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This week, the RJC Victory Fund launched a massive $1.5 million TV ad buy in Pennsylvania, slamming Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman for an incident in 2013, when he pulled a shotgun on an unarmed, innocent Black man. The ads feature two Black Pennsylvania voters, a man and a woman, reacting with outrage to this incident, for which Fetterman has never apologized.

RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks said:

Radical John Fetterman’s outrageous vigilantism… is absolutely disqualifying for someone wanting to be a United States Senator.

John Fetterman’s actions betrayed the trust of the African American community and demonstrated his abysmally poor judgment.

To compound this outrage, John Fetterman - to this day - has never apologized to the victim, Christopher Miyares, to the Black community, or to the citizens of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Watch the ads, titled “No Way” and “We Do Too.”

The ads caught the attention of the New York Times, the Jerusalem Post, Breitbart, Politico, and other media outlets that are following this key midterm race.

RJC Hosts Nevada Event with Laxalt, Haley

The RJC hosted a terrific event in Las Vegas last week featuring GOP Senate candidate Adam Laxalt and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, hosted by RJC Board Member, Ambassador Jeffrey Ross Gunter. Hundreds of pro-Israel community voters came out to support Laxalt, who is in a neck-and-neck race to the finish.

Jewish Woman Running Against Squad Member Bowman

Dr. Miriam Levitt Flisser, a Jewish pediatrician who served as the mayor of Scarsdale, is running in NY-16 against Democrat Jamaal Bowman.Bowman is a member of the "Squad" that includes Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). He opposed the Abraham Accords and cosponsored Tlaib’s bill to have the US government recognize the "Nakba" (which means "catastrophe") – the Palestinian name for the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

The New York Post reports:

Dr. Miriam Levitt Flisser, a registered independent running on the Republican Party line, said Bowman is too far to the left of residents in the district on issues such as crime, border security, the economy and defending Israel. The 16th Congressional District includes Westchester County and a sliver of The Bronx.

“Bowman is not representative of the people of the district. He’s much more extreme,” said Levitt Flisser, 76, who is currently medical director of the Bronxville School District.

“Crime is a big issue. He’s made statements against the police and supported defunding the police.”

Learn more about Dr. Miriam Levitt Flisser here.

The protests against the Iranian regime have continued into a third week. There are reports that some 50-100 people have been killed by regime forces trying to quell the protests, which are nationwide.

Women, including university students and even high school students, have burned their hijabs and led demonstrations against the regime. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Iranian women and girls held fresh antigovernment protests on Wednesday, activists said, as demonstrations stretched into a third week, given new impetus as word spread on social media that a 16-year-old student had died after taking part in a women’s rights rally.

The student’s aunt, Atash Shahkarami, told BBC Persian that Nika Shahkarami called a friend to say she was being chased by security forces on Sept. 20. Her family found her body at a Tehran morgue 10 days later, Ms. Shahkarami said. The BBC said Ms. Shahkarami was arrested after being interviewed.

… Nika’s death appears to have emboldened other girls to join the protests alongside university students and women from older generations. Footage posted online on Wednesday showed dozens of schoolgirls in Tehran, during a visit by an official from the Basij paramilitary group to their school, removing their hijabs in protest and shouting at him to "Get lost, Basij."

In The National Interest, Behnam Ben Taleblu and Saeed Ghasseminejad of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies outline ten steps the Biden administration could take to stand with the Iranian people. Number one: Get out of the Iran nuclear deal negotiations aimed at reviving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal of 2015.

They describe their proposals as "a way [for Washington] to get off the sidelines and show, in ways consistent with American national security interests, that it stands with the Iranian people in practice, not just principle."

The whole list is well worth your attention.

REMEMBER: RJC members can make their voices heard and tell Congress and the White House: We Support the People of Iran.

Click here to learn more and to send emails – with one click! – to your Senators and Congressman, and to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Let them know what you think!

Send your message today!

Israel and Lebanon are in the midst of US-led negotiations over economic rights to a portion of the Mediterranean Sea where natural gas fields have been identified. This process has many motifs that are familiar from history:

• The US is pressing Israel to join an agreement with an Arab neighbor;

• That neighbor is effectively run by a terrorist group (Hezbollah, in this case) that continues to refer to Israel as the “enemy”;

• An Israeli government gives a positive response to the plan in order to buy quiet from the terrorist group;

• And then the Arab neighbor makes new and unacceptable demands as soon as a deal seems imminent.

In the era of the Abraham Accords, when economic and security interests are bringing Israel and many of its neighbors closer in peace, this return to old and disproven methods of getting things done in the Middle East is disturbing.

You can get all the details in this Jewish Insider article and from Lahav Harkov’s excellent reporting in the Jerusalem Post here, here, and here.

Parents want an education for their kids, not indoctrination

Leora Levy, an RJC leader and the Republican candidate for US Senate in Connecticut, writes about a hot-button issue in her state and many others: the progressive agendas being pushed in public schools. She will fight alongside parents to stop indoctrination in schools and make sure parents have a voice in their children’s education.

The new loyalty oath imposed on Jews

Melissa Langsam Braunstein reports on how Jewish and pro-Israel students are being silenced – or are silencing themselves – because of the antisemitic delegitimization of Israel on college campuses. Students are facing heavy pressure to camouflaging their identity and hiding their views in order to feel safe and accepted in academic spaces.

A failure to insulate from OPEC+

Jim Geraghty at National Review offers a short course in basic economics, explaining how much damage the Biden administration’s energy policies are causing to America, harms that will not be quickly or easily rectified.

RJC offices are open! Contact information for our offices can be found on our website. 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.