The Jewish Forward
Several news outlets reported that Trump will announce Pence as his vice presidential candidate on Friday.
Some Republican insiders are trumpeting Pence aa longtime friend of Israel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, ever since he took to the national stage in 2001 as a member of congress closely tied to the Christian conservative wing of the GOP.
Other top veep candidates had included Newt Gingrich, who brings his friendship with megadonor Sheldon Adelson to the table, along with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who angered some Jewish Republicans by referring to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands last year.
Trump will officially unveil his pick in New York Friday, just days ahead of the Republican National Convention due to start Monday in Cleveland, Ohio.
Pence has said his support of Israel is deeply rooted in his Christian faith, as well as in his strong relationship with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Pence was introduced to AIPAC members in 2009 by then-board member Marshall Cooper at an AIPAC policy conference.
“Let me say emphatically, like the overwhelming majority of my constituents, my Christian faith compels me to cherish the state of Israel,” then-Rep. Pence said.
Cooper described Pence to the audience as “Israel’s good friend.”
Trump’s speech at the March AIPAC conference received condemnation from the organization’s President Lillian Pinkus, who delivered an unprecedented and unscheduled statement apologizing for what she called Trump’s “ad hominem attacks” against President Barack Obama. However, Trump’s speech was received with cheers and applause by the AIPAC audience.
Trump was received far less warmly at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s December conference, where many condemned his remarks as tinged with anti-Semitism because he accused its members of not supporting him because he didn’t want their money. Trump did not attend the RJC’s spring conference.
Many believed Pence was considering a 2016 presidential candidacy when he spoke at the RJC’s spring conference last year, firmly aligning U.S. and Israeli interests.
“Israel’s enemies are our enemies, Israel’s cause is our cause,” Pence said. “If the world knows nothing else, let it know this: America stands with Israel.”
The RJC, which endorsed Trump in May, recently condemned the candidate for failing to strongly condemn anti-Semitic statements made by some of his supporters, as well as the anti-Semitic targeting of Jewish journalists by those in Trump’s base.
In recent weeks, Trump posted a controversial image of Hillary Clinton and a six-sided star on his Twitter account. He also spoke admiringly of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s killing of terrorists, which has led to concern among members of the RJC.
According to the Wall Street Journal, RJC members have only raised $5,400 for Trump, less than .1% of the $17 million they had raised for GOP candidate Mitt Romney at this point in 2012.
Pence’s consistent record of support for the Israeli government may comfort Jewish donors who see Trump as a loose cannon. After he became governor of Indiana in 2013, Pence vocally opposed the Obama administration’s Iran nuclear deal. Joining 14 other state governors, Pence sent a letter to Obama in 2015 threatening to continue enforcing state-imposed sanctions on Iran regardless of the administration’s deal.
As governor, Pence also signed into law a bill that would require the state to divest from any organization — including universities — that join the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement that boycotts businesses and academics considered to be involved in or profiting off of the Palestinian occupation.
Pence visited Israel on a state trade mission in 2014, where he met with Prime Minister Netanyahu. Notably, on his trip Pence refused an invitation by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to join him at the head of the table during a Christmas Eve dinner, and Pence refused to meet privately with Abbas.
Up for re-election as governor, Pence faces a tight race as a May poll showed him barely leading his Democratic opponent. If he does run for vice president Pence must decide to withdraw from that race, as Indiana law does not allow him to run for both offices at the same time.
Time to admit you might have been wrong about Trump.
ed note–actually, what it is ‘time for’ is for those (such as yourself) who operate at a fundamental/checker’s level capacity in discerning/explaining political events to just sit back, bite your tongues for a while and stay silent while a more sophisticated game of political chess with more twists and turns to it than has been witnessed in American political history in recent history runs its course.
As we have said here many times before, the internet has been a great thing in that it has allowed gifted people who otherwise would not have an avenue for giving valuable commentary on critical events an opportunity to make their voice heard, but it has also been a double-edged sword in that it has also opened the floodgates for all sorts of self-anointed/self-appointed ‘experts’ to render their poorly-constructed opinions as well.
It stinks. Trump has found out it’s much bigger than him. It difficult for even us knowledgeable TUT fans to comprehend the depth of the Judaic root in our nation, as well as the entire west.
The Jews have been in control for over a century and their exponentially accumulated power is beyond comprehension today.
One can be a good bike rider and yet not be able to comprehend riding the Tour de France.
ed note–in any wrestling match where Jewish interests are involved, one can expect that the most LOW DOWN/DIRTY business is going to take place as SOP, and this business with Pence is just one facet of it.
The bad news is that we need to all prepare ourselves for business EVEN MORE low down/dirty than this. It is a battle between Godzilla and King Kong and with all of us caught in the middle. And lest people inaccurately interpret the analysis here on Trump as fawning praise, I’ll repeat what I said months ago when all this business started–‘I don’t ‘like’ Trump. I wouldn’t want to shake his hand. I wouldn’t welcome the news that he was seeking the hand of one of my daughters’.
“…it is a re-play of the election in 1960 when Kennedy ‘asked’ Johnson to be his running mate. As VP, an office that has really only one function–to take over in the event that a sitting President becomes incapacitated in his duties–Pence’s pro-Israel pedigree should be very worrying only for one reason–that it makes a Trump assassination all the more likely.”
Yep, and it scares the shit out of me.
Pence’s dark, evil looking, small beady eyes give him away as a cruel, cold and evil devil worshipper with the ritual sacrifices. There is no doubt, if you worship Israel, you are worshiping Satan and are a satanist yourself (eyes are the windows to the soul):
http://citizensamericaparty.org/Return_Palestine_Dissolve_Israel.htm
Satanists enjoy killing and torturing people. Hence they haven’t nuked Palestine or any other destroyed Arab country for that matter. They need and feed-off the suffering they create.
I’m with Tony. Pence would fit in quite nicely if Trump was to ever slip on a banana peel.
Hopefully we will get less pro-Trump news on this website, it has been the only negative issue I had as a long time visitor here.
Trump is just another kosher candidate and maybe its best to consider 3rd parties like the Libertarian Party and Gary Johnson.
ed note–we are not ‘pro-Trump’ at this website. As I (we) have stated time and again, I (we) do not ‘like’ Trump. What we are trying to do is to explore what is unquestionably a heretofore unseen phenomenon in terms of American politics while at the same time better understanding who is behind it all and what the implications are for the rest of us.
I understand those within the Islamic community being made nervous by his rhetoric, but I would council you to see it as just that–rhetoric. Of the 2, he is the only one who wants to retract and rescind American warmongering against the Islamic world, and for that reason alone he should be supported.
That imbecile Penn will be like Chaney. Trump and Penn go for waterboarding with no qualms. They both hate the Palestinian people, kiss Satanyahu’s ass and they will undo the Iran nuclear deal to please their masters in Tel Aviv. . They play with fire because Iran Russia and China are ready for them.