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The Republican Jewish Coalition PAC has released its second set of endorsements for the 2022 election cycle. These fourteen candidates include both incumbents and challengers in key races around the country. Fox News reported:

In making the endorsements, RJC executive director Matt Brooks told Fox News that "we need Republicans in Congress who will fight for America’s freedom, security, and prosperity, and who support our ally, Israel. The RJC PAC enthusiastically supports these GOP incumbents and challengers, who will help Republicans take back the House and Senate majorities and will bring much-needed sanity back to Capitol Hill."

Noting that the RJC’s PAC raised over $10 million in the 2020 cycle for its endorsed House and Senate candidates, Brooks emphasized that "the RJC PAC had a significant impact in 2020 and will continue to make a difference in highly competitive races like these. The candidates we are endorsing today are talented, principled, dedicated public leaders whose elections are top priorities for the GOP in 2022."

The new endorsees are:

Sen. Ron Johnson (WI)

Rep. David Schweikert(AZ-01)

Rep. David Valadao (CA-22)

Rep.Andy Harris (MD-01)

Rep. Peter Meijer (MI-03)

Rep. Don Bacon (NE-02)

Rep. Yvette Herrell (NM-2)

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (NY-11)

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01)

Rep. Nancy Mace (SC-01)

Esther Joy King (IL-17)

Monica De La Cruz (TX-15)

Wesley Hunt (TX-38)

Derrick Van Orden (WI-03)

The best way to help these candidates is to donate to them through the RJC PAC. Donating this way not only supports these great candidates, but they also know that it came from you and it is marked as coming from an RJC member, making each donation a force-multiplier.

You can split your contribution between multiple RJC PAC endorsees with a donation on this page!

Laurence Norman at the Wall Street Journal reports:

The effort to revive the 2015 nuclear deal agreement now hinges on perhaps the most politically sensitive issue in the negotiations: whether to remove the US terrorism designation for Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, the country’s powerful security force, diplomats said.

The issue is galvanizing opposition to the nuclear deal in Washington and among Middle East allies such as Israel, where the government issued stinging public criticism of any attempt to remove the terrorism designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC].

…In arguing for lifting the terror sanctions, US officials have said the threat posed by the Guard and other terrorist-listed entities would be much worse if Iran gets nuclear weapons. Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, is currently weeks away from having enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb, according to the U.N. atomic agency.

…According to people involved in the talks, the American offer would remove the Guard from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations if Iran commits to rein in its regional aggression and refrains from targeting Americans. If Iran doesn’t abide by the agreement, the listing could be reimposed.

Iran, which refuses to negotiate directly with Washington, hasn’t yet responded, creating a stalemate that senior US officials say could imperil a deal.

The Jewish Insider reports that 62 Republican lawmakers, led by Rep. Scott Franklin (R-FL) and including conference chair Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), have drafted a letter to Secretary of State Tony Blinken expressing opposition to withdrawing the IRGC’s terrorism designation. The draft of the letter obtained by the Jewish Insider said:

The IRGC continues to actively participate in acts of terror and destabilizing actions in the Region - particularly against one of our closest allies, Israel. It is also a chief supporter and enabler of other FTOs and insurgent groups in the region. These organizations include, but are not limited to: Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Houthi insurgency. The IRGC’s actions have led to decades of instability and conflict across the Middle East and the group is responsible for countless deaths, including more than 600 US troops during the occupation of Iraq.

Victoria Coates and Robert Greenway, who both served in senior Trump administration positions dealing with the Middle East, write at the Washington Post that delisting the IRGC would be a dangerous and counterproductive move:

[T]he US government’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list… one of the most powerful tools in our national security arsenal — a designation by the State Department and other agencies that not only economically isolates the entity in question but also imposes sanctions on any other group that provides it with material support (which can be anything from food and shelter to armaments). In essence, the designation imposes penalties on companies doing any sort of business with the sanctioned entity and opens these companies up to an increased risk of civil litigation on the part of the entity’s victims.

[W]hile sanctions are not the solution to all problems, they are a critical tool when applied consistently and according to the strict rules that govern their use. Delisting the IRGC to persuade the Iranian regime to join a new nuclear proliferation pact will have the effect of undermining the credibility of US sanctions. They will henceforth seem negotiable in nature and not tethered to the behavior they are designed to punish.

As always, Nikki Haley got right to the point in remarks she made earlier this week to Breitbart News:

In an exclusive statement to Breitbart News on Sunday, Haley claimed that "a new Iran [nuclear] deal would be a disaster."

Aside from rewarding terror, the move would also bolster Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched an invasion of Ukraine last month.

"President Biden would be rewarding terrorists who chant 'Death to America' and signing a deal with Putin as he threatens the free world," she said.

… "Republicans are united in our opposition to this short-sighted illegitimate deal," she concluded.

In his address to the Israeli Knesset last weekend, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky asked Israel for more help – and specifically asked why Israel hasn’t given Ukraine the Iron Dome system that protects Israeli citizens from Hamas missile attacks. Some commentators echoed the question and criticized Israel for refusing to send the advanced defense system to Ukraine.

Jim Geraghty at National Review lays out many reasons for Israel’s decision, including these:

• It is one of the most expensive missile-defense systems in the world.

• Israel doesn’t have as many Iron Dome batteries as it would like and doesn’t have any extras to spare.

• Components would be difficult to ship while Russia’s military is operating in the skies and coasts of Ukraine.

• Operation of the Iron Dome requires training and integration with existing systems.

• Israel can’t afford for Iron Dome technology to be captured and passed to its enemies.

• Finally, Israel’s calculation that Russia would retaliate against it for transferring the Iron Dome system to Ukraine is a reasonable assessment.

On the other hand, Israel is providing significant assistance to Ukraine in other ways. First, Israel has tried to mediate an agreement between Ukraine and Russia. Second, this past Tuesday saw the opening of the field hospital that Israel set up outside of Lviv. The $6.5 million facility on the grounds of an elementary school in Mostyska uses 10 outdoor tents in addition to multiple classrooms as hospitalization wards. The hospital’s 100 staff members includes 80 doctors and nurses who live on-site, according to the Times of Israel. The field hospital includes a pediatric ward, a maternity ward, an emergency room, a telemedicine facility, and more.

The Jewish Policy Center invites RJC members to two fascinating webinars:

A New World Order?

How can the United States plan for a world in which strong, tyrannical rulers use organizations and agreements to foster their own goals – often inimical to those of the US, the Free World. and those aspiring to be free?

Tuesday, March 29, 2022 at 12:00PM Eastern

Eli Lake, journalist and Bloomberg Opinion columnist.

Register: https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2022/03/24/webinar-a-new-world-order/

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An Update from Inside Iran

Join us for a look at Iranians and with the possibility of a better future if the people can be freed from a government that would destroy it.

Thursday, March 31, 2022 at 12:00PM Eastern

Ellie Cohanim, journalist and former Deputy Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism at the US Department of State.

Register: https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2022/03/24/webinar-an-update-from-inside-iran/

Biden’s ambassador to Israel tells Peace Now: Your agenda is in my heart

Jonathan Tobin examines the comments of Thomas Nides, President Joe Biden’s ambassador to Israel, who vented his real feelings about Israel, Jerusalem, and the Palestinians in a webinar with Americans for Peace Now, the pro-BDS group. Compare and contrast with: David Friedman’s "Sledgehammer": A Lesson in Principled Diplomacy.

Bennett in Egypt for first-ever trilateral summit with Sissi and UAE crown prince

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was in Egypt on Monday for the first-ever trilateral summit of Israeli, Egyptian and Emirati leaders, an Egyptian official told The Times of Israel, confirming the premier’s unannounced visit to the Sinai resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh… The trilateral summit will mark the latest development in the Abraham Accords, which saw Israel normalize relations with the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco in 2020 agreements brokered by the Trump administration… Bennett may use the summit to rally Egypt and the UAE’s support for his public campaign against reported US plans to delist Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terror group.

RJC staff have returned to their offices for in-person work. Contact information for our offices can be found on our web site. Please visit us online for the latest RJC news, to see details of upcoming events, and to donate to the RJC. Read past editions of this newsletter here.