be considered Palestinian.
“Why not?” you might ask. “Didn’t he live in Palestine?”
The short answer is: Not yet.
When Jesus lived, the land of Israel was called Judea. It was under Roman rule, and it fell under several administrative districts: Judea, Galilee, and Samaria.
So, what is the source of the name “Palestine” for that area? It comes from the ancient people known as the Philistines, a perennial enemy of the Israelites. After the Romans crushed Jewish independence, they deliberately renamed the province in an effort to sever Jewish historical ties to the land, as well as to humiliate them by naming the land after their ancient foes.
To call Jesus “Palestinian” is therefore anachronistic.
Yet even so, the idea of Jesus as Palestinian appears in some strands of Palestinian liberation theology. Those strands tend to envision the Palestinian people as Jesus on the cross — crucified by Israel and the Jews, in an image that recalls the longstanding and deeply misguided allegation that “the Jews killed Jesus.”
This language appears repeatedly in the writings and sermons of Naim Ateek, the influential founder of the Jerusalem-based Christian organization Sabeel. In his 2001 Easter message, he wrote “as we approach Holy Week and Easter, the suffering of Jesus Christ at the hands of evil political and religious powers two thousand years ago is lived out again in Palestine,” adding that “Jesus is the powerless Palestinian humiliated at a checkpoint, the woman trying to get through to the hospital for treatment, the young man whose dignity is trampled, the young student who cannot get to the university to study, the unemployed father who needs to find bread to feed his family; the list is tragically getting longer, and Jesus is there in their midst suffering with them.”
Yes, of course, Palestinians have suffered and continue to suffer. But illustrations of that suffering should not include the pretense that Jesus was Palestinian. It suggests that Palestinians need to be seen as akin to Jesus to deserve safety and dignity, when in fact they deserve safety and dignity simply because they are human. And casting Israel and the Jews as crucifiers only resurrects medieval theology and hatreds; it adds nothing to the hopes for justice for Palestinians.
Mainstream Christianity has rejected this foul mythology. We have recently celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of the Christian world’s most vociferous denial of that ancient hatred. In 1965, Vatican II’s Nostra Aetate explicitly rejected the charge that Jews are responsible for Jesus’s death. The World Council of Churches issued similar warnings about reviving Passion-based antisemitism — the revival of the ancient accusation that Jewish leaders were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus, and that Jews bear that guilt eternally.
History matters. Theology matters. And words matter — especially when they carry two thousand years of blood-soaked memory.
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82 years after his plane was shot down in China, Jewish WWII pilot Morton Sher is laid to rest at home
An American Jewish fighter pilot whose plane was shot down in the Chinese theater during World War II was given a proper burial 82 years after his plane went down, according to the United States Department of Defense.
The remains of Lt. Morton Sher, identified earlier this year, were buried in Greenville, South Carolina on Dec. 14 — what would have been his 105th birthday.
Sher was a member of the pilot group known as the “Flying Tigers” — formed to protect China from Japanese invasion following the assault on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He was piloting a P-40 Warhawk when he was shot down by Japanese bombers on Aug. 9, 1943. His mother Celia received Sher’s Purple Heart that same year.
Sher’s squadron put up a memorial stone at the crash site in Xin Bai Village, and a postwar army review in 1947 concluded that his remains had been destroyed and were assumed to be unrecoverable.
The remains of Morton Sher were returned to Greenville, North Carolina and buried on Dec. 14, 2025. (Courtesy Department of Defense)
Two attempts were made to locate his remains in 2012 and 2019, but neither was successful. A breakthrough came in 2024 when a Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency excavated a crash site in the province where Sher’s plane fell, and then in April 2025, when DNA analysis was conducted. The match was confirmed in June.
Sher was born in Baltimore, Maryland on Dec. 14, 1920, and his family later moved to Greenville where they became members of the Conservative synagogue Congregation Beth Israel. In high school, he was a member of the aviation club and enrolled in ROTC. Sher was a founding member of B’nai B’rith Youth Organization’s Aleph Zadik Aleph chapter in Greenville, according to the funeral home that organized his burial.
“He dreamed of being a pilot,” Sher’s nephew, Steve “Morton” Traub told Greenville’s local NBC station. “This guy did a lot for his country. He was my hero.”
Traub, who never met his uncle, but heard stories and read his letters, was raised by Sher’s father, David.
“I wish I had known him, but if he had, I wouldn’t have been named after him. I feel like I knew Mason because I knew Papa,” Traub said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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