Ambitious Mike Pence meets with Miriam Adelson & anti-Christian Israelis connected to terror group

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Ambitious Mike Pence meets with Miriam Adelson & anti-Christian Israelis connected to terror group
Former US vice president Mike Pence outside Hebron's Tomb of the Patriarchs on March 9, 2022. MK Itamar Ben-Gvir is at far right. (photo source)

Hungry for campaign money, former VP Mike Pence went to Israel to pay tribute to billionaire Miriam Adelson, and met with Israeli extremists who endorse violence against non-Jews, are hostile to “accursed Christianity,’ and have been connected to a movement banned as a terror organization…

Adelson (an Israeli dual citizen) & husband Sheldon gave more than half a billion dollars to Republican campaigns, party organs, and interest groups during the past five U.S. election cycles...

By Allison Kaplan Sommer, reposted from Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz [notes below in italics, addendum, title, and some photos added by IAK]

Former Vice President Mike Pence visited Israel this week, and while his visit made little headlines, on Wednesday he did manage to draw public attention after touring the West Bank city of Hebron with two of Israel’s most notorious right-wing extremists, MK Itamar Ben-Gvir and far-right activist Baruch Marzel.

Pence, whose visit appeared to be laying the groundwork to shore up evangelical support* in the 2024 presidential race, said it was a “great honor” to meet Ben-Gvir, the ideological successor of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose Kach movement was banned from running for the Knesset and is considered a terror organization by the U.S. government. Ben-Gvir shook Pence’s hand and told the former vice president about how he was “battling against our enemies.”

[When Rabbi Kahane was in the Israeli Knesset, he introduced a law decreeing: “Non-Jews will be obliged to assume duties, taxes and slavery.” It failed to be adopted.]

“That’s what I heard,” Pence replied. “Stay strong. We’ll stand with you.”

Both Ben-Gvir and Marzel made their names as leaders in the far-right, anti-Arab Kach movement. Today, Ben-Gvir leads the Otzma Yehudit party and was elected to the Knesset in 2021. As an attorney, he has represented suspects in Jewish terror cases and hate crimes.

He first became famous when, a few weeks before the November 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak [by a Jewish extremist] Rabin, he appeared on television brandishing a Cadillac emblem stolen from Rabin’s car and issuing a threat: “We got to his car, and we’ll get to him, too.”

Lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir speaks to reporters.
Lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir speaks to reporters.Ben-Gvir is also famous in Israel for lionizing Baruch Goldstein, the far-right Jewish terrorist who massacred 29 Muslims at the Cave of the Patriarchs in 1994.

In 2019, when Otzma Yehudit was negotiating to unite with other right-wing parties with the encouragement of then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of an Israeli election, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) tweeted that it “has a longstanding policy not to meet with members of this racist and reprehensible party.”

In addition, Israel’s current prime minister, Naftali Bennett, refused pressure by Netanyahu in 2020 to add Ben-Gvir to his party in order to consolidate right-wing votes in that year’s national election. Bennett said he would not partner with someone who glorifies a murderer like Goldstein, noting that Ben-Gvir had hung a large photo of the Jewish terrorist in his living room.

Ben-Gvir’s provocations have continued throughout his stint as a Knesset opposition member over the past 10 months. In one instance, a video surfaced of him pulling a handgun on Arab security guards during a parking dispute in the underground garage of the Expo Tel Aviv conference center.

In recent months, he has maintained a makeshift parliamentary office in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, declaring that “we are the landlords,” prompting protests by Palestinian residents and violent clashes. In their aftermath, Bennett described Ben-Gvir as “a provocateur who tries to ignite tensions.”

Ben-Gvir was introduced to Pence in front of press cameras on Wednesday by Marzel, the Boston-born former leader of Kahane’s Kach movement, who lives in Hebron and was one of the settler leaders giving Pence a tour of the city. Marzel has been banned from both Facebook and Twitter for hate speech and was blocked by Israel’s Supreme Court from running for political office in a decision that cited Marzel’s racist statements, calling them “a new low point in the racial discourse that we have not known before.”

Israeli Miriam Adelson, campaign kingmaker

During his visit to Israel, which began Monday, Pence dined with Republican megadonor Miriam Adelson, met with both Bennett and Netanyahu, and saw President Isaac Herzog and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid. In addition, he visited the Western Wall and received an honorary degree from Ariel University, to which Adelson is a major donor.

[Pence reportedly traveled to Israel on a private Adelson jet. Miriam, an Israeli citizen worth at least $30 billion, is reportedly positioning herself to be a force in the 2022 U.S. midterm elections and beyond. Husband Sheldon, who passed away last year, is notorious for saying he regretted serving in the U.S. Army instead of the Israeli military – video here.]

Pence has been raising his political profile in recent weeks, through the organization he chairs, Advancing American Freedom. The group recently spent over $10 million on television ads criticizing President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.

[The executive director of Advancing American Freedom is Paul Teller, of whom Washington Jewish Week reports: “Paul Teller was raised by liberal Jewish parents on Long Island, but that didn’t stop him from becoming a highly influential conservative aide in Congress.” Teller is a member of Temple Sinai in D.C, a liberal synagogue that promotes “concern for Israel.”]

Paul Teller (right) with commentator Mark Levin (left) and Rabbi Ben Packer at the Western Wall plaza in occupied East Jerusalem on “Jerusalem Day.”  Teller, head of the conservative pac “Advancing American Freedom,” is an Israel loyalist who is a member of a liberal DC synagogue. Packer is a Kahane supporter who endorsed violence, and Levin is also an Israel loyalist; he extolled Sheldon Adelson, who said he regretted that he had served in the U.S. Army rather than the Israeli military. (photo origin)

Pence’s friendly exchanges with Ben-Gvir and Marzel were attacked by Meretz MK Mossi Raz, who wrote that Pence chose to meet with men “who have worked for years to cleanse the old center of Hebron of its Palestinian population” and called the meeting an “alliance of hate.”

ADDENDUM: Anti-Christian actions

Marzel and Ben-Gvir are also known for anti-Christian sentiments.

The Times of Israel reports that during a thousand-strong concert against a visit by the Pope held to oppose giving Christians increased access to the room said to be the location of the Last Supper, the two pushed a particularly harsh anti-Christian message.

Their group featured signs against “accursed Christianity,” and their associate Michael Ben Ari said: “The pope needs to come quietly, so no one feels him, and see that Christianity has lost in its war against the Jews.”

Itamar Ben-Gvir, left, Baruch Marzel, center, and Michael Ben Ari protesting the visit of Pope Francis on Thursday, May 22, 2014. The signs say “Christianity is accursed/damned – Pope leave our land.” Ben Ari said: “The pope needs to come quietly, so no one feels him, and see that Christianity has lost in its war against the Jews.” (photo source)

 * While many evangelicals support Israel, there are many who don’t, some alert to the apparent manipulation that has exploited their faith; and to Israel’s long history of violence and human rights abuses, and harm to Americans, e.g. this.

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