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For the Republican Jews whose Vegas confab kicked off the 2024 primary, Trump was always present
LAS VEGAS (JTA) — For Republican Jews looking for an alternative to Donald Trump in 2024’s presidential race, Ted Cruz presented a tantalizing choice on Saturday — at least for a few minutes.
“When I arrived in the Senate 10 years ago, I set a goal to be the leading defender of Israel in the United States,” the Texas senator said during his chance to address the Republican Jewish Coalition conference last weekend.
The crowd packed into a ballroom deep in the gold lame reaches of the Venetian casino complex lapped it up in what some of them refer to as the “kosher cattle call,” auditions for some of the GOP’s biggest campaign donors.
Cruz applied his folksy bellow to phrases already rendered stale by the speakers who preceded him, making them seem fresh. “Nancy Pelosi is out of a job,” he said of the Democratic speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, eliciting more cheers from a crowd relishing a fragile majority in the House, one of few GOP wins during midterm elections earlier this month.
But the onetime constitutional lawyer lost the crowd when he asked everyone to take out their cell phones and text a number associated with his podcast, “Verdict.” As the murmurs graduated into grumbles it became clear: About a third of the 800 or so people in the room were Shabbat-observant Jews, taking texting off the table for them.
Cruz never really recovered his rapport with the audience, which included deep-pocketed donors looking to pick a candidate and rally support for him or her. That made his speech an extreme example of the trajectory of just about every address by prospective presidential hopefuls at the RJC conference — excitement tempered by two nagging questions: Does this candidate have what it takes to beat Trump, whose obsession with litigating the 2020 election helped fuel this year’s electoral losses? And is Trump inevitable whoever challenges him?
The former president was at the center of every presentation and of conversations in the corridors during breaks. On the stage, some folks named him, some did not, but — except for Trump himself during a video address from his Florida home — few did so enthusiastically.
Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who was the first of Trump’s primary opponents in 2016 to drop out and endorse him, and then among the first to repudiate him during his presidency, repeated the admonition he made a year ago to move beyond Trump.
Say his name, Christie urged the crowd. “It is time to stop whispering,” he said. “It is time to stop doing the knowing nod, the ‘we can’t talk.’ It’s time to stop being afraid of any one person. It is time to stand up for the principles and the beliefs that we have founded this party on, this country on.” He got big cheers.
Trump was the first candidate to announce for 2024, last week, and so far the only one. But others among the half dozen or so likelys in Las Vegas were clearly signaling a run. Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations who is a star among right-wing pro-Israel groups for her successes at the United Nations in marginalizing the Palestinians, all but told the group she was ready.
“A lot of people have asked if I’m going to run for president,” Haley said. “Now that the midterms are over I’ll look at it in a serious way and I’ll have more to say soon.”
The biggest cheers were reserved for Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who was a bright spot for Republicans on Nov. 8, winning reelection in a landslide. DeSantis listed his pro-Israel bona fides (boycotting Israel boycotters) and his culture wars (taking on Disney after the company protested his “Parents Rights in Education” bill, known among its critics as “Don’t Say Gay”).
The crowd loved it. “The state of Florida is where woke goes to die!” he said to ecstatic cheers.
DeSantis did not once mention Trump; the former president has already targeted him saying whatever success he has he owes to Trump’s endorsement of his 2018 gubernatorial bid and dubbing him “Ron DeSanctimonious.’
Getting the nickname was a clear sign that DeSantis was a formidable opponent, said Fred Zeidman, an RJC board member who has yet to endorse a candidate. “It’s a badge of honor, in that Trump has identified you as a legitimate contender for the presidency,” he said in an interview.
Yet even DeSantis was not a clear Trump successor. The RJC usually heads into campaign-year conferences with a clear idea of which of its board members back which candidates, and then relays the word to Jewish Republicans whom to contact to join a prospective campaign.
That didn’t happen this year, and Trump was the reason. Jewish Republicans are still “shopping” for candidates, Ari Fleischer, the former George W. Bush administration spokesman who is an RJC board member and who also has not endorsed a candidate, said in a gaggle with reporters.
Trump was the elephant in the RJC room, Fleischer said, using the Hebrew word for the animal.
“Donald Trump is the pil in the room. There’s no question about it,” Fleischer said right after Trump spoke. “And he is a former president. He has tremendous strength and you could hear it and feel it with this group, particularly on policy, particularly on the substantive issues that he was able to accomplish in the Middle East. It resonates with many people.”
Trump had earned cheers during his speech as he reviewed the hard-right turn his administration took on Israel policy, moving the embassy to Jerusalem and quitting the Iran nuclear deal, among other measures.
“There are other people, they’re going to look at his style and look at things he’s said, and question if he is too hot to handle,” Fleischer continued.
Trump in his talk at first stuck to a forward-looking script but toward the end of it could not resist repeating his lies about winning the 2020 election. Asked by RJC chairman Norm Coleman how he would expand the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreements he brokered between Israel and four Arab countries, should he be reelected, Trump instead bemoaned the election.
“Well, we had a very disgraceful election,” he said. “We got many millions of votes more than we had in 2016, as you all know, and the result was a disgrace in my opinion, absolute sham and a disgrace.”
It was one of many only-in-Vegas moments at an event that brings together disparate groups, including young secular Jews from university campuses gawking at the glitter, Orthodox Jews lurking at elevators waiting for someone else to push the button so they can get to their rooms, and Christian politicos and their staffers encountering an intensely Jewish environment for the first time.
“Shabbat starts on Friday night and ends on Saturday night,” one young staffer explained to another as they contemplated a “Shabbat Toilet” sign taped to a urinal. “But doesn’t it flush automatically anyway?” asked the other.
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, another presumed 2020 hopeful, was the only speaker to decry violent attacks on Jews.
“When I think about my brothers and sisters in the Jewish community, in New York City being attacked on the streets of New York, it is time to rise up on behalf of those citizens,” he said. “Rise up against those folks spreading antisemitism, hate and racism.” He was also the only speaker to praise a Democrat, Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen, with whom he has launched an African-American Jewish coalition in the Senate.
A couple of contenders who have separated themselves from Trump said his name out loud — but with disdain.
“Trump was saying that we’d be winning so much we’d get tired of winning,” said Larry Hogan, who is ending a second term as the governor of a Democratic state, Maryland, with high ratings. “Well, I’m sick and tired of our party losing. This election last week, I’m even more sick and tired than I was before. This is the third election in a row that we lost and should have won. I say three strikes and you’re out.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence peppered his speech with fond references to Trump and his refusal to heed experienced personnel who counseled an even-handed Middle East policy, a move that Pence and the RJC both believe paid off.
Yet Pence also appeared to condemn Trump’s boldest rejection of norms, his effort to overturn his 2020 loss, which spurred an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in which Pence’s life was threatened. “The American people must know that our party keeps our oath to the Constitution even when political expediency may suggest that we do otherwise,” Pence said.
One contradiction for those in attendance was the longing for Trump’s combativeness while wanting to shuck themselves of Trump’s baggage.
Typical was Alan Kruglak, a Maryland security systems contractor who said he appreciated the pro-business measures Hogan had introduced in his state but was more interested in a fighter like DeSantis.
“Trump did great things, but I think Trump’s past his time, we need younger blood that is less controversial,” said Kruglak, 68. “Trump needs to hand the baton to somebody younger, and who doesn’t have any baggage associated with them but has the same message of being independent.”
The problem is that insiders said Trump still commands the loyalty of about 30% of the party, and that could be insurmountable in a crowded primary.
Trump, Fleischer said, was inevitable as a finalist but he didn’t have to be inevitable as the nominee.
“If there’s five, six, seven real conservative outsider candidates, Donald Trump will win with a plurality because nobody else will come close,” he said. “If there’s only one or two, it’s a fair fight.”
Who would those one or two be? Fleischer would not say. Among the Republican Jews gathered in Las Vegas, no one would.
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Palestinian man who allegedly participated in Oct. 7 attack on Israel arrested in Louisiana
A Palestinian man in Louisiana was arrested Thursday after federal prosecutors accused him of participating in the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.
Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub Al-Muhtadi, 33, a Palestinian resident of Lafayette, Louisiana, is accused of being an operative for the National Resistance Brigades, a Gaza-based paramilitary group that took part in the Oct. 7 attacks.
“After hiding out in the United States, this monster has been found and charged with participating in the atrocities of October 7 — the single deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement.
The government’s case against Al-Muhtadi appears to represent the first arrest on U.S. soil of anyone alleged to have participated in the deadly 2023 attack, in which 1,200 people in Israel, most civilians, were killed and 251 people were taken hostage.
On that day, after Al-Muhtadi learned of the attacks, he allegedly “armed himself, recruited additional marauders, and then entered Israel,” according to a statement by Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg.
According to transcripts of cell phone calls Al-Muhtadi allegedly made that morning, he told another man to “get ready” and that “the borders are open,” and later requested a “full magazine.”
Al-Muhtadi’s phone also used a cell tower located near Kibbutz Kfar Aza in Israel, where at least 62 residents were killed and 19 were taken hostage during the attacks, according to court documents.
He entered the United States on Sept. 12, 2024, after allegedly providing false information on his U.S. visa application to immigration authorities, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
A criminal complaint against Al-Muhtadi was filed on Oct. 6 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, on the eve of the second anniversary of the attack. He was charged with providing, attempting to provide or conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization as well as visa fraud, according to the criminal complaint.
The arrest comes as the U.S. government seeks legal redress against those who perpetrated the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, which included U.S. citizens among the victims. In September 2024, the Justice Department also filed charges against six Hamas officials, including Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar shortly before he was killed in Gaza by the Israeli military.
Bondi established the Joint Task Force October 7, which the Justice Department is calling JTF 10-7, in February 2025 to investigate the attacks. The task force discovered Al-Muhtadi’s presence in the United States, according to the Justice Department’s press release, and JTF 10-7 and the FBI New Orleans Field Office are now investigating the case along with Israeli authorities.
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Athens Police Ban Public Displays on Anniversary of Hamas Terror Mastermind Yahya Sinwar’s Death

L-R: Former Operations Directorate chief Maj. Gen. Oded Basiuk, former Southern Command chief Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, and Gaza Division chief Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram stand over the body of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in southern Gaza’s Rafah on Oct. 17, 2024. The image was published by the army on Oct. 16, 2025. Photo: IDF.
Law enforcement in Athens on Thursday restricted pro-Hamas activists from staging demonstrations in the Greek capital to memorialize Yahya Sinwar — the architect behind Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel — who was killed on Oct. 16, 2024, by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Police stated that the planned events presented safety concerns and a significant risk. Organizers reportedly included Gather for Gaza, Stand with Palestine, and the Turkish People’s Front. The ban ran from 5:00 pm on Thursday through 6:00 am on Friday. It covered the city’s Syntagma Square and the inner-city area.
The IDF commemorated the anniversary of Sinwar’s killing by releasing a new image of the terrorist mastermind’s body. It features former Southern Command chief Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, former Operations Directorate chief Maj. Gen. Oded Basiuk, and Gaza Division chief Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram standing above the Hamas leader’s corpse on Oct. 17, 2024.
The IDF posted on X on Thursday, “One year since Yahya Sinwar’s elimination. The man who began the war isn’t alive to see it end.”
On Oct. 11, The New York Times reported the discovery of an August 2022 handwritten memo by Sinwar seen as a planning document for the following year’s Oct. 7 attack, instructing “Two or three operations, in which an entire neighborhood, kibbutz, or something similar will be burned, must be prepared.”
On Tuesday, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) published further translations from the document its author had titled “Necessary Clarifications.”
Sinwar used the religious language “In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful” and “Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds.” He described eight key points which MEMRI characterized as developing pre-stage preparations, using psychological warfare through imagery, deploying “horrifying events,” opening “gates” for infiltration, facilitating a flow of forces, coordinating with other factions, designating identification signals, and expanding the offensive.
Before the attack, Sinwar told his fighters to “engage in intensive movements weeks before any action that the enemy deems routine, providing cover for the larger movement.”
Sinwar also directed the use of creating terrifying media both to horrify Israelis and to inspire Palestinians. He wrote that he wanted both “images that spark feelings of euphoria, madness, and excitement among our people” while also fueling “terror and panic among the enemy.”
Sinwar instructed that he wanted Hamas fighters to engage in “trampling on the heads of soldiers and shooting them at point-blank range, slaughtering some with knives, blowing up tanks, and capturing prisoners kneeling with their hands on their heads.” He called for his followers to “deliberately create these events, film them, and broadcast the images as quickly as possible.”
The document continued to mix both calls for carnage with theological references. Sinwar cited the Quranic verse “So Allah came to them from where they did not expect and cast terror into their hearts” in the context of creating “flaming car bombs exploding in a location or building, causing terrifying destruction, a heart-rending sound, and a massive fire.”
Sinwar also named what he called “gates” as the entry to attack, identifying “one in the north (Erez Gate), one east of Gaza (Nahal Oz), and a third opposite the central one.” He called for bulldozers to first “advance to open the gates, remove obstacles, and level the roads” and then after the attack had begun to take out “all possible wire, barriers, barricades, earthworks, and the like.”
Foreseeing where he would direct his forces, Sinwar wrote that “the Northern Brigade’s objectives must be primarily directed toward the coastal strip, the Gaza Brigade’s objectives toward the northeast … the Rafah Brigade toward the southeast.” He also planned coordinating with other factions, instructing that brigade commanders should contact leaders of other groups to “muster their forces as quickly as possible to integrate them into the operational plan” which would involve the third and fourth waves of the attack.
Sinwar also suggested signals to avoid friendly fire, such as “a specific ribbon on [the] right arm” and with a codename like “The Jerusalem Army.”
The document captured Sinwar’s optimism at the potential for the strikes to grow. He called for his commanders to “expand the attack to the greatest possible extent” and to anticipate support from “movements of our people inside Israel, in Jerusalem, and the West Bank, and [the Lebanese terrorist group] Hezbollah’s intervention.”
Sinwar sought to capture “centers of power, command, and control” and aimed “to impose the most significant facts on the ground, making the possibility of a counterattack impossible.”
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South Africa Vows to Continue Genocide Case Against Israel at ICJ Despite Gaza Ceasefire

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in Chatsworth, South Africa, May 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Rogan Ward
South Africa has vowed to continue its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) despite the ceasefire in Gaza, the most significant effort yet to halt the nearly two-year Middle Eastern conflict, taking effect.
Speaking before parliament in Cape Town on Tuesday, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa affirmed that the US-backed peace deal “will have no bearing” on the ongoing legal proceedings against the Jewish state.
Ramaphosa promised to continue seeking “justice for the people of Gaza,” while reiterating false accusations that Israel committed genocide under international law during its defensive military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
“The peace deal that has been struck, which we welcome, will have no bearing on the case that is before the International Court of Justice,” the South African leader said.
“The case is proceeding, and it now has to go to the stage where Israel has to respond to our pleadings that have been filed in the court, and they have to do so by January of next year,” he continued.
Israel has strongly rejected all allegations of genocide, calling South Africa’s case “baseless” and “politically motivated.”
However, Ramaphosa has once again defended South Africa’s efforts against Jerusalem, insisting that the case is driven not by politics but by moral and legal principles of accountability and human rights.
“We cannot go forward without the healing that needs to take place, which will also result from the case being properly heard,” the South African leader said. “True peace requires justice, recognition, and reparations.”
“Peace cannot come at the expense of justice,” he continued. “For the victims, for the families, and for humanity itself, the truth must be heard.”
Ramaphosa’s continuing push comes amid mounting international pressure, with the US, South African political leaders, and the local Jewish community all expressing opposition to his government’s actions, accusing it of pursuing an anti-Israel campaign instead of addressing the country’s own pressing issues.
The South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) strongly condemned Ramaphosa’s latest remarks, denouncing him and the country’s leadership as showing no real concern for achieving peace in the Middle East.
“It is fascinating that [Ramaphosa] chose not to comment on the return of the hostages or the ceasefire. Seems peace is not their real goal. Maybe that’s why they aren’t sitting around the peace table in Sharm El-Sheik?” SAJBD wrote in a post on X, referring to the Gaza peace summit in Egypt, where leaders signed a US-brokered agreement aimed at ending the war.
It is fascinating that @cyrilRamaphosa or @DIRCO_ZA chose not to comment on the return of the hostages or the ceasefire. Seems peace is not their real goal. Maybe that’s why they aren’t sitting around the peace table in Sharm El-Sheik? @Zwandid @ClaysonMonyela
— SA Jewish Board (@SAJBD) October 13, 2025
“It is a profound disappointment that the South African government, despite its ties to Hamas, adopted a one-sided and performative stance from the conflict’s outset, choosing meaningless virtue signaling exercises, failing to leverage its position to contribute meaningfully to hostage negotiations, de-escalation, or the pursuit of a peace that could have saved countless lives,” the statement read.
Several countries, including Spain, Ireland, Turkey, and Colombia, have expressed their support for Pretoria’s efforts.
On Tuesday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, one of Europe’s most outspoken critics of Israel since the start of war in Gaza, expressed his support for Ramaphosa’s decision to continue pursuing the ICJ case despite the newly brokered ceasefire.
“There cannot be impunity,” Sánchez told local media. “The main actors of the genocide will have to answer to justice.”
South Africa first filed its case in December 2023, accusing Israel of committing “state-led genocide” in its defensive war against Hamas in Gaza.
Israeli leaders have condemned the case as an “obscene exploitation” of the Genocide Convention, noting that the Jewish state is targeting terrorists who use civilians as human shields in its military campaign.
Last year, the ICJ ruled there was “plausibility” to South Africa’s claims that Palestinians had a right to be protected from genocide.
However, the top UN court did not make a determination on the merits of South Africa’s allegations, which may take years to go through the judicial process, nor did it call for Israel to halt its military campaign.
Instead, the ICJ issued a more general directive that Israel must make sure it prevents acts of genocide. The ruling also called for the release of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas during the terrorist group’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Under ICJ timelines, Israel must respond to South Africa’s allegations by January next year, with oral hearings scheduled for 2027 and a final judgment potentially arriving as late as 2028.