Israel is the “only beacon of light amidst a bunch of primitive, savage, barbaric, illiberal regimes” in a “dark continent,” stated DePaul University Professor Jason Hill on June 12 in a ballroom at Washington, DC’s Grand Hyatt Hotel. “I use these words very carefully and I make no apologies,” he emphasized at the Endowment for Middle East Truth’s (EMET) annual Rays of Light in the Darkness gala dinner, an event that highlighted Israel’s singular importance as America’s Middle East ally.
As in years past, EMET brought together key players in advocacy for Israel and wider Western interests in its turbulent neighborhood amidst an audience of about 250. EMET Advisory Board member Frank Gaffney, the founder of the Center for Security Policy (CSP), came with CSP staff members Clare Lopez and Deborah Weiss. Other notable think tank personnel included former Turkish parliamentarian and Foundation for the Defense of the Democracies Senior Fellow Aykan Erdemir and Jewish Policy Center Senior Director Shoshana Bryen. President Donald Trump’s Special Assistant Paul Teller and Department of Education civil rights lawyer Kenneth Marcus also attended.
In the evening’s opening address, Senator Lindsey Graham starkly described the “shared values and common enemies” that bonded Israel and the United States. He perceptively asked, “Name one enemy of Israel that would not kill everybody in this room.” He elaborated:
Here is the truth. Israel is our friend. No country anywhere in the world provides the United States with more actionable intelligence on threats against our homeland than our friends in Israel. No military develops better technology to share with the United States than our friends in Israel. It is the only democracy in the Middle East.
Graham praised recent Trump Administration pro-Israel initiatives like American recognition of Israel’s capital of Jerusalem. “If you have got a problem with Jerusalem being the capital of Israel, take it up with God, not me,” he stated. Beginning with a presidential tweet, Trump had also recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. “We did the Golan by tweet. That was pretty cool,” Graham noted with pleasure.
Graham observed that “it would be insane for Israel to give the Golan Heights back.” Noting his recent trip to this area bordering a Syria that a sectarian bloodbath has shattered, he stated that “when you look out over the Golan and you are looking into Syria you are looking into hell.” Considering Syria’s warring parties such as the Bashar Assad dictatorship, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and its terrorist proxy Hezbollah, Graham asked, “Who would you give it back to? When Russia is your best choice, you have no good choices.”
Looking to future improvements in the American-Israeli strategic relationship, Graham advocated a defense pact like those America has with many countries around the world such as NATO members. “An existential threat against the state of Israel is an existential threat against the United States. We cannot abandon our best ally in the region, one of our best allies in the world,” he stated. “It is important to send a signal in the 21st century. If you are intending to destroy Israel you have to go through us, and it will not turn out well for you.” He noted the inherent strength of such an alliance, for the Israelis “have never asked us for one soldier to defend Israel, they have just asked us for prayers and weapons and we give them both.”
EMET president and founder Sarah Stern subsequently stressed during her remarks the urgency of Israeli security concerns. “Syria has become a Hobbesian state of war of man against man and the dividing line between this chaotic region and a free Western democracy is the Golan Heights,” she stated. She noted that EMET is promoting legislation to codify Trump’s executive decision recognizing Israeli Golan sovereignty.
Stern referenced Iranian involvement in Syria as merely one example of growing Iranian threats in the region. Meanwhile “much of the world is asleep at the wheel of history.” Because of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the “people of Israel are just as endangered today as they have been at any time in their history.”
Stern similarly noted that Israel’s neighboring Palestinian Authority (PA) “has done everything they can to basically inebriate the hearts and minds of their people to despise the Israeli and the Jew.” The PA’s “pay for slay” financial support for terrorist attacks upon Israelis demonstrated an “egregious value system.” Stuart and Robbi Force, the parents of Taylor Force, whom an Palestinian jihadist killed during a visit to Tel Aviv, exemplified Stern’s statement during a presentation on the Taylor Force Act that sanctions the PA for such payments.
Stern condemned the “revisionist histories” of Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, part of rising antisemitism and spreading lies against Israel worldwide. Stern mocked Tlaib’s laughable claim that Arabs had provided Jews safe haven in the Palestine Mandate following Nazi genocide. “Yes, Rashida, it would have been nice if the mufti of Jerusalem had welcomed our relatives, but that is just not true.”
Congressmen Lee Zeldin and Ted Deutch, respectively a Republican and a Democrat, discussed in their remarks what Deutch called a “rise in antisemitism on the right and on the left.” He observed that the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel “is innately and unquestionably anti-Semitic.” As some audience members privately noted, he will face growing anti-Semitic challenges among his fellow Democrats, as his disappointment with the pathetic Democratic response to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s antisemitism indicated.
In the evening’s concluding address, Hill recounted his own personal experience with the antisemitism and radical Israel-hatred of groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). SJP and its allies in the BDS movement like the fringe group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) “make Robespierre look like a kindergarten teacher” and create a “reign of terror across university campuses.” He noted his call to ban SJP given its ties to Hamas terrorists.
Hill, an outspoken opponent of Islamic sharia law and supporter of Israeli annexation of Judea and Samaria, highlighted his commitment to defending the “exceptionalism of Jewish civilization.” “Jewish civilization was by far the most superior civilization that I have studied,” he noted, and attributed antisemitism largely to precisely “envy for Jewish success” and “hatred of the good.” For example, Jews are the “unsung heroes of the civil rights movement,” who provided essential financial support.
Like the evening’s other speakers, Hill in his case for Israel, “America’s alter ego in the Middle East,” combined considerations of principle with practical strategic interests. “Jewish civilization is an international treasure trove that has got to be protected, because Jewish civilization and Western civilization are inextricably linked.” As the dinner demonstrated, EMET will play an important role in this protection in the years to come.