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This Week:

• WSJ Reports on Ron Dermer's Key Role as Netanyahu’s Top Advisor
• Mamdani and His Radical, Jew-Hating Friends
• RJC in the News
• Short Takes
• Week's Best Tweets
• Upcoming Events

WSJ Reports on Ron Dermer's Key Role as Netanyahu’s Top Advisor

The Wall Street Journal profiles Ron Dermer, who has been a top advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for many years. The American-born Dermer, who currently serves as Israel’s minister of strategic affairs, was Israel's ambassador to the US from 2013 to 2021 and has played a key role in recent developments in the region. He is also a long-time friend of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Ron Dermer, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s closest confidant and the manager of Israel’s relationship with America—and by extension, [Pres. Donald] Trump. Most Americans don’t know his name and he rarely speaks publicly in Israel. But he is one of the most influential American-born Israeli politicians in the nation’s history and has been key to maintaining US support for the war and cutting a deal to end it largely on Israel’s terms.

Dermer has played the role of Trump whisperer—during both this term and the president’s first. Born and raised in Florida, Dermer speaks Trump’s language, say people who have worked with him.

...Netanyahu said in September that Dermer plans to leave office soon, bowing out of a government career that kept him at the prime minister’s side for over two decades.

In the months leading up to the Gaza deal, he was in Washington, DC, at least once a month. In the week before Trump’s announcement, he sat for hours with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, hammering out the plan.

...Yaakov Katz, a former editor in chief of the Jerusalem Post and a Netanyahu critic, took to X to defend Dermer in recent weeks.

"History will remember Dermer for what he has done—for his role in reshaping Israel’s alliances, keeping the country secure and expanding our ties in the Middle East," Katz said. "The noise of the moment will fade, but the record of his service won’t."

Mamdani and His Radical, Jew-Hating Friends

JNS reports

On Friday, [Democratic NY Mayoral candidate Zohran] Mamdani posted photos from Masjid At-Taqwa in Brooklyn, NY, where he said he had "the pleasure of meeting with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders and a pillar of the Bed-Stuy community for nearly half a century."

Critics, including US Vice President JD Vance, noted that the imam smiling alongside Mamdani in the photo is an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing who testified as a character witness for Omar Abdel-Rahman, the "blind sheikh."

Fox News reports that the party Mamdani aligns himself with, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), brushed off the Gaza ceasefire:

The DSA released the statement, titled "Until Palestinian Liberation," on its website, declaring that they have "no illusions that Israel will honor any negotiated agreement that preserves Palestinian life or self-determination." The statement made no mention of the release of Israeli hostages from Hamas captivity and accused Israel of "terrorizing" the Palestinian people and nations in the region.

"This will not end Israel’s assault on the Palestinian people or the theft and occupation of Palestinian lands. A conditional ceasefire agreement does not wash the hands of the ruling class," the DSA wrote.

...Mamdani's own statement on the ceasefire echoed the "occupation and apartheid" allegations against Israel, leading to quick criticism from both his mayoral race opponents and New York City officials.

...Mamdani wrote in a statement on X..."We must work towards a future built upon justice, one without occupation and apartheid, and for a world where every person can live with safety and dignity."

Gabe Kaminsky, writing at The Free Press, reports that "big-name progressives" like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jasmine Crockett, and Zohran Mamdani are out-fundraising moderate Democrats:

Signs that the progressive left is accruing power and influence in the Democratic Party are everywhere. In the New York City mayoral race, self-styled socialist Zohran Mamdani has a double-digit lead. In arenas across the country, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s "Fighting Oligarchy" tour played to raucous, standing-room only crowds.

...As the DNC struggles to fundraise, another progressive challenging the party’s establishment is seeing a financial windfall: Zohran Mamdani.

The New York City mayoral candidate has raised $16.8 million compared to former governor Andrew Cuomo’s $12.5 million, according to state records. He supports policies like state-owned grocery stores and free public transportation.

RJC in the News

Markstein: While the Left appeases radicals, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares takes a stand against hate

While Democrats in federal, state, and local office cozy up to terrorists and champion the likes of Zohran Mamdani in New York, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and Republican leaders are taking a bold stand against the antisemitic, anti-American rot festering in today’s politics.

General Miyares’s ongoing investigation into the nonprofit American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) is not just about legal accountability — it is about taking decisive action to protect American citizens and hold accountable the organizations that perpetuate vile hate masked as advocacy.

Times of Israel: NY State Young Republicans chapter dissolved amid racist, antisemitic chat scandal

New York’s state Young Republicans organization has been disbanded in the wake of leaked group chats in which officials joked about gas chambers, praised Adolf Hitler and used racist, antisemitic and homophobic slurs.

...Amid the fallout, the Republican Jewish Coalition posted on X in response to Democratic New York Sen. Chuck Schumer’s criticism of GOP "silence," writing: "We strongly condemn the comments and those involved should step aside. See how easy that is?"

The post then turned into a political attack: "Your turn… condemn Jay Jones, Zohran Mamdani, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and more, in your deranged, radicalized party. You won’t. Enjoy the political wilderness in the meantime!"

Jewish Insider: As she emerges as populist GOP critic, Marjorie Taylor Greene amplifies antisemitic rhetoric

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) first became a household name for her embrace of a range of wild conspiracy theories — including antisemitic claims about the Rothschild family like the idea that space-based weapons controlled by the Jewish banking family were the cause of California wildfires.

...The Republican Jewish Coalition, which has repeatedly opposed Greene, said it continues to support efforts to defeat her.

“The RJC has endorsed multiple GOP primary challengers to Marjorie Taylor Greene. She is out of step with the Republican Party, and with President [Donald] Trump. The people of Georgia deserve better — and we are determined to do what we can to retire her,” RJC CEO Matt Brooks said.

Mamdani posts smiling photo with NYC imam tied to 1993 terror bombing

“Nothing to see here, just the Kathy Hochul-endorsed, antisemitic Democrat socialist candidate for mayor of New York City campaigning and smiling with an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing,” the Republican Jewish Coalition stated.

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Short Takes

Gazan ‘monster’ who took part in Oct. 7 attack caught ‘hiding’ in Louisiana

Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub Al-Muhtadi, 33, a native of the Gaza Strip who has been living in Lafayette, LA., was arrested on Thursday and charged with being involved in the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the US Department of Justice announced.

House Speaker Mike Johnson called the revelation "alarming," blaming the former Biden administration’s border policies for allowing the suspect into the country.

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said records show the suspect entered the United States in September 2024, nearly a year after the attack, using a fraudulently obtained visa.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R., AR) on Wednesday instructed DHS to conduct an immediate security review of all visas granted by the Biden administration following last week’s indictment of an alleged Hamas terrorist living in Louisiana on a fraudulent visa.

"Since October 7, 2023, thousands of visa applications from Palestinians have been processed through Egypt, often without adequate review of digital footprints or terrorist watchlist cross-checks," Cotton wrote in his letter. "I urge DHS to conduct an audit of all visas issued through high-risk countries since 2021, prioritizing potential affiliations with Hamas or other designated terrorist groups."

Al-Muhtadi is one of the thousands of Palestinians Cotton cites who initially applied for a visa through the US embassy in Cairo, "falsely denying his paramilitary training and terrorist affiliations." He entered the United States less than a year after the Oct. 7 attacks along with a wave of others who received expedited processing under the Biden administration.

Barcohana: Newsom’s Proposition 50 Will Grow the Hamas Caucus in Washington

[CA Gov. Gavin Newsom's] Prop 50 will amend California’s Constitution to suspend the non-partisan maps drawn by the state’s Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission, replacing them with partisan maps hastily drawn behind closed doors by a Democrat operative paid by Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

In the meantime, a handful of red states (whose maps are not drawn by independent commissions of citizens, but by their GOP-controlled state legislatures) continued to redraw their maps and add more GOP seats. So, no matter what the outcome is in California’s November 4 special election, the Republicans have successfully increased their majority. Nationally, the Democrats already lost.

But Prop 50 is still a danger not just for California or Republicans, but for everyone.

...Prop 50 will further radicalize the Democrats elected in California. Safe Democrat districts offer no incentive for candidates or incumbents to moderate. The Democratic Party itself seems to have no interest in moderating; so, we can safely expect that the five Republicans will be replaced by radical leftists.

Al-Natour: The ceasefire created two Gazas. One will consume the other.

President Donald Trump’s ceasefire has split Gaza into two alternate realities on either side of the “yellow line” behind which the Israel Defense Forces have withdrawn under Phase 1 of the ceasefire deal. On one side is a Gaza that is desperate for Trump’s plan to succeed; on the other is a Gaza that is being pulled back into the abyss once again. It is impossible for these two Gazas to exist simultaneously for more than a moment in time, and soon enough one will consume the other.

...My Gaza, where I wish to live, exists between Israel and the yellow line. There, the war is over and change buzzes in the air. People have access to food, medicine and electricity. And other signs of normality are beginning to return, such as some children going back to school. This is the Gaza that is waiting with anticipation to work with a new civil administration and an international protection force that will keep the peace as Israel withdraws.

...But on the other side of the yellow line exists another Gaza that will do anything to prevent this from happening. Over there the war continues, albeit not between Israel and Hamas but between Hamas and Gaza itself. In the nearly two weeks that have passed since Trump’s deal was signed, and in the absence of IDF soldiers, Hamas has emerged from its tunnel network and is reasserting control in the most violent manner possible, its reemergence accompanied by a terrifying bloodletting that targets any form of internal dissent, both real and imagined, past and present.

...The creation and implementation of a new civil administration and international stabilization force as outlined in the plan cannot come soon enough.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog presents medal of honor to Dr. Miriam Adelson, eight others

Israeli President Isaac Herzog present the Israeli Presidential Medal of Honor to RJC leader Dr. Miriam Adelson and eight other recipients yesterday.

From President Herzog’s remarks:

“Each and every one of our honourees tonight is a person of spirit and action, of vision and purpose. They refused to accept the world as it is and chose instead to work for the world as it can and should be. Each of them, in their own way, has changed a corner of our reality and made it better, and for that, our gratitude and appreciation will endure forever."

The Israeli Presidential Medal of Honour is the highest civilian recognition awarded by the President of the State of Israel. Since its inception, the medal has been presented to leading figures in Israel and abroad — including heads of state, social and cultural leaders, and Jewish figures worldwide — whose work exemplifies excellence, solidarity, and humanity.

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