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This Week:

• RJC Launches Ad Praising Trump's Strikes on Iran

• Netanyahu Nominates Trump for Nobel Peace Prize

• US Sanctions Will Hold UN Rights Monitor Albanese Accountable

• Marco Rubio: Trump Defense Deal with NATO is a Big, Beautiful Win for America

• RJC Announces Hiring of New York Regional Director Darren Fields

• Short Takes

• Week's Best Tweets

• Upcoming Events

RJC Launches Ad Praising Trump's Strikes on Iran

The RJC launched a new television ad buy this week, praising President Donald Trump's decisive action against the Iranian nuclear weapons program.

Jewish Insider reports:

The 30-second spot, titled "Peacemaker," will air on Fox News, Fox Business Network and Newsmax through the end of this week, after the conclusion of Netanyahu's US visit.

…RJC's national political director, Sam Markstein, told Jewish Insider, "Certainly, eliminating or obliterating Iran's nuclear weapons program should go down as one of the great peacemaking actions ever taken by any president."

"If you believe in Western civilization, if you believe in America, if you believe in support for Israel, all the things that generations of our people have cared about, there's no question that this action taken by Donald Trump will be heralded by generations to come. It really is hard to quantify how important and legacy defining this will be — not just for the president himself, but for our country and for Israel," Markstein said.

Markstein said the organization created the ad "specifically to align with the prime minister's trip to Washington," which is [Benjamin] Netanyahu's third visit since Trump began his second term. The frequency in visits, Markstein argued, serves as evidence of "how the cooperation is so intertwined and how the relationship [between the US and Israel] has been strengthened so quickly at this decisive time in history."

President Trump shared the RJC ad in a Truth Social post.

Watch the ad here.

US Sanctions Will Hold UN Rights Monitor Albanese Accountable

The Algemeiner reports that the Trump administration has imposed sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official's lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.

"The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare, to check and prevent illegitimate ICC overreach and abuse of power, and to protect our sovereignty and that of our allies," Secretary Marco Rubio said in a statement on the sanctions.

The editors of the Wall Street Journal approve of the administration's move, writing:

United Nations staff rarely have to answer for their anti-Israel agenda, but the blue moon arrived Wednesday when the US sanctioned UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese. It's about time.

In a post on X.com, Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote that Ms. Albanese had been involved in a "campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel." The sanctions are a response, he wrote, to her "illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against US and Israeli officials, companies and executives."

… UN Watch and other groups have closely tracked Ms. Albanese's history of anti-Israel and antisemitic remarks. In 2014 she wrote that the US is "subjugated by the Jewish lobby." At a pro-Palestine conference in November 2022 that included members of Hamas, she told the audience they had a "right to resist" the Israeli "occupation." She has equated Israel with Nazi Germany and called the US "a nation founded upon genocide."

… The sanctions will prevent Ms. Albanese, an Italian citizen, from entering the US. The university encampments may miss her but we'd count that a good start. Perhaps the Administration will consider a similar approach for the rest of the UN's antisemitic cabal.

Marco Rubio: Trump Defense Deal with NATO is a Big, Beautiful Win for America

In an op-ed for USA Today, Secretary of State Marco Rubio writes that in the past, our NATO allies shirked their funding obligations, putting the burden of Europe's defense on the US. In 2017, Rubio writes, only three NATO allies were paying 2% of the GDP on defense. Things are different now, thanks to President Donald Trump:

Today, 29 of 31 allies are reporting plans to spend more than 2%, and all allies except one (Canada) have accelerated plans to hit that goal by the end of 2025. Those increased spending levels have already translated to $700 billion worth of new capabilities.

… Once allies reach 5%, it will add more than $1 trillion per year in defense spending to the alliance's annual total, making NATO substantially stronger and more capable of defending against threats. This commitment would not have been possible if not for President Trump's efforts, something NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte expressed personally.

… Today, NATO is much better poised to project military, diplomatic and economic power to a degree our adversaries cannot dream of equaling, thus deterring future wars.

RJC Announces Hiring of New York Regional Director Darren Fields

The Republican Jewish Coalition is pleased to announce the hiring of Darren Fields as RJC New York Regional Director. RJC CEO Matt Brooks said:

At a time when Jewish New Yorker's are fleeing the Democratic Party in historic numbers, it is more important than ever for the RJC to have strong and skilled representation there. We are excited to have Darren Fields lead RJC New York's efforts.

Darren's hiring underscores our robust commitment to the New York region, and significantly increases our presence and impact in the tri-state area.

Born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland, Darren moved to Israel at the age of 18 where he joined the IDF. Darren spent nearly four years as a paratrooper in an elite infantry unit and subsequently held a security position in Israel's Ministry of Defense for seven years.

A successful businessman with decades of first-hand experience in pro-Israel advocacy, Darren Fields will grow and strengthen the RJC's outreach in the greater New York City area and beyond.

RJC New York is one of the preeminent regions of the Republican Jewish Coalition's national organization, and we are thrilled to welcome Darren to Team RJC.

B'hatzlacha, Darren!

Short Takes

Kraushaar: The slow drift: The Democratic Party's erosion of support for Israel andcommitment to fighting antisemitism

Seemingly every week, there's a political development, polling nugget or election outcome that underscores the party's commitment to Jewish voters isn't quite where it was in the not-too-distant past.

…[A]nti-Israel activism is now being leveraged as a way to raise money for like-minded candidates. That would be a shift from recent elections where many candidates hostile to Israel were seen as too extreme to win support from a critical mass of donors.

The big picture? Turbocharged partisanship and polarization, which has impacted nearly every issue in the country, is now affecting the politics behind support for Israel — and even turning bipartisan issues with widespread support, like fighting against antisemitism and defending Jewish communal interests, into a partisan food fight.

For decades, most Jewish voters have aligned themselves with the Democratic Party, even amid serious policy disagreements… But if the party continues to accommodate far-left forces with radical views on Israel and antisemitism, that level of support will be significantly tested — and worth watching closely — in the years ahead.

Bryen: The landscape has changed

Israel is the undisputed regional Strong Horse.

That is not to shortchange the US contribution. With just 75 precision-guided munitions, including 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bombs, and a barrage of Tomahawk missiles, the US was restored to strategic prominence in the region as well. Zero US casualties. Zero Iranian retaliation (performance fire at Qatar doesn't count). Zero American "boots on the ground." And an understanding in the region that the US will support its friends and allies – Israel in this case – when push and shove come together.

That is an understanding long missing in the region, and it redraws the landscape.

EJP: New report by Israeli NGO finds systematic use of sexual violence by Hamas in Oct. 7 attacks

A report released by The Dinah Project on Tuesday that seeks to "set the record straight" on the assaults that occurred during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on southern Israel found that the terror group systematically used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war, acts that constitute crimes against humanity. The study, which was led by legal and feminist experts and has been compiled into a book, offers a new evidentiary and legal framework to prosecute such crimes as its authors call on international bodies to hold the perpetrators accountable.

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