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RJC endorses Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole

The group praised the chair of the House Appropriations Committee for supporting Israel in the fight to compel the Biden administration to deliver promised military aid.

Tom Cole
Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) speaks at the 2020 AFGE Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 10, 2020. Credit: Keith Mellnick/AFGE.

The Republican Jewish Coalition voiced its support for Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), chair of the House Appropriations Committee, in his race for Oklahoma’s 4th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives

“Tom Cole played an indispensable role in passing the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act—the bill to provide $14 billion in emergency aid for Israel’s self-defense war in Gaza,” Norm Coleman and Matt Brooks, national chairman and CEO, respectively, of the RJC said in a statement on Monday.

The RJC heads described Cole as a leader in “the difficult fight to compel the Biden administration to deliver the promised aid. When Biden announced his weapons embargo against Israel, Cole spoke out strongly, calling on Biden to ‘stop appeasing terrorists and stand with Israel.’”

Calling Cole a “stalwart ally in the fight against antisemitism,” Brooks and Coleman praised the congressman as “a strong supporter of the National Security Grant Program that aids so many Jewish institutions. He has also used his platform to challenge what he accurately called in a recently published column, ‘The Far Left’s Serious Anti-Israel Problem.’”

In the May 6 article, the congressman warned that “we have watched Democrats spread anti-Israel rhetoric time and time again.”

He wrote: “As the Leader of the Free World, we must support our allies, work together and lead through with strength. To do anything else is a public betrayal to our friends in Israel and effectively supports an enemy to civilized people around the world.”

The RJC dismissed Cole’s opponent, newcomer Paul L. Bondar, who reportedly has millions to spend on the race, as lacking a “record on any of these issues, just like he has no record of living in the district he’s running in.”

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the advocacy agent of the Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA, said that it was “left with a deep sense of sadness.”
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