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The Washington Free Beacon reports that former Vice President Mike Pence is in Israel this week to "meet with the Jewish state's leadership and survey the country's war effort against the Iran-backed Hamas terror group."

RJC CEO Matthew Brooks is proud to be accompanying Vice President Pence on this important trip at this critical time for Israel and the Jewish community.

Republican Jewish Coalition National Chairman Senator Norm Coleman and RJC CEO Matt Brooks write at the Daily Caller:

As many people know by now, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), and the critical race theory (CRT) with which it is closely associated, divides individuals into "white" "oppressors" and "oppressed" "people of color." As we’ve seen on college campuses and in other parts of our society, this ideology feeds racial divisions, puts group grievances above individual merit, and results in discrimination based on race and ethnicity.

In DEI’s crude hierarchy of victims, Jews – arguably one of the most oppressed groups in human history – are labeled "oppressors" and marked for attack. Since the rise of DEI began a few years ago, antisemitic incidents in the US have risen to record levels, particularly against "visibly" Jewish individuals. DEI is offensive, contrary to America’s commitment to freedom and tolerance, and a distinct threat to the American Jewish community.

Americans have had enough of the bigotry and intolerance of DEI. On the federal and state levels, Republican elected officials are leading the effort to roll back DEI in meaningful ways.

Read the full op-ed here.

Fox News reports:

The Republican National Committee this week launched websites in all 50 states and in more than a dozen different languages to encourage and educate GOP voters on how to vote by mail and vote early, Fox News Digital has learned.

Republicans last year launched its "Bank Your Vote" initiative, which focuses on pre-Election Day voting to build on absentee returns and early in-person voting. The effort is expected to "encourage, educate and activate Republican voters on when, where and how to lock in their votes as early as possible" through in-person voting, absentee voting and ballot harvesting where legal.

This week, the RNC rolled out websites in all 50 states and in 16 languages to continue the RNC’s investment and outreach to minority communities. The languages include Arabic, Assyrian, Burmese, Chinese, Chinese (traditional), Hebrew, Hindi, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, Navajo, Portuguese, Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese and Yiddish.

Natan Sharansky is a former Soviet dissident and Israeli politician, currently leading efforts to combat antisemitism. Bassem Eid founded the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group in 1996. Together, they wrote an op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal that examines the necessary elements of a long-term peaceful solution to the problem of Gaza.

Sharansky and Eid are long-time observers of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, who warned against trusting Yassir Arafat or Mahmoud Abbas as a "partner for peace" and expressed concern over Hamas's rise to power in Gaza. After October 7, they say, all illusions are gone about "peace" with dictators. The question now is what comes next? They write:

Some might think it outlandish to speak about democracy now, with Israeli hostages still held captive and Gaza thoroughly ravaged. But Germany and Japan both built democracies on the wreckage of dictatorships. To be sure, everyone in Israel remembers the crowds of Gazans who cheered the Oct. 7 terrorists as they paraded their victims. But one need only compare pictures of Germans demonstrating their loyalty to [Adolph] Hitler in 1943 with pictures from 1945 and 1955 to see that such enthusiasm is fleeting. Expressions of disillusionment with Hamas will increase as soon as Gazans are less fearful of their leaders—and there are signs this is already happening.

What does the "day after" look like for Gaza? There must be elections. But elections in a society that isn’t free will have no significance. Arafat, Mr. Abbas and Hamas all had elections—after which they killed or removed everyone standing in their way.

Instead there must first be a transitional period during which security remains in Israel’s hands. Administrative control should pass to a coordinating body of representatives from the West and Arab countries that recognize Israel. Such a body sounded preposterous 20 years ago, when it was first proposed to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and only Egypt and Jordan recognized the Jewish state. But today, after the Abraham Accords, more Arab states may be willing to join in the pursuit of a lasting peace...

Matthew Kroenig and Jeffrey Cimmino write at The Dispatch:

In recent weeks, Iran has waged a shadow war against the United States and its interests in the Middle East. The Biden administration has responded cautiously, hoping to avoid an escalation of the conflict. But this logic is misguided: To restore deterrence, the United States should hit Iran hard.

Iran was, of course, behind Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, as it has trained and equipped the terrorist organization for many years. Following the attack, Iran ramped up its provocations against U.S. forces, bases, and interests in the Middle East... Perhaps most egregious, however, has been the Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Iran provides the Houthis with weapons and training; it’s Iranian drones and missiles that the Houthis are firing on one of the most important shipping lanes in the world...

Shockingly, the Biden administration has barely responded to these provocations... The Biden administration has reportedly stepped cautiously because it fears "escalation." The worry is that U.S. and/or Israeli reprisals will only prompt Iranian counterattacks that could spiral into a region-wide war at a time when the United States already has its hands full with major wars in Europe and Gaza, and a growing Chinese threat. This excessive fear of escalation has been a hallmark of Biden’s foreign policy.

...We have seen that American caution has not led to de-escalation. Rather, American weakness has encouraged more aggression... American strategy documents for many years have vowed to deter Iranian aggression. But deterrence has now failed. So the operative question now becomes: How can the United States restore deterrence?

...When deterrence fails, therefore, the United States needs to execute its deterrent threat. It needs to follow through and impose a significant cost on Iran that outweighs the perceived benefits of aggression—as Tehran calculates it. It needs to convince Tehran that it badly miscalculated and that attacking the United States and its interests is too costly. In other words, it is escalation, not de-escalation, that is necessary to restore deterrence with Iran.

Free Beacon: Cardin blocks bipartisan bill to sanction Iranian leaders for human rights abuses

Adam Kredo reports that Democratic Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) is blocking the a bipartisan bill that would sanction Iran's leadership for its role in mass human rights crimes. The MAHSA Act is named for a 22-year-old Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, who was killed by Tehran's morality police in September 2022. The House passed the bill 410-3 last September.

The Focus Project: Honoring bravery in the face of terrorism

The Focus Project shares stories of some of the incredible heroes of October 7 and the weeks after that dark day, including all-female Israeli tank crews, dogs that track terrorists and sniff out explosives, and several Israeli Bedouin Arabs who helped people fleeing from the Nova festival. Read much more at the link.

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.