LAS VEGAS — Top Republican 2016 presidential nomination contenders on Saturday called for restoring America’s historic relationship with Israel through concrete steps enthusiastically received by a Jewish GOP group gathered here for its annual spring meeting.
Former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas told the Republican Jewish Coalition that his administration would immediately move the U.S. embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to west Jerusalem and endorse more housing construction inside Israeli settlements located in the West Bank.
President Obama has repeatedly criticized such construction. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who preceded Perry on stage, said he would cancel Obama’s emerging deal with Iran to limit Tehran’s nuclear capability because it constitutes an existential threat to the Jewish State.
“A renewing of our alliance with Israel must begin,” Perry said. “If I were president of the United States today this is what I would do. First, I would move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to west Jerusalem … Second, I would affirm Israel’s right to build within existing settlements.”
“I agree with Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu that a nuclear Iran is an existential threat to the nation of Israel,” Cruz said. “In the United States Senate, I intend to do everything possible to stop a bad Iran deal.”
Cruz said in an interview with the Washington Examiner on Friday that he also would immediately order the U.S. embassy in Israel moved to Jerusalem.
Cruz and Perry were joined by Sen. Rob Portman and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence in addressing 800 members of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
The group, a clearinghouse for reaching influential Republican campaign donors and bundlers and political activists, spent the weekend at The Venetian hotel and casino in private meetings with candidates and campaign representatives looking to lock up support for their 2016 bids.
The Saturday morning session, the only portion of the coalition confab open to the press, offered GOP contenders who had not yet addressed the group since the 2012 elections an opportunity to make their case to a membership that has grown by 125 percent over the past two years as opposition to Obama’s foreign policy has grown among American Jews.
Of the two contenders to address the Republican Jewish Coalition on Saturday, Cruz appeared to be a fan favorite, although it was Perry who offered more specific examples of how his presidency would alter U.S. relations with Israel from the Obama years.
The 44-year-old senator mixed humor with his standard uncompromising political record to make his case for the GOP presidential nomination over competitors deemed more electable and doing better in opinion polls gauging voter sentiment at this early stage.
“It is not complicated for Republican politicians to come to the RJC and say: ‘We should stand with Israel.’ Unless you’re a blithering idiot, that’s what you say when you come to the RJC,” Cruz said to much applause and laughter. “How do you distinguish who will actually follow through. And I think the answer is to say: ‘Talk is cheap. Show me.'”
