(C) Iowa Capital Dispatch
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In Iowa, 2024 GOP candidates voice support of Israel amid conflict [1]
['Robin Opsahl', 'More From Author', '- October']
Date: 2023-10-10
As conflicts escalate between Israel and Hamas, the 2024 Republican presidential candidates in Iowa are calling on the U.S. to provide military aid for Israel.
Israel declared war on Sunday against Hamas, the Palestinian group currently holding power in Gaza. President Joe Biden called the actions of Hamas ““pure unadulterated evil” in a Tuesday address while confirming the death of 14 U.S. citizens in the conflict, adding that Americans are among the hostages now being held.
Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the U.S. response “would be swift, decisive and overwhelming.” While the president called for Congress to take action, lawmakers said they did not believe measures could be passed until the U.S. House appoints a new speaker following the removal of Kevin McCarthy.
Candidates hoping to challenge Biden as the GOP presidential nominee in 2024 say the Democrat is not doing enough to support Israel. Since reports of the conflicts emerged, former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence brought up the need for supporting the longtime U.S. ally during weekend stops on the Iowa caucus campaign trail.
While in Boone on Monday, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley highlighted the Israel-Palestine conflict in her campaign speech. The candidate has focused on her experience at the United Nations while campaigning, arguing that she has the necessary experience to address issues of national security and international relations as president.
Before going into her speech, Haley told the crowd to ignore those who oppose the U.S. providing aid to Israel. Haley said she disagreed with people who think Israel is dependent on America, saying “America has always needed Israel.”
“They are the frontline of defense for all the Iranians and the terrorist proxies that they have,” Haley said. “We have to deal with this with strength and unity. The first thing we have to do is no more taxpayer money going to the Palestinians or any of the Palestinian organizations that support Hamas at the United Nations.”
Haley linked the recent Hamas attacks to Iran, bringing up the $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets that the Biden administration restored as part of a prisoner swap in September. She said the United States needs to re-freeze these assets, strengthen existing sanctions, and impose new sanctions.
“We need to go back and put heavy sanctions on oil because we had them strapped for cash, and we had their economy in shambles,” Haley said. “Now what are they doing with it? Sending it to Hamas, sending it to Hezbollah, sending it to the Houthis, and spreading terrorism around the world.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that no money has been spent from the assets involved in the prisoner exchange, and that he had “not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack.”
Haley expanded her Iowa operation following a surge of interest in her campaign in the wake of the Republican presidential debates. The candidate opened her first Iowa campaign headquarters in Clive and announced that she had raised $11 million in the past three months while rising above DeSantis in national and New Hampshire polls.
However, polling shows Trump has maintained his double-digit lead over Haley and the rest of the 2024 presidential field. In Iowa on Sunday, Trump compared his track record as president in supporting Israel with that of Biden’s, pointing to measures such as the Abraham Accords — bilateral agreements on Arab–Israeli normalization — and recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of the state.
“The terrorist invasion of Israeli territory, and the murder of Israeli soldiers and citizens is an act of savagery that must be and will be crushed,” Trump said. “Israel’s at war, and the United States has to support Israel … There’s been no better president than Israel for me, and nobody loves Israel more than the evangelical Christians.”
While some candidates have been outspoken opponents of continuing U.S. aid to Ukraine against invading Russian forces, Republican candidates have largely spoken in favor of American funding of Israel as a critical ally in the Middle East. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy faced some pushback from Republicans for saying he would consider cutting off aid for Israel in the future.
At a September event with evangelical voters in Iowa, Ramaswamy clarified his position to say that in the distant future that he would consider agreeing to end funding for Israel if it “would no longer even require aid from the U.S.”
“We would never cut off aid, never until Israel told us that they were ready for it,” he said. “And then people said, ‘Well, Israel would never tell you that.’ I said, ‘You know what, actually there’s only one partner the U.S. has ever had that told us that: It was Bibi (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), who led Israel in the mid 90s, who said they were ready to pare back some of the civilian aid we were providing. So that’s how deep our relationship runs, is that we can trust each other.”
Ramaswamy criticized Haley and Pence for their positions on Israel on social media Tuesday. The candidate, who has not previously held political office, said the former Trump administration candidates were not offering serious solutions to Israel, writing that the U.S. should provide Israel intelligence, diplomatic and military support while “taking special care to avoid a broader regional war in the Middle East that would not advance U.S. interests.”
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