John Locher / Associated Press
Republican presidential candidate Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., speaks at an annual leadership meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Saturday, Oct. 28, 2023, in Las Vegas.
Sunday, Oct. 29, 2023 | 2 a.m.
Eight Republican presidential contenders sought Saturday to differentiate themselves in their support for Israel in its ongoing war with Hamas while condemning antisemitism at home.
The candidates, who headlined the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Summit at the Venetian, ranged from the front-running former President Donald Trump to political newcomer Vivek Ramaswamy. And while each strayed slightly on particular messaging, and some said a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine seemed untenable, all attacked the decisions made by President Joe Biden.
“This is the most important election in the history of our country,” said Trump, who made his first in-person appearance with the other GOP hopefuls since announcing his third White House bid last year. “Because if we don’t win this election, you’re not going to have Israel anymore and you are not going to have the United States of America anymore.”
By the end of Saturday’s event, however, the GOP field had shrunk by one, with former Vice President Mike Pence suspending his campaign, effective immediately.
Pence, a devout evangelical, focused his campaign on moves made by the Trump administration — such as moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and brokering the so-called Abraham Accords, which normalized diplomatic ties with Israel and four Arab nations — without the baggage of Trump, who again Saturday made unsubstantiated claims that the 2020 election was rigged against him.
“We always knew this would be an uphill battle,” Pence said. “But I have no regrets.”
Many of Saturday’s speakers also juxtaposed Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack in Israel — in which more than 1,400 Israelis were slain and approximately 229 taken back to Gaza as hostages, making it the most violent single-day attack on Jewish people since the Holocaust — with domestic issues such as security at the southern border, and accused Biden of appeasing Iran. They criticized the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and, more recently, a hostage release deal in mid-September between the U.S. and Tehran in which $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue was unfrozen for humanitarian aid.
That money was ultimately transferred to a restricted account in Qatar, and the Biden administration has said the money could only be used for food, medicine or medical equipment, and that none of the money had been distributed at the time of the Oct. 7 attack, according to The New York Times.
Several speakers also promised that if elected, they would cancel student visas for any student who voiced support for Hamas, as well as strip public universities of federal funding should they enable antisemitic demonstrations. Since the Oct. 7 attack, pro-Palestinian protests have erupted nationwide, with some using language on signs and chants like “from the river to the sea,” and other epithets rooted in the abolition of a Jewish state.
“What’s going on at college campuses today isn’t free speech, it’s hate speech,” former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said. “It’s inciting violence, it’s inciting fear.”
Others, such as Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said he would eliminate Pell Grant funding— awarded on a need-basis for low-income students — for those who support Hamas.
“Let this echo across every college campus in America: A federal subsidy for your education is not a right, it’s a privilege,” Scott said. “Visas who support students that study here, that’s not a right, it’s a privilege. You want to know what a right is? The right of Jewish Americans to walk down the street in safety.”
Scott continued: “Any university that lets itself become a megaphone for evil should lose every single dime of federal money. Your tax dollars should not support that crap.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said not only would he increase sanctions against Iran, but he would not accept Palestinian refugees into the U.S. That echoes a similar statement made by Trump, who pledged to reinstate his travel ban for most Islamic nations.
DeSantis claims his administration has flown more than 700 Israeli-Americans to the U.S. since the Hamas attack, and this month ordered a pro-Palestine student group to disband at all public colleges in Florida.
“We have to start looking at these issues with clear eyes,” DeSantis said. “They elected Hamas, so let’s be clear. They were cheering for Hamas to perpetrate this attack. That’s why they cheered when al-Qaida knocked down the Twin Towers (on Sept. 11, 2001).”
Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley — who is polling near DeSantis for a distant second in the field — also used her platform to support Jews while urging attendees to pick a candidate other than Trump.
“We need to ask a critical question: We all know what (Trump) did in the past. What will he do in the future? We’re living through the most dangerous period in our lifetimes,” she said.
The world climate, Haley said, mirrors the geopolitics of the 1930s in that a communist regime is thriving, Jewish people are being persecuted and “the darkest forces on earth are aligned against freedom.”
“We cannot have another four years of chaos, vendettas and dramas,” she added, in a thinly veiled swipe at Trump. “Eight years ago it was good to have a leader who broke things. Right now, we need a leader who also knows how to put things back together.”
Ari Fleischer, a member of the RJC board of directors and former press secretary under former President George W. Bush, told reporters afterward that the event highlights the GOP’s unwavering support for Israel, while Democrats, he said, are splintered with fringe members praising Hamas, the Islamic militant group that governs some 2 million Palestinian people who live in Gaza.
“The modern-day Democratic Party, unfortunately, is split,” Fleischer said. “There are still older, elected members of Congress who are still pro-Israel, but their job has been made so much harder by the undermining of the grassroots base in the Democratic Party that is now represented — polluted by — Democratic Socialists who are absolutely anti-Israel.”
Mentioned several times Saturday were a group of four House Democrats first elected in 2018 known as “the Squad” — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, the only Palestinian American in Congress. Those four and others considered outside the Democratic establishment have been vocal opponents of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people.
“Nobody is making Joe Biden put up with all of this stuff,” said Scott, who smeared Tlaib as an extension of the “propaganda machine” of Hamas. “Nobody is keeping (House minority leader) Hakeem Jeffries from kicking them out of their committees and out of their conference.”
Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., told reporters on a press call that while some Democrats have varying feelings about Israel, Republicans have struggled with disavowing antisemitism in recent years.
That includes behavior by Trump, who this year invited Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes to dinner at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, and an incident this month in which Trump called the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, which has also attacked Israel, “smart.”
“We have outlier members of the Democratic Party on this question (but) they don’t speak for the Democratic Party,” Auchincloss said, reaffirming that Biden remains the leader of the Democratic Party. “We oppose any internationally recognized terrorist organization. We support Israel’s right to defend itself, and we support the military objective of destroying Hamas and rescuing the hostages.”
The Palestinian death toll since the war started passed 7,700, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, more than 110 Palestinians have been killed.
An Israeli ground invasion of Gaza seems imminent, and while both sides bombard each other with artillery, the U.N. human rights chief has called for a temporary ceasefire to allow for humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza and allow refugees an attempt to flee.
However, even that appears to be an unpopular choice among the GOP hopefuls.
“We know Hamas will take that assistance and Hamas will use it for their own purposes,” DeSantis said to a crowd of boos. “We also need Biden and his bill to stop with the phony narratives, trying to say that it’s incumbent upon Israel to adopt a two-state solution.
“How are you supposed to have a two-state solution with people that don’t believe in your right to exist?”
