Christian and Jewish leaders gathered at the annual Christians United for Israel summit just south of Washington, D.C., on Monday evening for a “Night to Honor Israel.”
Speaking to thousands of attendees waving Israeli and American flags, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) slammed the policies of the Biden and Obama administrations towards Iran and pledged that a second term for former President Donald Trump would see a return to a harder stance against the regime.
“Iran is the root of all evil, and we’re going to stand up to ’em, and if Trump gets in, if I were the Ayatollah, I’d be watching,” Graham said. “I’m also going to introduce an authorization to use military force to stop the Iranians from getting a nuclear weapon, if we have to do that.”
He argued that Iran’s proxy groups in the region were ultimately under Iranian authority and Iran should therefore be held responsible for their actions.
“An attack by Hezbollah against the State of Israel should be considered an attack by Iran against the State of Israel,” said the senator, adding that he would introduce legislation to that effect on Wednesday.
“I see the destruction of Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran as necessary for the survival of Israel and the United States—and what I mean by the destruction of Iran, I mean the destruction of the regime,” he added.
Graham also took shots at international organizations that have been critical of Israel’s conduct in the war against Hamas.
“Have you heard of the International Criminal Court? They can go to hell,” he said. “UNRWA? Not one dime of your money is going to go to this organization as long as I am in the United States Senate.”
‘An unwelcoming world’
The crowd, which included both Christians as well as many visibly Jewish attendees, also heard CUFI’s founder and chairman pastor John Hagee, and from Orna and Ronen Neutra, whose son Omer was taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7. The two led the crowd in a prayer for Israel’s leaders to “accept responsible proposals placed before them in order to bring about the release of our loved ones.”
Addressing hostage families, Graham said earlier that he was “cautiously optimistic” that their “day of deliverance will be at hand,” in an apparent reference to a potential ceasefire-for-hostages deal.
The keynote speaker on Monday was the American-Israeli billionaire philanthropist and political donor Dr. Miriam Adelson, who compared the experience of Israelis and Jews after Oct. 7 to events leading up to the Holocaust.
“The turning of so-called elite universities into ‘no-go’ zones for Jews, the discrimination felt increasingly by Israeli businessmen, academics and athletes when abroad, arms embargoes against a Jewish state fighting for its very survival, including one by a very misguided Biden administration,” Adelson said. “For the first time, I caught a glimpse of what it felt like to be a Jew in Europe as the Holocaust loomed. An unwelcoming world. Doors slamming shut. Isolation in the face of threatened extermination.”
