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RJC Says It Will Join Trump in Backing Potential Primary Challenge to Thomas Massie

The Republican Jewish Coalition said on Tuesday that it would join President Donald Trump in backing a potential primary challenger to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), as the longtime RJC foe comes under increased GOP scrutiny over his refusal to vote for a Trump-backed government funding package and other administration priorities.

"RJC will be a leading force alongside President Trump in support of a viable candidate to defeat Massie," RJC spokesperson Sam Markstein said in a statement to Jewish Insider.

…Responding to Trump's call for a primary challenge, RJC CEO Matt Brooks said on X that the organization "is with you. #DefeatMassie." The RJC recently pledged that it would spend "unlimited" funds to block Massie should he run for Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) Senate seat, which McConnell is vacating at the end of his term.

Massie, who has raised ire and concern from the Jewish community with repeated votes against legislation supporting Israel and combating antisemitism, as well as a string of comments viewed by Jewish leaders as antisemitic, has not yet announced his plans, but has floated the possibility of running for Senate, reelection in the House or Kentucky governor in 2027.

Last week, the Trump Administration pulled $400 million in federal grants and contracts from Columbia University over concerns about antisemitism. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement, "Universities must comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding. For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus. Today, we demonstrate to Columbia and other universities that we will not tolerate their appalling inaction any longer."

Over the weekend, federal immigration agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian born in Syria, who was a leader of the antisemitic, anti-Israel protests at Columbia University last year. USA Today reports that Khalil was the lead negotiator for Columbia student protesters, frequently appearing at press conferences and involved in closed-door talks with university administrators.

Khalil is reportedly a green card holder, a permanent resident of the US. He is married to an American citizen.

Responding directly to critics questioning the propriety of the arrest, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was very clear about how the Trump Administration intends to treat people who come to this country and engage in support of terrorism. The Secretary said yesterday:

This is not about free speech. This is about people who don't have any right to be in the United States to begin with. No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card, by the way. So, when you apply for a student visa, for any visa to enter the United States, we have the right to deny you, for virtually any reason.

And I think being a supporter of Hamas and coming into our universities and turning them upside down and being complicit in what are clearly crimes, vandalization, complicit in shutting down learning institutions… If you told us that's what you intended to do when you came to America, we would have never let you in, and if you do it once you get in, we're gonna revoke it and kick you out.

In an interview today on RSBN (video here), RJC Political Director Sam Markstein applauded Secretary Rubio's remarks and the Trump Administration's effort to deport Khalil.

Markstein also talked about the $400 million in federal funding being taken from Columbia University because they didn't protect Jewish students. He noted that we're going to see more of these investigations into universities because the Department of Education just announced that they are looking into 60 universities accused of allowing antisemitic activity on their campuses. The DOE is also addressing the backlog of complaints about antisemitism on campus that the Biden administration did not take seriously.

Andrew C. McCarthy, a former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and a contributing editor at National Review, offers an explanation of the legal issues in the Khalil case and argues that the Administration is right to seek to deport Khalil.

McCarthy concludes: "If the government can prove that Khalil was in a campus group that endorsed or espoused Hamas's atrocities against Israel, it should be able to deport him regardless of his LPR status. And if it can deport him, there are likely to be thousands of others who can be deported, too — and should be."

As the Jewish Insider reports, Rep. Abe Hamadeh, a freshman Republican congressman from Arizona, has a very clear – and personal – perspective on the Middle East. Hamadeh is the child of Syrian immigrants with Druze, Kurdish and Muslim heritage. He is a former US servicemember who deployed to Saudi Arabia.

Rep. Hamadeh is a strong supporter of Israel; he has visited Israel and met with freed hostages and their families. He told the Jewish Insider:

"It really shows you the depravity of humans, what Hamas was capable of doing," Hamadeh said, adding that freeing the remaining hostages in Gaza is his primary concern, and that the US must apply pressure on Hamas as well as its partners in Qatar and elsewhere to ensure that Hamas complies with a deal.

…"It's a testament to the character of Israelis," he said, of Israel's dedication to repatriating the bodies of deceased hostages. "I think we can learn a lot from the Israelis."

Rep. Hamadeh will be the featured guest speaker at the RJC's upcoming Arizona members meeting on March 20. For more information and to register, click here.

Shoshana Bryen, senior director of the Jewish Policy Center, writes that the carnage in Syria is horrifying, but not surprising. Damascus fell to the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in December, and HTS, unlike the Alawite Assad regime or other minority communities in Syria, is "Sunni, ISIS-adjacent, Al Qaeda-adjacent, and armed by and aligned with Recip Tayyip Erdogan's increasingly Islamist Turkey."

Bryen writes:

HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (aka Abu Mohammed al-Jolani) is an international jihadist. He broke with Ayman al-Zawahiri — the leader of Al-Qaeda — in 2016, and HTS received its own terror designation from the US in 2018. He has no loyalty, moving from an alliance with Al-Qaeda in Iraq to the Islamic State in Iraq, to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria, to Al-Qaeda in Syria, to his own brand…

The history should have made you think that al-Sharaa was not going to be a peaceful neighbor to anyone. Anywhere.

Israel understood this. When Damascus fell to HTS, Israel immediately struck Syrian chemical weapons depots, took out sea-to-sea missiles at Syrian ports, and neutralized the Syrian air force, weapons productions sites, and major weaponry depots. The IDF estimated it had eliminated 70-80 percent of the Assad regime's military capabilities over a two-day period. Afterward, Syria's Druze and Kurdish communities requested Israel's protection, and at least one southern Syrian village asked to be annexed to Israel.

Further reading: Israeli FM: Alawite massacre shows Israel took the right approach to Syria
FM Gideon Sa'ar said, "They were jihadists and remained jihadists, even if some of their leaders have put on suits."

Last week, Israel halted humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza.

Arsen Ostrovsky and Mark Goldfeder, in an article at Newsweek, consider what international law has to say on this:

For the record, international law is very clear on this point: Israel is not obligated to provide aid that will be used by an enemy in a time of war, and anyone who argues differently is either illiterate or willfully ignorant.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt certainly were not expected to provide aid to Nazi Germany during WWII, yet there is a systematic double standard and misapplication of the law against the Jewish state.

To begin, those who ignorantly claim that all blockades are automatically a war crime, are simply wrong. Blockades, which are a lawful military tactic in the course of war, are regulated by international humanitarian law, but are not prohibited by it, as long as it is not used to intentionally starve the local civilian population. To that end, siege law does have humanitarian aspects, namely the requirement of facilitating the passage of food and medicine by third parties, which is governed by Article 23 of the 4th Geneva Convention.

Article 23 is very explicit in outlining that a High Contracting Party, such as Israel, shall allow the free passage of humanitarian supplies, but that is if, and only if, there are no serious reasons to believe these supplies are being diverted from their destination or used for military purposes.

As the authors go on to explain, it is well known that Hamas steals humanitarian supplies for its own goals. In addition, Israel has allowed ample supplies of food and water into Gaza. Claims that Israel is starving the people of Gaza are simply false. Israel has the right to stop facilitating humanitarian aid to Gaza in a time of war.

Senate Confirms Keith Sonderling for No. 2 Role at DOL

The Senate voted along party lines Wednesday to confirm former RJC Leader Keith Sonderling to serve as second-in-command to newly sworn-in Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer.

As Bloomberg Law reports: "As deputy secretary Sonderling will oversee the agency’s workforce and day-to-day operations, which is currently undergoing a large-scale transition and reduction effort driven by the Department of Government Efficiency. He will also play a key role in implementing the Trump administration’s regulatory agenda."

Ailam: Iranian's Increased Subversion in Jordan and the West Bank Post-October 7

Oded Ailam, a researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA), writes that while Iran has suffered setbacks in the last year, including Israel's shattering of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, its expansionist goals have not changed.

Iran, Ailam writes, is exploiting regional vulnerabilities to destabilize Jordan's pro-Western monarchy and support Islamist radicals in Judea and Samaria. They are supporting Islamist groups with funds, weapons smuggling, cyber warfare and disinformation, and other means. "[U]nchecked Iranian influence leads to long-term instability and a direct challenge to US and allied interests."

Bernie Sanders introduces the latest set of resolutions opposing Israel aid, plans to seek votes

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced four resolutions to cut off various weapons sales to Israel this week.

The latest resolutions, a Sanders spokesperson told Jewish Insider, relate to a series of sales announced by the Trump administration on Feb. 28 of bombs, armored bulldozers and bomb guidance kits, totaling around $4 billion.