Before we get into it, we would like to take a moment to welcome the nominations of Sen. Marco Rubio to serve as Secretary of State, Gov. Mike Huckabee to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Israel, and Rep. Elise Stefanik to serve as U.S Ambassador to the UN, in the incoming Trump administration. All of these individuals share a deep passion for the U.S – Israel relationship and they will serve our country well.

Back to today… This week, Jewish students were attacked at an American university (again); Israelis were attacked by a mob in Europe (again); and the IDF killed an internationally wanted terrorist mastermind (again). Let’s get into it.

“Pass the Damn Bill”

Shortly after the election, which resulted in GOP control of the House, Senate and the White House, Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) tweeted the following, “Jewish students shouldn’t have to wait until the 119th Congress for their rights to be protected. [Majority Leader Schumer], it’s time to stop playing politics and pass the damn bill.”

The bill to which the Congressman is referring is the Antisemitism Awareness Act (AAA) – which CUFI has backed since 2016.

And Rep. Lawler’s comment could not have come at a more appropriate time, given that we are again seeing Jewish students attacked on campuses – this time at DePaul University where two students expressing support for Israel were beaten up by Hamas sympathizers.

We agree with Rep. Lawler. Shortly after the Christians United for Israel April 2024 Emergency Fly-In, under the leadership of House Speaker Mike Johnson, the House passed the AAA. While the bill enjoyed overwhelming bipartisan support (as it does in the Senate) Speaker Johnson faced opposition from extremists in both parties in the House; nonetheless, Speaker Johnson saw the bill through.

Senator Schumer will be Majority Leader of the Senate until the end of the year. He has a short time period in which to get a lot done. Will he continue to keep the AAA on ice? We hope not.

Majority Leader Schumer, if not for the sake of our college students or this country, perhaps for the sake of your legacy, pass the damn bill.

A Pogrom in Amsterdam

The city of Tel Aviv’s top soccer team played a match last week in the Netherlands. Following the game, Hamas supporters attacked Israelis attending the soccer match. Five people were hospitalized, with dozens more injured. The Israeli government reacted quickly, organizing eight rescue flights for those impacted by the violence.

Israel’s National Security Council issued a warning to all Israelis traveling abroad to avoid major sporting events and other large gatherings, as there have been calls to attack Israelis at such events by terrorist sympathizers.

In that statement, released more than a year after the mass rape and murder of Jews in southern Israel, the government in Jerusalem had to tell its citizens to hide who they are when traveling abroad. “Be extra careful about concealing anything that could identify you as Israeli/Jewish,” the statement read.

Let Israel Win

Around the same time European leaders were offering perfunctory responses to the aforementioned pogrom yet still condemning Israel for fabricated offenses, the IDF was at work seeking to free its people and destroying the terrorist infrastructure built up in Lebanon and Gaza over the past two decades.

Most recently, Israel killed a Hezbollah commander named, Salim Jamil Ayyash. Though not well known in the United States, there are a lot of Lebanese people whose loved ones have been avenged with the death of this terrorist mastermind.

In fact, Ayyash had been convicted by a UN court for being a central figure in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. For a little context, Hariri was a key leader in the movement to boot Iran, Hezbollah and its ilk from Lebanon at the time of his death.

Lebanon is worse for having lost Hariri, and it is better for having seen his killers, and so many others that turned the Land of Cedars into a house of horrors, eliminated from this earth.

And Israel’s successes do not just translate into limited, short-term benefits (or even justice served). Rather, each terrorist eliminated or arrested saves innumerable lives in Israel, in Gaza, in Lebanon, and throughout the region. Every time Iran’s proxies, or the Islamic Republic itself, is harmed or pushed back, the free world – all of it, including us here at home – benefit.

So, here’s a policy for those in power now and in the future: Let Israel win. Let Jerusalem do what she must to bring her hostages home, return her citizens to their communities in the north, and continue standing up to the attempted export of the Islamic Republic’s revolution.

We get it. There are a lot of people in Washington who do not want to see the U.S. embroiled in conflicts overseas – and we agree. But the answer is not to bury one’s head in the sand, the answer is to provide Israel with what she needs to do the job we all know needs to be done. The answer is to let Israel win.

Sincerely,

The CUFI Action Fund