What Marco Rubio would mean for Israel as Secretary of State – The Forward

By Jacob Kornbluh
November 11, 2024

Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is expected to be nominated to be secretary of state in a second Trump administration New York Times reported on Monday evening.

Rubio, who challenged Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primary, joined him on the campaign trail to boost Trump’s appeal to Hispanic voters in the final weeks of the presidential election.

Earlier Monday, Trump announced that another Florida representative, Congressman Mike Waltz, would serve as his national security adviser.

What a Rubio nomination would mean for Israel

Rubio ran for president in 2016 as a foreign policy hawk. He criticized Trump for his promise to be “neutral” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, in recent years he has softened his views and aligned himself more closely with Trump’s populist agenda. In an interview earlier this year, Rubio said his foreign policy has evolved because “the world looks different than it did five, 10, 15 years ago.”

With his vote against emergency aid for Israel in April, he surprised former supporters and donors. Rubio argued that the foreign aid package should have included border security measures and rejected linking it to aid to Ukraine and Taiwan, a decision consistent with Trump’s position.

Nevertheless, Rubio’s vocal support for Israel remains. As vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he visited Israel in April and in November 2023 co-hosted a bipartisan screening for members of Congress of the film that documented the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7. Rubio compared the Israel Defense Forces’ terrain operation in Rafah, rejected by the Biden administration, to the Allies’ persecution of Adolf Hitler during the Holocaust.

Rubio’s nomination requires Senate confirmation.

Rubio’s complex relationship with Jews

Rubio was born in Miami to Cuban parents who baptized him Catholic. He spent three years of his youth as a Mormon. He maintains close ties to Florida’s Jewish community, which makes up an estimated 5% of the state’s electorate.

Norman Braman, a car dealer and former president of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, was Rubio’s political sponsor and the biggest supporter of his presidential campaign in 2016. In 2015, Florida Democrats criticized Rubio for holding a fundraiser on Yom Kippur in Texas Home of Harlan Crow, a conservative philanthropist whose art collection includes works by Adolf Hitler, a signed copy of “Mein Kampf” and a “closet full of place settings and linens.” Nazi leader.”

Rubio is a long-time supporter of Orthodox and religious causes. But he also angered Orthodox leaders in 2022 for introducing a bill that would make daylight saving time permanent across the country. (The bill would have made it more difficult to attend morning prayers and get to work on time.) The Senate passed the bill unanimously, but it was blocked in the House

Rubio pardoned Trump after he repeatedly accused American Jews of disloyalty to Israel and suggested they were hating their religion by voting for Democrats. “Belonging to your religion and being pro-Israel can be two different things,” Rubio said on CBS News Face the nation in March. He accused President Joe Biden of trying to appeal to “anti-Semites” in the Democratic Party with his criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza.

The Florida senator said he supports Trump’s plan to deport foreign students who took part in fomenting pro-Palestinian campus protests. In April he called for supporters of the Israel boycott movement to be punished to counter growing anti-Semitism.

Last year, after October 7, as criticism mounted over TikTok’s role in spreading anti-Semitic and anti-Israel content on its social media platform, Rubio wrote on Americans, now it is.” Used to downplay Hamas terrorism.” He played a leading role in Congress’ efforts to ban TikiTok in 2022.