The Republican Jewish Coalition “enthusiastically” welcomes Ohio Senator J.D. Vance to the ticket with former President Donald Trump, RJC National Chairman Senator Norm Coleman and CEO Matt Brooks said in a statement shortly after Trump announced his running mate.
RJC endorsed Vance in his Senate campaign in 2022.
Coleman and Brooks described Vance’s life story as a Marine Corps veteran and businessman as the “quintessential American dream.”
“We know Senator Vance will serve our country with distinction as Vice President as he has in the US Senate,” their statement said. “We also know Senator Vance will always stand with the Jewish community and with America’s key strategic ally Israel.”
In 2022 while on a trip to Israel led by the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Vance told The Post he’ll be “as strong an advocate for the US-Israel relationship as anyone.”
At the time he told The Post he came to Israel to learn and “get smarter about the issues.”
Since October 7, Vance has fiercely criticized President Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, especially Biden’s decision to withhold specific munitions.
In an interview with CNN in May, Vance praised Trump for his foreign policy as he departed from traditional Middle East policy, adding “America is not good at micromanaging wars in the Middle East.”
“Jews who vote Democrat should be ashamed” – Vance
Vance agreed with Trump who said Jews who voted for Biden should be ashamed of themselves, and denied Trump was singling out Jewish Americans but saying so.
In another interview on CNN, Vance was challenged on the double standard he shared for condemning pro-Palestinian protestors who broke into buildings on college campuses while defending those who broke into the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Vance said he thinks the United States’ attitude vis-a-vis the Israelis should be, “look, we’re not good at micromanaging Middle Eastern wars, the Israelis are our allies, let them prosecute this war the way they see fit.”
Later in the interview, he said the most important thing for Israel to do is defeat Hamas as a viable military organization, and the US should empower the Israelis to root out Hamas commanders and final military-trained battalions.
“The fundamental problem here is the Israelis have a goal in mind,” Vance said. “Hamas started a war by murdering a large number of Israeli civilians, and now that they’re 80% defeated, they’re throwing up their hands and saying ‘uncle.'”
Vance said the United States’ goal for the Middle East should be to allow the Israelis to get to “some good place” with the Saudi Arabians and other Gulf Arab states, adding, “there is no way that we can do that unless the Israelis finish the job with Hamas.”
In remarks in May at the conservative think tank Quincy Institute, Vance said the United States has a “real opportunity” to ensure that Israel is an ally in the “true sense that it’s going to pursue their interests, and sometimes those interests won’t totally overlap with the United States, and that’s totally reasonable” but that they are fundamentally “self-sufficient.”
Vance said the way to get there in Israel is by combining the Abraham Accords approach with the defeat of Hamas, which will allow Israel and the Sunni nations to play a regional counterweight to Iran.
“We don’t want to get involved in a broader regional war,” Vance said. “The best way to do that is to ensure that Israel with the Sunni nations can actually police their own region of the world.”
Vance, who is Catholic, said a big reason why Americans care about Israel is because the United States is still the largest Christian-majority country in the world, which means that a majority of citizens “think that their savior, and I count myself a Christian, was born, died, and resurrected in that narrow little strip of territory off the Mediterranean.”
“The idea that there is ever going to be an American foreign policy that doesn’t care a lot about that slice of the world is preposterous because of who Americans are,” Vance said.
The Jewish Democratic Council of America also reacted to the announcement of Trump selecting Vance as his running mate, with its Chief of Staff Sam Crystal saying Trump has placed loyalty to him over loyalty to the values and priorities of the American people, including Jewish Americans.
“Vance defended Trump’s hateful lecturing of Jewish voters, defended Trump’s decision to host antisemites for dinner, and spread the antisemitic ‘great replacement’ theory,” Crystal said in a statement. “He embodies why the vast majority of Jewish Americans continue to support Democrats and reject Republican extremism.”
According to Crystal, President Biden and Vice President Harris are “closely aligned with the vast majority of Jewish Americans on all of our priorities” including abortion access, defending democracy, supporting Israel and combating antisemitism.
“Now more than ever, Jewish Americans need leaders who stand with us – not against us,” Crystal said. “Jewish voters made the difference for President Biden in 2020 and will do so again in 2024.”
Comments are closed.