Wexler

Read about it here.

JUPITER — Gov. Charlie Crist briefly addressed a crowd of about 200 people at Temple Beth Am tonight, calling the relationship between Israel and the United States “special.”
Crist, a Methodist, told the crowd at Friday night’s Shabbat services about his 2007 trip to Israel to encourage trade with Florida.
During the trip, Crist said former Democratic Rep. Robert Wexler encouraged him to insert a note with a prayer at the Western Wall, a holy site in Jerusalem where prayers are traditionally placed. The note asked, “Dear God, please protect our Florida from storms and other difficulties.”
There was no hurricane that year.
“I thought, ‘this is good,’” Crist told the crowd.
In the two years since his trip, Crist has asked friends traveling to Israel to place similar notes at the wall.
And still no hurricanes.
“God is good,” Crist said to the crowd.
Crist also paused to remember the four people, including a 6-year-old girl, killed by gunman in Jupiter on Thanksgiving Day.
“We pray for those who have left us,” he said.
Crist’s address was part of the temple’s “community leaders forum,” a monthly series.
Next month, Congressman Alcee Hastings is scheduled to address the congregation about Israel and the Jewish community.

Kucinich

He’s the second Democratic keynoter to be scratched this week. The party dumped Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu on Tuesday because local activists were upset by her refusal to commit to blocking a Republican filibuster of health care overhaul legislation.

After Kucinich was announced as the replacement speaker, state Rep. Kevin Rader, D-Delray Beach, threatened a boycott and state Sen. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, County Commissioner Burt Aaronson and state Rep. Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, voiced disapproval today.

Kucinich has a long history of criticizing the actions of the Israeli government, voting against congressional resolutions in support of Israel and opposing sanctions against the anti-Israel government of Iran.

His critics have “falsely characterized” those stances as being anti-Israel, Kucinich said this afternoon in an e-mail to Palm Beach County Democratic Chairman Mark Alan Siegel. While defending his position, Kucinich said he didn’t want the controversy to hurt the local party’s money-raising efforts.

Read his complete statement to Siegel after the jump….

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Its original Jefferson-Jackson name was dropped because of qualms about Thomas Jefferson’s slave ownership and Andrew Jackson’s Indian-removal policies. Then the renamed Truman-Kennedy-Johnson dinner’s planned keynote speaker, moderate Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, was unceremoniously dumped this week because party leaders disliked Landrieu’s stance on health care reform.

Now Landrieu’s replacement — liberal U.S. Rep. and former presidential candidate Denis Kucinich, D-Ohio — is prompting a boycott threat from state Rep. Kevin Rader, D-Delray Beach, because of Kucinich’s voting record on Israel.

State Sen. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, has announced he won’t attend or support the event, calling Kucinich “someone whose position on Israel stands in total opposition to the conscience of this community.”

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Once bitter rivals, former state Rep. Irv Slosberg and Palm Beach County Commissioner Burt Aaronson appear to have patched things up — at least enough for them to appear together next week at a traffic-safety event in West Palm Beach.

Slosberg, who lost a 2006 Democratic state Senate primary after Aaronson and other south-county Dems backed underdog Ted Deutch, flirted with challenging Aaronson in 2008 but decided against it.

Slosberg, who lost a teenage daughter in a 1996 car crash, is continuing to promote traffic safety through a nonprofit foundation. He’s also spending lots of time on his half-hour Slosberg Report TV show, a paid program that promotes Israel to South Florida viewers.

“There’s Al Jazeera and there’s Irv Jazeera,” says Slosberg. “Al Jazeera presents one side of the story. And Irv Jazeera presents the Israeli side.”

Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign Friday denounced an e-mail circulating around the country that claims his advisers are “Israel haters” as a “smear” and “outrageous.”

U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Delray Beach, an early, ardent supporter of Obama’s presidential campaign and one of the staunchest Israel supporters in Congress, said of the e-mail: “It’s not true.”

Wexler said he and former Ambassador Dennis Ross, who advised both President George H.W. Bush and President Clinton on the Middle East, are Obama’s principal advisers on Israel policy.

“I think it’s fair to say that no one in Congress is more dedicated to Israel’s security than I am, and that’s why Sen. Obama includes me at this level,” Wexler said.

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Robert Wexler and Ron Klein are heading to Israel next week to meet with top Israeli leaders and visit Kiryat Bialik, the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County’s sister city, which has been hit by Katyusha rockets fired by Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon.

Wexler is traveling as a member of the House International Relations Committee and the ranking Democrat on its Europe and Emerging Threats subcommittee. Klein will be spending his own money, according to his congressional campaign spokesman.

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