Israel-Hamas War Stories Hit Hard for GOP Standard-Bearers

Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, Nev., on Oct. 28, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Several of the nation’s best-known Republicans told a mostly Jewish audience about the personal impact the Israel-Hamas war is having on them, too.

At least four GOP politicians shared such stories during the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership conference.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and three presidential candidates were among the leaders who spoke at the late-October conference in Las Vegas. Their messages resonated with the crowd and, at times, made some people weep.

More than 1,400 people, mostly Israeli Jews, died in the initial Hamas terrorist invasion on Oct. 7; the attackers raped women and took more than 240 people hostage.

Since then, the death toll has climbed above 10,000, mostly as a result of Israeli counterstrikes against Hamas. More than 250,000 Israelis and 1.5 million Palestinians were reported displaced.

Longshot presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said two of his closest friends are Jewish. They had gone to Israel to observe the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, which focuses on giving thanks for the fall harvest.

“We were exchanging text messages with them in real-time as they took cover in the bomb shelter in their hotel,” Mr. Ramaswamy told the conference on Oct. 28.

As harrowing as that experience was, Mr. Ramaswamy acknowledged that others fared far worse.

“Many of you lost loved ones that day or know close friends who did,” he said.

He also relayed touching stories he had heard about acts of heroism.

The first civilian to die in the Hamas attack was the chief security officer for a kibbutz, a small community.

“Armed with just a rifle and a pistol, he killed seven Hamas attackers at the gate before more terrorists took him down,” Mr. Ramaswamy said.

In that same kibbutz, a couple leaped from their burning home. They thought they had landed safely. “But Hamas terrorists soon shot them,” he said.

The couple’s two oldest children “shielded their two youngest children with their bodies,” he said, “only those two youngest children survived.”

In another kibbutz, a young mother called her husband and father to warn them not to come to the house after Hamas terrorists forced their way inside. The invaders shot her dead in front of her children, a 4-year-old and a 4-month-old.

“These are three stories amongst over a thousand like them,” Mr. Ramaswamy said.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, Nev., on Oct. 28, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Kids Are Afraid

He decried the antisemitic protests that Palestinian sympathizers have waged in the United States, as did former President Donald Trump.

President Trump said he has been concerned about his Jewish friends and called to check on them.

Even though they’re “tough people,” they’re frightened, President Trump said, “Their kids are afraid to go to school.”

“As president, I will absolutely protect our Jewish citizens from these maniacs,” he said, referring to anti-Semites.

The frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination vowed: “As your president, I will restore peace through strength on the Earth.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is running a distant second for the Republican nomination, described a compelling moment that happened on U.S. soil.

While the U.S. State Department dithered in getting stranded Americans home from Israel, then billed them for the cost, Mr. DeSantis said he issued an executive order aiding evacuation. That led to the rescue of about 700 Americans, mostly Floridians.

The governor and his wife met the first planeload of 271 evacuees, including 91 children. He vividly recalls seeing “a mother and a father of four kids, and the family dogs,” exiting the airplane.

Then came an unforgettable moment.

The mother of a 6-year-old girl pointed to her daughter, who is the same age as one of Mr. DeSantis’ daughters, and told him: “All my daughter has been saying for the last two days is, ‘Mommy, I don’t want the rockets anymore. I don’t want the rockets anymore. I just want the state of Florida. I want Florida,’” he said.

“Well, we made it happen. We brought them back,” Mr. DeSantis said during his Oct. 28 speech.

President Donald Trump stands with Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who announced that she is stepping down as the White House press secretary, during his rally where he announced his candidacy for a second presidential term at the Amway Center on June 18, 2019, in Orlando, Fla. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Life-Changing Pilgrimage

Ms. Sanders, who spoke to the convention on Oct. 27, went back in time to tell a longer but heartfelt tale, which inspired sustained applause and a standing ovation.

She began: “I want to share a story with you about an 11-year-old girl who went on a trip with her family. It was the first time she had ever traveled overseas.”

Along with some fellow churchgoers, the girl and her family went to Israel to visit biblical and historical sites.

For weeks, the girl’s parents had built anticipation about the trip.

“One of the last stops that they would take on that trip was to a place called Yad Vashem,” Ms. Sanders said. By the way her parents talked about that place, the girl knew it was important.

Yad Vashem “sits high upon Mount Herzl, often called the Mount of Remembrance,” she said, honoring Jewish people who perished in the Holocaust but left no other descendants to carry on their lineage.

“A place like that is a lot for any person to go, to see, to take in, much less an 11-year-old girl,” Ms. Sanders said.

After considerable consternation, the girl’s parents decided that this place offered “too important of a lesson...for their daughter not to see.”

“They wanted her to understand what happens when good people don’t stand up and fight against evil,” she said.

With the girl’s father remaining by her side, she watched videos of entire families being marched to their deaths.

“She saw the pictures of hundreds of shoes–taken right off the feet of Jewish children–piled high, waiting to be burned,” Ms. Sanders said.

The little girl didn’t utter a word. All the while, her father kept an eye on her, wondering whether she comprehended why he had brought her there, and whether she grasped the importance of the things she was seeing.

She listened as the names of 1.5 million Jewish children murdered by the Nazis were being read aloud, one by one. And she was told that it takes months to get through the entire list.

More than an hour passed; the little girl remained silent. Her father was worried that the experience had overwhelmed her.

She gripped her father’s hand tighter.

Lifelong Lesson Was Learned

Just before the museum exit, “There was a podium much like the one I’m standing behind now,” Ms. Sanders said.

On it, a guest book sat, waiting to be signed. The little girl reached into her father’s pocket, where she knew he always kept a pen.

“She scribbled down her name and her address. And then she paused over a section that was available for you to write in a comment,” Ms. Sanders said.

The child’s father lingered, peering over her shoulder to see what she would write.

There, scribbled in her “childish, 11-year-old’s scrawl,” the girl wrote some simple words that neither he nor she would ever forget.

“She wrote, ‘Why didn’t somebody do something?’” That signified for the father that his daughter indeed “got” the point: “Why it is so important for good people to stand up in the face of evil.”

The audience applauded. Ms. Sanders then revealed a fact that some had already surmised:

“The reason I know that story so well is because that was my father–and that was me that walked through that museum.”

The audience cheered and applauded prolongedly. Ms. Sanders had to wait almost 45 seconds before resuming and making her final points:

“I will never take for granted, nor will I ever forget what happens when good people don’t stand up in the battle between good and evil,” she said.

“Each of us can be the ‘somebodies’ who do something.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.