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‘The settlers are winning now’: West Bank activists aiding Palestinians are increasingly targets themselves
DUMA, WEST BANK — For three decades, Rabbi Arik Ascherman has devoted himself largely to helping Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank. He heads Torat Zedek, which means Torah of Justice — a group that is out in the field trying to protect them from one of the most intensive waves of settler violence since 1967.
Judging from what he sees, hears and documents during his daily forays, things are going very badly for those in the way of Israel and its massive settlement project, which includes proliferating outposts and sheep farms that serve, he says, as staging grounds for violence against Palestinians.
“The settlers are winning now,” Ascherman says, driving past outposts southeast of Nablus that are illegal according to both international and Israeli law “Outposts are expanding and Palestinian communities are disappearing.”
Fifty-nine Palestinian communities have been displaced by settler violence since Oct. 7, 2023, with another 16 communities losing about half of their residents, according to the human rights organization B’tselem. About 170 new outposts have been established during that period, it says.
Violence is the engine of that process, with Palestinians and their property becoming exposed targets in remote Bedouin areas and increasingly around larger locales, rights groups say. According to UN figures, settler violence reached a 20-year high in March, just after the outbreak of the Iran war. This has rippled into greater risk for protective presence activists like Ascherman. Two volunteers say they were almost burned alive in their sleep on April 9 in Mukhmas village.
Activists say they feel much more frustrated and less effective because the army is now increasingly barring them from key areas they used to protect. The army says the new restrictions are necessary to prevent friction and disturbances, but activists say locking out outside advocates leaves Palestinians even more exposed to settler violence.
“In Duma there have been days the army comes looking for us. It was never like this before,” said Ascherman, who was hospitalized in June after being beaten with a rifle butt and club by settlers. “We can’t protect people. Instead of protecting people, the situation becomes that the Palestinians feel they need to hide us. Then the question is: At what point do you risk arrest?”
In the June incident, Ascherman and others carrying out protective presence in Mukhmas were attacked by a gang of six settlers, he told the Jewish Chronicle at the time, adding that two volunteers suffered broken elbows. The IDF described the incident as a “violent confrontation” involving Palestinians accompanied by Israelis and other Israeli citizens “that included stonethrowing and mutual physical assaults.”
Ascherman stresses that there have been waves of settler violence throughout his years as an activist. For decades, settlements went through a formal Israeli government approval process, even as Amnesty International and other human rights groups declared they violate international law prohibitions against an occupying power transferring its nationals into the occupied territory.
But he views the start of the Iran war as an inflection point similar to Oct. 7, which too was followed by a major surge of settler attacks. In both cases, settlers “cynically exploited” the distraction from the West Bank caused by wars to act more violently, he says.
Thirteen Palestinians have been killed during settler incursions since March 1, according to Haaretz, the latest being 29-year-old Odeh Awawdeh near Ramallah on Wednesday a day after 14-year old Aws Hamdi al-Nassan and Marzouq Abu Naim, 32, were killed, also in the Ramallah vicinity.
The UN Office for the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs says March saw the highest number of Palestinian injuries caused by settlers during the last 20 years. In the week between March 31 and April 6 alone, at least 23 Palestinians were injured by settlers during 47 attacks on persons and/or property, according to the office. The attacks involved arson, physical assaults, stonethrowing and vandalism, it said in a report.
“Attacks on residential areas, on villages, cities and roads are a constant threat to the lives of Palestinians,” says Ramallah-based analyst Jehad Harb, former senior researcher at the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. The violence is not haphazard, instead serving a state goal of “ethnic cleansing” in stages, he alleges. Ascherman likewise sees the violence as part of an intensified government dispossession effort, citing what he sees as unprecedentedly tight cooperation during the last several months among settlers, the army and police.
For the perpetrators, the violence is not about claims to a specific property nor is it violence for violence’s sake. Rather, it stems from belief that God endowed the territory of the West Bank to the Jews, making them exclusive owners of all the land there, with the Palestinians seen not only as trespassers but as terrorists, according to Shabtay Bendet, formerly a prominent settler who in 1995 was one of the first permanent residents of the West Bank outpost Rehelim but years later decided to leave the fold and now gives lectures about what he sees as the need to end the occupation.
Direct causes for violence, he says, include “desire to seize more territory and drive away Palestinians, vengeance in the belief that all Palestinians are supporters of terrorism and, for a small minority, a belief that the IDF is not deterring the Palestinians.”
‘Why weren’t you here?’
Torat Zedek, one of the more prominent groups in the field, gives protection by serving as non-violent human shields during settler violence, documenting it, notifying the army, police and media, and funding fences to protect Palestinians and their property, Ascherman says. He adds that he has “too few” volunteers, with between 15 and 20 whom he calls “particularly active.”
The spiraling violence is broad in geographical scope and becoming so recurrent that it is increasingly getting coverage in mainstream Israeli media. Last month, dozens of settlers raided the Bedouin area of Khirbet Humza in the northern Jordan Valley. Settlers sexually assaulted a man in front of his family, beat girls and threatened to kill children and rape women, according to witnesses quoted by Haaretz. In one tent, six masked settlers used clubs to beat a resident and two protective presence activists, who were among six people that needed to be treated at a hospital, according to one of the activists who had been assaulted.
Qusra village, in the Nablus district, suffered three settler attacks during the week beginning March 31, according to the UN, which said settlers killed a Palestinian man there and injured eight people. The UN said settlers attacked houses, stole sheep and vandalized vehicles.
For Ascherman, an emotional turning point came even before the war, when a settler fatally shot a 19-year old Palestinian-American, Nasrallah Abu Siyam, in Mukhmas, in an incident that his family said had started with armed settlers stealing goats. Mukhmas is a place Torat Zedek tries to help, but Ascherman was elsewhere at the time. “I felt guilty that I was not there. Palestinians asked me ‘Why weren’t you here?’”
The army spokesman’s office sent a statement to the Forward stating that the army’s mission in the area “is to maintain the security of all residents of the area” while preventing terrorism and harm to Israeli citizens.
But members of the ruling Israeli government coalition are being more brazen in voicing intent to oust Palestinians. The senior Israeli minister for Judea and Samaria, Bezalel Smotrich, who also holds the finance portfolio and is head of the Religious Zionism party, told a party meeting in late February that the government should “encourage migration” of the Palestinians in the West Bank. Last year he unveiled a map showing the Palestinians would be confined in the future to six disjointed urban clusters on less than a fifth of the West Bank.
Settlers and their backers say that Palestinian attacks that are launched against Israeli targets are the main problem in Judea and Samaria, the biblical names of the West Bank area. The protective presence activists just make the situation worse, according to Moshe Solomon, a member of the Knesset from Religious Zionism.
“They work against Jews in Judea and Samaria, which is the heritage of our forefathers. They come to harm the fabric there. I’m against violence against them but their provocations can’t be allowed,” he said. Solomon said that where he used to live in the Gush Etzion bloc of settlements south of Jerusalem, “non-Jewish locals” got along with Jews until the moment when “external actors, whether Jewish or European, would arrive and cause ferment and chaos.”
‘Fire dripping like water’
The activists stress that the Palestinians bear the real cost of the mayhem and bloodshed. But they themselves — some Israelis and some international visitors, are themselves increasingly targeted.
On April 7, two volunteers were nearly burned alive on the outskirts of Mukhmas village, northeast of Jerusalem, at around 2 a.m. on a hill overlooking a chicken farm that settlers often pelt with stones, they told the Forward. Noah Benninga, 48, said he awoke to see “fire dripping like water from the ceiling,” which was made of nylon.
“I started to shout. Later we understood they had poured gasoline and lit it. There was a strong smell of gasoline. They may have poured around, but only the nylon caught fire,” he said in an interview.
“I’m not sure they knew there were Israelis inside and I don’t think they care. For them it’s all the same thing,” he added.
After he shouted for help, Palestinians rushed to put out the embers, which had not spread to nearby wood, he recalled. He attributed what he considers a narrow escape to the arsonists not having enough time to complete their job.
“More serious things have also happened there to us: burning of buildings, injuring activists. One of our women activists was beaten unconscious,” Benninga said. He called the police but they did not come, he said. He then filed a complaint, sharing with the Forward the police’s confirmation of receiving it. The Israel Police’s spokesperson’s office did not respond to questions about the incident.
Two days later, when Ascherman and this reporter visited the area, settlers in black were again descending towards the chicken farm. This time they contented themselves with a show of presence, but they have often attacked the property, Ascherman said.
Frozen zones
The army is now making it much harder for activists to reach areas that need protection, according to Ascherman. He shared with the Forward closed military zone orders applicable to protective presence personnel. With the West Bank under military occupation, the army is entitled to declare zones closed to everyone except security forces and others at the discretion of commanders. In practice they are not enforced against settlers, creating a situation where Palestinians lose their protective presence and face greater danger, activists and Palestinians say. On initial closure, those excluded are required to leave the area. If they make a return entry, they are subject to arrest.
The army, citing what it said is the need to prevent friction and disturbances, recently issued a one-year closure order for parts of Duma, effectively depriving of protective presence the tiny Bedouin community of Sheqara, which, according to Torat Zedek activists, had been intensively targeted by settlers bent on using violence to drive out the Palestinians.
When the activists had to leave, the 12 families of Sheqara, fearing for their safety, also relocated — ending up in other places in Duma or in the town of Salfit.
“The solidarity activists were prevented from being with us and without them we couldn’t stay” and face the violence alone, said Deif-Allah Arare, who had a permit to work in Israel prior to Oct. 7, 2023, and like many others in the West Bank has been without a job since. A settler’s vehicle could be seen in his former living compound on April 9, while he had moved to a tiny concrete rental apartment on the other side of Duma. “How would you feel if there is a settler in your house?” he asked. “He stole not only the house, but the entire life, there is no life now. My land is gone, my house is gone, the place of my children. They stole everything.”
“My children all the time say, we want to be in Sheqara,” he added “They destroyed our lives.”
The IDF spokesman’s office denied the army allows settlers to remain in closed zones while excluding activists “As a rule, the IDF enforces the closed zone equally against anyone who violates it. The purpose of the enforcement is to maintain order and prevent friction in the area.” it said in a written response to a query by the Forward.
Herd of Justice, a group that documents settler violence, provided the Forward with video showing settlers running through Sheqara and one of them pepper spraying activist Yael Rozmarin in the face during a March 1 confrontation that was followed by another confrontation on March 2. Rozmarin said both confrontations and others at the site previously were started by the settlers. “On March 1 the soldiers joined the attack and on March 2 they did not prevent it from continuing.” she said A settler was photographed armed with a rifle in what Herd of Justice said was the March 1 confrontation.
The IDF, in its response, did not address the events of March 1, but it said that on March 2 “forces were dispatched to the area following a report of Palestinians hurling rocks at Israeli civilians. Upon arrival, the soldiers acted to disperse both Israeli and Palestinian civilians.”
The IDF added: “There were other incidents reported, including Israeli civilians vandalizing property in Duma and Israeli civilians attacking Palestinians in the area, for which a local security coordinator was dispatched and conducted a search but found no evidence substantiating the claims.” Local security coordinators in the West Bank are local settlers who are employed by the ministry of defense.
Doron Meinrath, a retired IDF colonel turned protective presence activist, alleges that the Israeli army has no qualms about violent dispossession of Palestinians by settlers. “In general the army very much supports what the settlers are doing,” said Meinrath, who is part of the group Looking the Occupation in the Eye. He used to be director of planning in the IDF General Staff and before that a commander of troops in the West Bank.
“I don’t think the army supports the most severe forms of violence, like murder. But ongoing violence, theft, harassment and anything that makes people’s lives more hard to bear, it does support.”
In area C, the rural territory under full Israeli control that comprises most of the West Bank, “the army has no problem with harassments. The opposite is the case. It would be happy if area C was empty of Palestinians and also area B,” said Meinrath, referring to places that are under Israeli security control and Palestinian Authority civil control. That would leave Palestinians only in area A, the non-contiguous urban clusters in Smotrich’s plan.
Meinrath said his experience shows that the IDF’s attitude towards the protection activists is “very negative and hostile. If there are activists and settlers, the settlers are favored. Socially, the soldiers pal around with the settlers and in practical terms when they make a closed military zone they enforce it against the activists, not the settlers.”
The IDF spokesman’s office, in a statement sent to the Forward, declares that the military opposes settler violence. It says police, who are members of the same police force that operates inside sovereign Israeli territory, bear primary responsibility for dealing with violations of the law by Israeli citizens. But, the statement said, soldiers are required to stop violations “and if necessary to delay or detain the suspects until the police arrive.”
“In situations where soldiers fail to adhere to IDF orders, the incidents are thoroughly reviewed and disciplinary actions are implemented” the IDF statement said.
Meanwhile, Benninga, the activist who described being almost set on fire in Duma, says he will return there. ”It was the first time I experienced such a thing. Maybe it can be an educational experience for activists to help them understand what Palestinians go through all day, every day.”
The post ‘The settlers are winning now’: West Bank activists aiding Palestinians are increasingly targets themselves appeared first on The Forward.
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Meet the only Jewish president of a Catholic university
Synagogue president and Catholic university president aren’t typically jobs one holds concurrently.
But in 2023, Greg Weiner became president of both Assumption University, a Catholic college in Worcester, Mass., and Congregation Beth Israel, a Conservative synagogue in the area.
Weiner’s inauguration in March of that year made him the first and only Jewish president of a Catholic university — one with the motto “Until Christ be formed in you.”
To him, the combination just made sense.
“I never had any hesitation at all about whether being a Jewish president would work — quite the opposite,” Weiner told the Forward. “The divide in society between people who do and don’t treat religion seriously is much wider than between particular religions.”
Shortly after Weiner’s inauguration, college presidents found themselves in the national spotlight as pro-Palestinian protesters built tent encampments on college campuses across the country in the aftermath of Oct. 7
During that time, Weiner became a figurehead for an unconventional idea: that Jewish students who felt unwelcome at secular universities ought to consider attending Catholic institutions like Assumption instead.
Now, Weiner continues to make the case that Catholic schools have much to offer Jewish students.
“The challenge for Jewish families, Jewish parents, Jewish students, is we have to ask ourselves: Do we value education, or do we simply value the prestige that’s associated with certain universities?” Weiner said. “Because, in a lot of cases, those seem to be inversely correlated.”
How Weiner became president
To state the obvious: Appointing a non-Catholic to head a Catholic university was not a risk-free choice.
How would students, faculty and trustees react? Would the university, founded in 1904 by the Catholic Augustinian order known as the Assumptionists, be accused of turning away from its Catholic history, character and mission?
Historically, Catholic universities were exclusively led by priests from the Catholic order that founded the school. Universities like Notre Dame have continued that tradition; every president since its founding in 1842 has been a priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross.
But as Catholic universities have increasingly sought to attract students of all faiths — and as the number of priests available to lead universities has declined — more laypeople have taken the helm. For instance, Loyola University in Chicago named the first laywoman instead of a priest as president in 2016. The Jesuit Fordham University did the same in 2022, breaking with its 200-year tradition.
“I wouldn’t entirely downplay some tensions here, as much as the motto of our university is ‘Until Christ be formed in you,’” said the Rev. Dennis Gallagher, an Assumptionist priest who serves as Vice President for Mission at Assumption University. “Clearly, he’s not going to give personal credence to that particular expression.”
But Gallagher said he was won over by how Weiner articulated the value of a Catholic liberal education, which emphasizes inquiry and debate — values that also happen to be very Jewish.
An Assumption education asks humanity’s’ “enduring questions,” and attracts the kind of students who “haven’t determined that they know the answers to those things before they arrive,” Gallagher said.
Weiner, who draws parallels between Talmudic debate and Assumption’s inquiry-driven approach to education, was well-positioned to promote those ideals, Gallagher said.
Weiner was also not an outsider at Assumption. After a career in Democratic politics that included working as press secretary for then-Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey and getting his PhD in government at Georgetown University, Weiner joined the faculty at Assumption in 2011 as a political science professor. He quickly rose the ranks, becoming provost and vice president for academic affairs in 2019. After former Assumption President Francesco Cesareo announced his retirement in 2022, Weiner became interim leader.
Gallagher said he didn’t think trustees were seriously considering Weiner for the job of president at the time. But when Weiner excelled in the interim role, the choice became clear.
“I remember saying, ‘I think what we’re looking for is right here with us,’” Gallagher said. “Somebody that can both understand and communicate what a Catholic — albeit not being Catholic himself — what a Catholic liberal education is about.”
In the end, Weiner’s appointment drew far more celebration than controversy, with the university actively embracing his Jewish identity. A rabbi bestowed a special blessing upon Weiner at his inauguration.
A Jewish haven?
Weiner, who grew up as a member of the lone Jewish family in the small town of Luling, Texas, is comfortable with being the only Jew in the room.
When a childhood friend expressed concern that Weiner was going to hell, he took it as “a very ham-handed way of expressing genuine caring,” he said. “I was born without the gene that tells you to get offended quickly.”
That same instinct carried into his career. At first, Weiner said, he didn’t publicly lean into his Judaism as part of the presidency. But in the aftermath of the attacks of Oct. 7, he felt “a particular responsibility to speak out.”
In December 2023, Weiner made a splash with a Wall Street Journal op-ed suggesting Jewish students feeling alienated from Ivy League campuses ought to consider Catholic schools like Assumption.
At the time, other Catholic schools were also explicitly courting Jewish students amid turmoil over Israel and antisemitism on college campuses across the country.
Still, it was an unconventional pitch: Assumption has no Hillel or Chabad on campus, and students are required to take Catholic theology courses where they learn about Christian morality, sacraments and other church doctrine.
But whatever Assumption lacked in Jewish religious life, Weiner said it has made up for in campus culture. Assumption had no student encampments protesting Israel after Oct. 7, in part, Weiner said, because Assumption students are more interested in arguing over ideas in a philosophy class than organizing a protest.
Weiner, who has written four books on political theory and previously worked as a political aide for several Democratic politicians, said students on campus hold a range of views about Israel. But Assumption is not a place filled with student activists.
“Too many campuses have encouraged moral certainty, intellectual certainty, when Socrates says, ‘Philosophy begins with a confession of ignorance,’” Weiner said. “Education requires a certain amount of humility.”
Eli Beberman told the Forward he initially chose Assumption in 2018 because it was close to home and had a strong secondary education program. He expected being Jewish at a Catholic school might require some adjustment. He never imagined the university’s president would become Jewish his senior year.
“Seeing upper level leadership at Assumption also be Jewish was a really cool experience for me,” Beberman said.
Assumption was a place where interfaith friendships thrived, Beberman said. Though there was no Hillel on campus, Beberman was able to pray in an interfaith space with a Torah. He also celebrated Jewish holidays with non-Jewish friends, hosting Shabbat dinners and a Hanukkah party in the dorms, where his parents brought over their “famous brisket.”
“I was able to practice my religion how I wanted to, and I felt very comfortable on campus being a non-Catholic student,” Beberman said.
Jewish faculty members, too, said Weiner’s presidency changed how they saw the university.
Samantha Goldman, a Jewish associate professor of special education at Assumption, said she didn’t seek out a job at a Catholic institution. But once she got there, she was surprised at how natural the environment felt.
“Having a Jewish president of a Catholic institution really communicates this sense of welcoming and inclusivity that might not otherwise be apparent,” she said.
Others were drawn specifically to the culture Weiner fostered. In 2024, Mary Jane Rein left her job as executive director of the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University. She said Clark had failed to properly support her after students protested a talk she helped organize featuring an Israeli reservist. That inspired her to come to Assumption, where she launched the Center for Civic Friendship, which helps students engage in civil discourse across ideological divides.
“To my surprise as both a scholar and a Jew,” Rein wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “I feel a warmer welcome and more commonality of purpose at a Catholic institution than at Clark, a secular one.”
That same year, Weiner was reappointed for a five-year term through May 2030 in an announcement trustees said reflected “deep confidence in his leadership.”
To Weiner, the success of his presidency is evidence that Judaism and Catholicism are not as far apart as they may seem.
“Obviously, [there are] some foundational theological differences,” Weiner said. “But with respect to the educational commitments, I think they’re quite compatible.”
The post Meet the only Jewish president of a Catholic university appeared first on The Forward.
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The secret Jewish history of the ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’
“Rocky Horror,” which opened in London cinemas on this day in 1975 is the cultural phenomenon that simply refuses to die. Rather, since its first incarnation as a 1973 London stage musical, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” has been continuously reborn on the silver screen, in subsequent Broadway stage productions, and, in 2016, as a direct-to-TV film, starring Laverne Cox of “Orange Is the New Black” fame as the transgender Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the mad-scientist role originated by Tim Curry.
In all its incarnations, however, “Rocky Horror” has always been more than just a performance. Its appeal has been widely driven as a participatory event. Film critic Roger Ebert summarized it best writing about the original 1975 film: “‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ is not so much a movie as more of a long-running social phenomenon,” because “the fans put on a better show than anything on the screen.” What Ebert refers to is the interactive tradition that has grown up around “Rocky Horror,” whereby fans attend midnight showings primed for a party as much as a screening: reciting the lines out loud along with the characters and interspersing them with “callouts” — responses that have been accepted into the Rocky Horror canon much as the Talmud is commentary on the Mishnah that has in and of itself become part of the sacred text. In the case of “Rocky Horror,” this also includes activities, such as throwing rice or confetti in the air when the married couple in the film leaves the church; squirting water pistols during a rainstorm; and tossing rolls of toilet paper when one character says “Great Scott!”
In one of the most overtly Jewish moments in and outside of the film, a speech by Dr. Frank-N-Furter hailing the creation of the Golem-like creature of the title, Rocky Horror, is met by chaotic noisemaking on the part of the partygoers onscreen and off. In the original film, some of the crowd generates noise with ratchets – a percussion instrument that looks suspiciously like a gragger, as if Dr. Frank had said “Haman.” There are other Purim-like touches in the film, such that temple congregations have made “Rocky Horror” into part of their annual ritual, such as a “Rockin’ Hora Purimshpiel” in which several of the musical numbers are rewritten as Purim songs.
Other Judaized versions of “Rocky Horror” that have appeared over the years include “Hebrew Horror,” which was staged in Los Angeles in 2007, and the “Rocky Hora Chanukah Song” by the Jewish punk-rock parody group, the Shlomones (sort of a redundancy, since several members of the Ramones were in fact Jewish, as was their outlook in numerous ways, including their song, “Bonzo Goes to Bitburg.”
The original London stage version was produced by British-Jewish theatrical impresario Michael White, who was born to Eastern European Jewish-immigrant parents in Glasgow, Scotland. White’s credits had already included the boundary-shattering “Oh! Calcutta!” — the first all-nude revue in commercial theater — and he went on to co-produce the “Rocky Horror” film as well as “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”
The original musical and film were decades before their time in celebrating the sexual fluidity of the LGBT world – indeed, there wasn’t such a term as LGBT, much less a socio-political acceptance of it, for years to come. The new TV film version is in no small part an effort to seize this cultural moment when LGBT, and particularly transgender issues, are now part of mainstream political and cultural discussion, especially what with the casting of openly trans actress Laverne Cox.
The original did, however, have a political consciousness beyond its seemingly outrageous effort to provoke. Dr. Frank-n-Furter’s lab coat in the movie was inspired by a Nazi concentration camp inmate uniform and was adorned by the pink triangle that the Nazis used to label what we now call LGBT inmates. And in the film at least, there were implications that Frank’s rival, Dr. Scott was a Nazi.
The 2016 version was again produced by music industry legend Lou Adler, who was responsible for turning the stage musical into the original film starring Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick and Meat Loaf. In that version, Eddie was played by American Idol star Adam Lambert, the role played by Meat Loaf in the original Broadway cast and film. Lambert, who starred as Joshua in “The Ten Commandments: The Musical,” has achieved fame as a solo artist and as the replacement for the late frontman Freddie Mercury in the rock band Queen. Lambert’s Jewish mother, Leila, was a dental hygienist.
Seth Rogovoy is a contributing editor to the Forward.
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Sister of pro-Israel stalwart Lindsey Graham secures GOP Senate nomination
(JTA) — South Carolina Sen. Darline Graham defeated U.S. House Rep. Ralph Norman in a special primary runoff on Tuesday, putting her in a dominant position to win the Senate seat left vacant with the death in July of her older brother, the pro-Israel stalwart Lindsey Graham.
The Associated Press called the race two hours after polls closed at 9:01pm. By the time 99% of votes were tallied, Darline Graham had secured 52.3% of the votes to Norman’s 47.7%.
“Tonight is a great victory, but it’s not the finish line,” Graham told her supporters on Tuesday night. “In fact, it is the starting line for an even bigger fight, which lies ahead.”
If Darline Graham goes on to win November’s general election against Democrat Annie Andrews, she will have big shoes to fill. Her brother served 23 years in the Senate and eight in the U.S. House. He traveled to Israel about a dozen times between Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on the Jewish state and his death at age 71.
Heading into the primaries, analysts expressed no doubt that Darline Graham would be pro-Israel. But matching Lindsey Graham’s level of foreign policy activity, they warned, would be a formidable task. Meanwhile, her campaign to date has largely avoided discussion of international affairs. Instead, she has focused on domestic concerns like reducing spending, securing borders and promoting Trump-backed policies.
During a debate aired on C-SPAN last week, Graham struggled to respond to a foreign policy question about Taiwan and the South China Sea, ultimately admitting that she’s “not that informed on national security.”
“I’m not a polished politician up here,” she said. “National security is not my thing, not my area of expertise.”
Later addressing issues of affordability, Graham linked the domestic economic situation to the war in Iran and said she trusts President Donald Trump “to get the Strait of Hormuz open.” She also voiced her preference for financial sanctions over putting troops on the ground.
Asked about the country’s relationship with Israel, Graham described the Jewish state as “one of our strongest allies.” Recognizing her brother’s close relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, she added that during a recent meeting with the Israeli premier, she vowed to “continue supporting Israel in any way” she can.
“We have to stand with Israel,” Graham said.
At their previous face-off, Graham had secured 33% of the vote, while Norman came in second place, at 25%, against eight fellow Republicans. But South Carolina requires primary winners to earn a majority of votes in order to avoid a two-candidate runoff. In the November general election, Graham will contend with Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician who is unlikely to prevail in the solidly Republican state.
Tuesday’s runoff marked the third time in two months that South Carolina Republicans came to the polls to select a Senate candidate. Lindsey Graham, won the first primary in June but died suddenly the next month from an aortic dissection.
A few days later, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, appointed Darline Graham to finish her brother’s term. Though she only had minimal policy experience, including a leadership role at the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, she earned President Donald Trump’s endorsement and declared her candidacy in the full race.
Trump celebrated Graham’s nomination in a Tuesday night Truth Social post, writing that “Darline Graham rides Trump endorsement to win GOP nomination for brother’s South Carolina seat.”
Graham thanked Trump profusely during her Tuesday night acceptance speech, recognizing the president as one of her brother’s “closest friends” and crediting him for helping her secure a victory.
Norman, meanwhile, thanked his supporters on Tuesday night for their “prayer crusade of a campaign,” stressing that he “did not prepare a concession speech.” He accused “outside PACs” of spending $8 million opposing him and blamed the Democrats for this situation, adding that “they got what they wanted.”
He recognized Trump’s role in the race as a supporter of Graham, noting that he “never understood why he got involved” but that it is the president’s prerogative to do so. Nonetheless, Norman pledged that there “won’t be any tears” and that he planned to back Graham.
“I’m not supporting a Democrat, so I will support her, Darline, as best I can,” he added. “We’ll live to fight another day.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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