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October 22, 2020 |
Your
weekly look at the latest news, analysis, and RJC activities around
the country. |
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Featured —
Iowa Senate Race Update -
Joni Ernst
One of the biggest challenges of preserving the GOP's Senate
majority is overcoming the Democrats' financial advantage. Not that
Republican candidates haven't worked hard and raised impressive sums,
but the Democrat money machine, powered by liberals on the East and
West Coasts, has shattered all previous fundraising records.
Take the Senate race in Iowa, which now appears quite likely
to be decisive in determining which party controls the Senate next
year. As of the beginning of October, incumbent Republican
Joni Ernst had raised $21 million for the race, but
her opponent Theresa Greenfield raised $40 million.
But while Greenfield is a political novice who has often
looked overwhelmed in the spotlight, Senator Ernst is literally a
battle-hardened veteran. She served our nation in uniform for more
than 23 years as a member of the Army Reserves and the Iowa National
Guard - including time spent deployed in the Middle East during the
second Iraq War. She's brought the same work ethic to her Senate
service - visiting with constituents in all 99 of Iowa's counties
every year and delivering in Washington for the state's critical
farming sector. For Jewish Iowans and pro-Israel Christians, it
matters that Senator Ernst stands out as one of the most reliable
pro-Israel leaders in the Senate, most recently illustrated by her
signing on to Senator Ted Cruz's June 23 letter to
President [Donald] Trump supporting
Israel's right to apply sovereignty in Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan
River Valley. (Greenfield, like all the Democrats' Senate candidates,
marches in lockstep with J Street.)
The old saying that “money is the mother's milk of politics”
still holds true, and it is essential that all of us continue to dig
deep to support our candidates during the final days of the 2020
campaign. But my confidence that the GOP will retain its majority in
the Senate is because of another political truth: candidate quality
matters. And in Iowa - and across the map - Republican candidates
simply outclass what the opposition is offering.
The RJC PAC has endorsed
Joni Ernst. You can help her win by clicking here to support her campaign.
Please watch this space for more in-depth
analysis on individual races in the critical 2020 elections. If you’d
like to share your thoughts with me on any of these races, please
email me at
[email protected]. Click here
to see previous "Notes from
Norm."
RJC Helps
Senator Lindsey
Graham
The Forward reports on the
strong support that the RJC and its members have given to South
Carolina’s Senator Lindsey Graham:
South Carolina’s population of some 5 million people is only
about .3% Jewish.
Yet the biggest player on behalf of the incumbent in its
Senate race — the most expensive in the country — is the
Republican Jewish Coalition. That race is also a big
priority for J Street, the progressive Israel advocacy organization.
“This is a national race with national implications,” said
Matt Brooks, the RJC’s executive director. “It’s not
just about the local South Carolina Jewish community.”
Through the RJC, South Carolina incumbent Sen. Lindsey Graham
has raised $79,474 for use in his high-profile race against newcomer
Jaime Harrison… What’s more, since Sept. 3, more than $900,000 more
has flowed to Graham through the RJC, for a total of more than $1
million, Brooks said.
…“There is nobody more important in the United States Senate
in terms of advocating for a strong U.S-Israel partnership,” said
Brooks. “As a result, it would be a catastrophic loss for our
community if Lindsey Graham were to lose his election.”
RJC-Endorsed
Jewish Republican Candidates in the
News
Lisa Scheller
In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, RJC Leader
and Jewish GOP candidate for Congress Lisa Scheller
(PA-7) expressed her concerns about US foreign policy if the
Biden/Harris ticket were to take office:
Scheller… said she is convinced that [Joe]
Biden is going to reenter the Iran deal. “I believe
that the Iran deal is an arrangement that provides a certain path to a
nuclear Iran with missile capacity to destroy Israel and ultimately
target the United States,” she said.
“I think it was flawed from the very beginning, and it
provided the means for Iran to officially continue to enrich uranium.
And [Barack] Obama and Biden let
this happen. They were part of it. Biden was part of this deal. So I
don’t see why he would want to get back into it. And you know what?
When you aim missiles at Israel, you aim missiles at Jews. And that’s
very concerning to me.”
…Scheller said that the US-Israel relationship is a factor in
the Lehigh Valley because the Jewish community wants to know their
representatives’ values and their policies. “I think that the
US-Israel relationship needs to be protected, and I don’t think what’s
coming from the Left is working towards protecting that relationship,
particularly when it comes to things like the Iran deal.”
Lee
Zeldin
Rep. Lee Zeldin (NY-1) was interviewed by the
Washington Examiner last week and had this to say about
President Donald Trump’s foreign
policy:
It’s a stronger, more consistent foreign policy that treats
our friends as friends and our adversaries as our adversaries, that
builds on a substantial amount of success over the course of the last
few years. I can think of a dozen history-making accomplishments just
in and around Israel and the Middle East. [In addition,] we have a
stronger military, stronger homeland security, stronger border
security, a stronger support for our nation’s law enforcement, giving
them all of the tools and resources that they need in order to do
their jobs safely, to provide law and order, to provide safety and
security and an understanding that our nation’s backbone is our rule
of law.
You can support Lisa
Scheller and Lee Zeldin - and all the great GOP candidates endorsed by
the RJC PAC - at the RJC
PAC web site.
Speaking of
President
Trump
Notable articles about President Donald
Trump, to read and share:
Israel’s
Future Depends on Donald Trump’s Reelection
Joel B. Pollak, Senior Editor-at-Large at
Breitbart News, writes:
It is no exaggeration to say that if Hillary
Clinton had won the 2016 election, and US policy toward
Israel continued in the direction President Barack
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were
leading it, Israel would be facing a growing terrorist threat on every
border, imminent danger of war with Iran, and the prospect of
diplomatic isolation and crippling boycotts by the international
community. President [Donald] Trump
turned all of that around — dramatically.
‘Trump
does what he says’: Muslims abandon Biden, back president
Paul
Bedard reports that:
President Trump, whose Middle East plan is winning support
from Arab nations, is gaining strong support from Muslim leaders and
their followers who believe that the Democrats haven't delivered on
years of promises, according to a new survey of Islamic leaders.
In a shocking turnaround, 61.48% of the 109 Muslim leaders who
“represent two million voters” plan to vote for Trump. That is a
slight edge over their 2012 vote for Barack Obama… Those results
represent a dramatic flip of the Muslim vote, which for years has
sided with the Democrats.
Trump,
Democrats, Israel and the Jews
RJC member
Jay Starkman of Atlanta makes the case for reelecting
President Trump and concludes that:
Jews must re-evaluate why they blindly and reliably vote by
margins of 70 to 80 percent, for Democrats whose agenda is often
inimical to Jewish interests. As advocated by the Republican
Jewish Coalition and several prominent and courageous Jewish
leaders, like Bernie Marcus and Sheldon
Adelson, more Jewish voters should understand that voting for
Republican Donald Trump is in our best interests. He is good for the
Jews.
If
you oppose antisemitism and love Israel, you must vote
Trump!
Jeff
Dunetz has a long list of reasons to support President Trump,
with links to sources. He writes: “Anyone who follows the news and/or
investigates the candidates should know there is only one choice for
Pro-Jewish or pro-Israel voters, reelect President Trump.”
Articles of note about Joe
Biden:
Joe
Biden and the Jews with Trembling
Knees
In this important piece, Stephen Silbiger
writes:
In 1982… Biden thought he could appeal to the perceived
nativism of the Dixiecrats by publicly threatening to cut off aid to
the Jewish state. In July of that year, he used an appearance of
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin before the
Senate Finance Committee to threaten to cut off aid to Israel.
After enduring Biden’s fist-pounding tirade, Begin responded
with the eloquence that was his trademark. Looking directly at Biden,
he said:
Don’t threaten us with cutting off aid to Israel. It will not
work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700
years of civilized history….
… Unfortunately, much of the American Jewish community is
composed of Jews with trembling knees. Although Donald
Trump has been the most pro-Israel president in history and
will receive a record Jewish vote, he may receive fewer votes than Joe
Biden, despite the latter’s checkered record on Israel and his support
for reinstating [Barack] Obama’s
deal with Iran.
… Even though the current Democrat Party includes many office
holders who want to boycott Israel and eliminate American support for
the Jewish state, Jewish Democratic operatives and Wall Street traders
are hoping that if they support Biden and go along with some criticism
of Israel they can still flourish in Democrat political and financial
circles. But they may soon realize that this is not assured in today’s
woke Democrat party.
Trump’s Middle East
Metamorphosis
Walter Russell Mead writes that a Biden
presidency is a scary thought for America’s Middle East allies:
In the new Middle East, the younger generation is turning its
back on religious radicalism, and Arab public opinion is moving to
accept the presence of a Jewish state. The Palestinians have lost
their position at the center of Middle East politics, and it is Turkey
and Iran, not Israel, that Arab rulers are most concerned to oppose.
…Ironically, the current Arab nightmare is that the next US
administration won’t support Israel enough. Regional leaders fear that
Team Biden would ignore Israeli as well as Arab objections, embracing
Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally, despite Mr.
[Recep
Tayyip] Erdogan’s ambitions, and
dropping sanctions against Iran as part of a return to the 2015
nuclear deal.
New Stanford
Study Suggests Biden's Agenda Will Have 4 Devastating Economic
Consequences
Brad
Polumbo at the Foundation for Economic Education
warns:
Sympathetic media outlets have repeatedly asserted that
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s tax agenda would only hurt
the wealthy. But a new study shows that Biden’s tax and regulatory
agenda could seriously hurt the economy overall.
Four economists from Stanford University’s Hoover Institution
analyzed Biden’s proposals to increase taxes, reinstate and expand a
host of regulations, and create new subsidies for healthcare and
renewable energy. The study concludes that these interventions would
distort labor incentives, decrease productivity, and kill jobs.
As a result, the experts project that the policy agenda would,
by 2030, lead to 4.9 million fewer jobs and the economy shrinking by
$2.6 trillion. So, too, the study projects that consumption would be
$1.5 trillion lower in 2030 and families would see a $6,500 drop in
median household income compared to a neutral
scenario.
• The Abraham Accords continue to generate positive
developments. This week, an Israeli delegation and US Treasury
Secretary Steve Mnuchin flew to Bahrain for
the signing of a communique to formalize relations between the Bahrain
and Israel. The meeting also saw the signing of several memoranda
of understanding that cover trade, air services, telecommunications,
finance, banking, and agriculture.
US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is optimistic. He
said:
I think 10 years from now when we look back at this, this will
be as significant – if not more significant than both the Egyptian
treaty and the Jordanian treaty [with Israel] – in how it has changed
the whole region economically in particular, but also from a security
standpoint and a cultural standpoint… The opportunities for trade
between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain are enormous.
• Another
Muslim country is moving toward better relations with Israel: Israeli
media outlets are reporting that Sudan
has agreed to fully normalize relations with Israel very
soon.
• The Palestinians are not joining in to work with Israel
toward peace, but they are willing to be treated by Israeli doctors
when they’re seriously ill. Senior PLO official Saeb
Erekat is in critical condition with Covid-19 and
is being treated at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem.
Erekat underwent a lung transplant in the United States in 2017 that
complicates his care.
Jonathan Tobin addresses
an obvious question: Why is Israel extending medical care to an
avowed enemy, who has spent his career lying about Israel and
preventing peace? Tobin writes:
As much as Israel is depicted as a modern-day Sparta — a
militarized state that is dominated and governed by its security
establishment — Jewish values still play a crucial part in its
decision-making. Being a Jewish state necessarily involves
considerations that a purely utilitarian approach to life would
reject.
…It’s doubtful that any other country would be so generous to
an enemy, yet somehow, the notion that Israel would turn away a person
in need is inconceivable… The instinctual application of traditional
Jewish values by the Jewish state’s secular government should not
surprise anyone. Even when it will not advance Israel’s cause,
behaving decently to those who would not reciprocate such a gesture is
still the default position of any government of the Jewish
state.
•
An overwhelming majority of both chambers of Congress have
co-sponsored resolutions in support of the Abraham Accords, which
normalize ties between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain.
91 senators and 372 house representatives have cosponsored two
resolutions supporting the Abraham Accords between Israel, UAE and
Bahrain…
Former US Vice President Joe Biden's running
mate, Vice Presidential candidate Kamala Harris, did
not co-sponsor the resolution, and neither did Democratic senators
Tammy Baldwin, Martin Heinrich,
Patrick Leahy, Chuck Schumer,
Tom Udall, and Elizabeth Warren…
Independent senator and former presidential candidate Bernie
Sanders did not co-sponsor as well.
The only Republican senator who did not co-sponsor the
resolution in favor of the Abraham Accords was senator Ted
Cruz, who is considered by many as an outspoken supporter of
Israel.
NOTE: After that story appeared,
Sen. Ted Cruz, a pro-Israel champion in the Senate, did
sign on to the measure but
stated some reservations.
The RJC
is committed to reelecting President Donald Trump,
keeping the Senate, and winning back the House. We encourage
our members to participate in our outreach phonebank project to help
Republicans win in November. It's easy, and you can do it from
home! Here's how YOU can help:
- Sign up to
call Jewish voters from home by clicking HERE. -
Fill out all of the fields. - Listen to the instructions and write
down your username and password when a member of the RJC Victory Team
contacts you. - Make as many phone calls as you can. Everyone you
speak to is a potential vote for President Trump and the
GOP!
Sign up now and you could be the next RJC
Volunteer of the Week!
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The RJC PAC
has endorsed a terrific slate of House and Senate candidates, and we
need them to continue their work on Capitol Hill!
CLICK
HERE to donate through the RJC PAC portal and show your support for
our great candidates!
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And
don't forget your RJC/Trump kippah! Our extremely popular
red Trump kippah is now for sale for just $18. This includes shipping
and handling. Supplies are limited.
BUY YOUR KIPPAH HERE.
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The
Democrat Party is getting rid of the
Jews
In this article from last August, Daniel
Greenfield spells out the still-relevant facts about how Jews
are losing representation in the Democratic Party, which is not only
bad for US Israel policy - it also means that Jews will no longer be a
valued constituency for Democrat leaders and our community’s interests
won’t be considered by Democrats in
power.
Amy
Barrett helped protect
menorahs
Judge Amy Coney Barrett, whose
nomination to the Supreme Court was
advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee today, has worked
on cases to defend the rights of Jewish Americans, according to
Nathan Lewin. After clerking for Justice
Antonin Scalia, Barrett joined Lewin’s firm, where
she worked on behalf of Hasidic clients in cases involving the display
of Hanukkah menorahs on public property and other
litigation.
— Events —
RJC Victory Team National Days of
Action
Starting Monday, October 26, we will be making calls
EVERY DAY (except Saturday) until Election
Day! It's not too late to join in for the last big
push to get out the vote in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
Florida, Arizona, and Georgia, key battleground states of the 2020
election cycle. Click
here to sign up and help!
And don't miss the our
next great virtual event:
A Conversation with Ari Fleischer and Coach Bruce
Pearl
Monday, October 26 at 7:30PM Eastern
Time
Click here to register.
While RJC offices are closed and our staff are teleworking, you
can reach us by email or by phone (please leave a voicemail message
and your call will be returned). Contact
information for our offices can be found on our web site. Please
visit us online for the latest RJC
news, to volunteer
for our 2020 outreach efforts, to see details of upcoming events,
and to donate
to the RJC.
If you like the work we’re doing, consider joining us on
Facebook and Twitter, and renew or upgrade your RJC
membership. Ensure that your voice is heard in our party
and our community!
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