US Jewish Republicans gather amid Israel-Hamas war
AFP :
Top US Republican Jewish leaders started meeting in Las Vegas Friday for a key annual convention, with Israel’s war against Hamas set to dominate the gathering.
The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), which traditionally welcomes White House hopefuls looking for donors, is expected to be an opportunity for candidates to demonstrate their support of Israel.
“The world will be watching,” the RJC wrote on social media as it announced a countdown to the event.
The eight main candidates for the Republican Party nomination are all expected to speak at the meeting, including frontrunner Donald Trump, and his nearest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Trump sparked fury in recent weeks by describing Lebanon-based Islamist group Hezbollah as “very smart” and criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At a rally earlier this month Trump said that in January 2020 Israel decided at the last minute to pull out of a joint operation with the United States to kill a top Iranian security commander.
“I’ll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down. That was a very terrible thing,” Trump told supporters.
The remarks drew criticism from rivals across the board, with DeSantis saying the Republican Party needed to present a united front in support of Israel.
“Now is not the time to air personal grievances about an Israeli prime minister,” he said. “Now is the time to support their right to defend themselves to the hilt.”
Candidates will be expected to offer unequivocal support for Israel as it continues its bombardment of Gaza in response to a brutal Hamas raid that killed 1,400 people on October 7.
The Hamas-run health ministry said Friday that Israeli strikes had now killed 7,326 people, more than 3,000 of them children.
The only woman in the race, Nikki Haley, Trump’s former US ambassador to the United Nations, has evoked fears of anti-Semitic attacks on US soil, and said she would tighten the law in response to what some see as support on college campuses for anti-Israel views.