Gov. Rick Scott, in the middle of a weeklong trade and cultural trip to Israel, has hit many of the nation’s landmarks — the most recent, a stop at Jerusalem’s Western Wall.

“The Jewish community makes invaluable contributions to our state and nation’s spiritual diversity, and it has been a humbling experience to visit this and other important sites to their faith and history,” said Scott, who was joined by Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Melbourne, on the trip.

It’s Scott’s fourth trade mission as governor. Scott also is Florida’s third governor in a row to visit Israel during his first year as chief executive. With an election year looming, both parties nationally are mindful that Florida is home to the nation’s third largest Jewish population.

More Scott photos are here:  http://www.flgov.com/israel/

 

 

U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, is in Israel this week with a large congressional delegation, but The Jerusalem Post reports he stands out among his colleagues.

At Jerusalem’s David Citadel, “West walks through the lobby almost like a rock star – not the world’s most famous rock star, but one that enough people have seen, and heard, to attract attention.”

Here’s The Jerusalem Post account, with a lengthy Q-and-A with West about U.S.-Israel relations.

U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, who represents one of the largest Jewish constituencies of any House member, weighed in this afternoon on President Obama‘s Thursday speech that said Israel’s borders before the 1967 Six Day War, “with mutually agreed swaps,” should be the basis for any deal to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A key paragraph from Deutch: “Yesterday, the President also spoke of the 1967 lines and land swaps. Should Israel find a partner for peace who is willing to join Prime Minister Netanyahu at the negotiating table, Israel cannot be expected to make any territorial concessions that do not acknowledge the reality on the ground. The 1967 borders are indefensible. References to ‘land swaps’ must mean that major Israeli population areas in the post-Six Day War territory, including the Jewish suburbs of Jerusalem, will forever continue to be a part of the Jewish state of Israel.”

Click here to read Deutch’s entire statement.

U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, said President Obama faces a “perception problem” with Jewish voters because of his approach to Israel. Klein, whose Palm Beach-Broward congressional district includes a significant number of Jewish voters, made the comment during a meeting with The Palm Beach Post editorial board this morning.

Klein said the Obama administration is taking a correct approach against Iran, which Klein said poses the greatest threat to Israel. But Klein faulted the administration for its harsh criticism of Israel’s plans to build housing in East Jerusalem. And he said Obama needs to better explain his strategy of trying to “engage” Arab countries in seeking Middle East peace.

Klein and other Jewish members of Congress met with Obama and top aides at the White House last month to discuss U.S.-Israel relations. The group suggested, among other things, that Obama visit Israel.

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Commentary magazine, which was founded by the American Jewish Committee in the 1940s and became a key incubator for neoconservatism in the 1970s under Norman Podhoretz, is raving about Republican Senate candidate Marco Rubio’s Thursday speech on Israel and foreign policy in West Delray.

“It is frankly the best speech on Israel since George W. Bush went to the Knesset,” enthuses Jennifer Rubin, who recommends reading the entire text.

To read The Palm Beach Post‘s coverage, click here.

Rubio’s entire speech is posted after the jump….

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Republican Senate candidate Marco Rubio is in west Delray Beach this afternoon to speak to the Republican Jewish Coalition and make what his campaign bills as a major speech on foreign policy and Israel.

About 300 people are at the South County Civic Center — twice the crowd Democratic Senate Kendrick Meek drew here last month in one of the county’s most Democratic areas.

See advance excerpts of Rubio’s speech after the jump….

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Democratic U.S. Rep. and Senate candidate Kendrick Meek criticized the Obama administration’s response to Israel’s decision to build 1,600 homes in a disputed area of East Jerusalem.

Vice President Joe Biden, who was visiting Israel at the time of the announcement, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have blasted the plan, straining relations with America’s strongest ally in the Middle East.

“What started off as an internal, domestic disagreement within the Israeli government has turned into an unnecessary international dispute complicated by some undiplomatic language from U.S. administration officials,” Meek said today.

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Today is the final day in office for “fire-breathing liberal” U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler. On Monday he begins his job as head of the nonprofit Center For Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation, a post in which Wexler says he’ll try to convince wary Israelis to support President Obama’s policies in the region.

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.

With some local Democratic elected officials in open revolt over his record on Israel, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, has withdrawn as keynote speaker for next week’s Palm Beach County Democratic Party fund-raising dinner.

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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More trouble for the Palm Beach County Democratic Party’s annual fund-raising dinner.

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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