Republican Jewish Coalition

— Featured —

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)

Top Dems Want to Put Aid to Israel “On the Table”

Top Democratic presidential candidates are on the record, calling for the US to use aid to Israel as leverage to force Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians.

Back in July, Bernie Sanders “said he would 'absolutely' consider cutting US aid to Israel to pressure the Israeli government to act differently,” according to JTA.

This week, Elizabeth Warren said "everything is on the table" in imposing a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, as the Washington Free Beacon reports:

"It is the official policy of the United States of America to support a two-state solution, and if Israel is moving in the opposite direction, then everything is on the table," Warren said during a press availability with reporters Saturday.

In a formulation more commonly deployed by previous presidents in threatening the use of force against America’s enemies, Warren repeated the phrase but did not clarify precisely what pressure—military or otherwise—might be brought to bear.

"Right now, [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu says he is going to take Israel in a direction of increasing settlements, [but] that does not move us in the direction of a two-state solution," Warren was quoted as saying.

Warren's remarks come as the left wing of the Democratic Party has increasingly embraced boycotts of the Jewish state.

A student activist from the anti-Israel group IfNotNow asked Pete Buttigieg if he would make aid to Israel contingent on “ending the occupation.” Buttigieg replied that he would use aid to Israel as leverage to stop Israeli “annexation” on the West Bank.

Sanders, Warren, and Buttigieg are three of the top four Democrats in the race today.

Shabab ballistic missile on display in Tehran

Lake: Iranian Mayhem Will Get Worse

Eli Lake, writing at Bloomberg, warns that our problems with Iran will soon multiply, thanks to a concession made to secure President Obama’s terrible Iran nuclear deal:

Back in 2015, desperate to reach a deal with Iran to limit its nuclear program, US negotiators made a fateful concession: The UN’s conventional-arms embargo on Iran, they agreed, would be lifted in five years.

The costs of that concession, one of the worst mistakes of those negotiations, are about to come due. The embargo is set to expire on Oct. 18, 2020 — and if it does, the situation in the Middle East is likely to get even worse.

The concession wasn’t to Iran so much as to China and Russia, two great-power rivals that participated in the nuclear negotiations. In the 1990s, China and Russia sold Iran a variety of weapons systems, which the Iranians then reverse-engineered. By this time next year, America’s two most potent geopolitical rivals will have a green light to sell advanced missiles to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.

It would be bad enough if Iran kept those weapons for itself. But if past is prelude, there is a good chance Iran’s numerous proxies in the Middle East will benefit as well.

Read the full article here.

Dana Benvenisti-Gabay, director for regional security and counter-terrorism at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, attends the opening session of the two-day Warsaw Ministerial Maritime and Aviation Security Working Group meeting in Manama, Bahrain, on October 21, 2019.

News from Israel

Israel’s warming relations with the Gulf states marks a true foreign policy success. This week, a senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official attended a maritime security conference in Bahrain, in what Reuters called “another sign of Gulf Arab nations and Israel transcending longtime enmities to focus on a perceived common threat from Iran.”

Internally, things are still complicated in Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu, having failed at bringing together a governing coalition of 61 Members of Knesset, returned the mandate to form the government to President Reuven Rivlin Monday night. Rivlin has given the mandate to Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, who will have 28 days to form a coalition. The Israeli president strongly urged Gantz to form a government and not move Israel to a third election.

This year, the American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad) built the first sukkah at the White House.

First Sukkah at the White House

A sukkah was built in the White House complex, open to White House and Treasury Department staff and their guests, as the Chabad news outlet COLlive reports:

During several hours every day, those within the White House complex were able to make their way to East Executive Drive and spend time in the Sukkah to have lunch, bless the Lulav and Esrog and celebrate the Jewish Festival of Sukkos.

The Sukkah was provided and built by American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad) in Washington, DC, as part of a program which has provided Sukkahs and Sukkos programs at prominent locations such as the US Capitol, US Naval Observatory (residence of the VP), the Pentagon, and the American, George Washington, Georgetown and Gallaudet Universities.

While events in honor of Sukkos have been held at the White House for many years, affording officials and staff there the chance to learn about the significance of the festival, this is the first time an actual Sukkah was able to be built on the grounds.

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RJC Florida Field Representatives sign up volunteers in The Villages, a sprawling retirement community outside of Orlando, in advance of President Trump's visit there to sign an executive order on health care for seniors.

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— Short Takes —

Trump Announces Appointments to the Holocaust Council

Congratulations to the following RJC friends, who have been appointed by President Trump to serve as members of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council: Adam Beren, Joshua Bolten, Ari Fleischer, Adele Malpass, and Amb. Ronald Weiser.