J.D. Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, headlined a “Remembering Oct. 7” event on a sun-drenched afternoon in Washington, D.C., which brought hundreds of attendees to the National Mall.
“The best way to end the war, and I believe the only way to end the war, is if Hamas would let the hostages go,” the Ohio senator said on Monday at the event, which the Philos Project organized with other Christian and Jewish cosponsors.
Vance blasted the Biden administration for failing to secure the release of the remaining hostages, whom Hamas holds in Gaza, stating that U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris “haven’t done a thing.”
“Use your authority to help bring them home,” he told Biden and Harris. “We can do it. We just need real leadership.”
Hamas started the war when it attacked the Jewish state on Oct. 7, 2023, and “Israel is going to finish it,” Vance said. He and his running mate, former President Donald Trump, “want to give Israel the right and the ability to finish what Hamas started,” he said.
If elected, Trump and Vance will make sure that “America will protect our American Jewish brothers and sisters,” he said. “We will stop funding anti-American and anti-Jewish radicals.”
‘Jews are not alone’
Luke Moon, executive director of the Philos Project, a nonprofit that promotes “positive Christian engagement in the Near East” in “the spirit of the Hebraic tradition,” told JNS that he had his team apply for a permit in May for the event on the National Mall.
“I just wanted to get it before Hamas does, because I figured they would try to do something,” he said.
After securing the grounds, Moon invited Christian and Jewish organizations to sign on. “We’ve got to do this together,” he told JNS. “We’ve got to show that the Jews are not alone—that they have a lot of friends.”
The event drew support from U.S.-based Jewish advocacy groups, including Israeli-American Council, StandWithUs and End Jew Hatred, as well as Christian organizations like Israel Allies Foundation, American Christian Leaders for Israel and International Christian Embassy Jerusalem.
Moon told JNS that the goal of the rally was to focus on “celebrating the heroes, the people who ran to the front lines,” and to encourage attendees to “well up with courage to fight another year, another two years, however long it takes until we push back against the evil we see around us.”
The event featured a diverse docket of speakers, including media personality Zach Sage Fox, former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts and Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Egyptian peace advocate Dalia Ziada added an outside perspective, and Israeli-American rapper Kosha Dillz, Colombian religious musician Johan Manjarres and Israeli country music artist Omer Netzer performed on stage.
“It’s very important for Americans of all kinds of religious backgrounds to come here and say that we stand in solidarity with Israel, with Jewish people,” Roberts, of Heritage, told JNS.
“I happen to be someone who’s Roman Catholic. I think it’s really important in particular for Christians in the United States to understand that if Israel and Jews can be attacked, all of us can be,” Roberts said. “This is an event not just about recognizing the tragedy of last year but about looking forward—that this also needs to be a year of victory.”
Unifying message
JNS asked Roberts what victory would mean going forward.
“Hamas ceases to exist, and for us in the United States, that any antisemitism in any of our institutions is totally eradicated,” the Heritage president said. “Until and unless that is the case, we’re not going to assume victory.”
Roberts, whose organization focuses on public policy and advocacy, lamented that “we have allowed institutions of higher learning, our K-12 schools, to teach nonsense, to teach hatred,” referring to the wave of anti-Israel and antisemitic activity nationwide.
The Heritage Foundation “would support really going after some of the funding mechanisms for all of these protesters, for the institutions that support them,” he told JNS. “That’s the kind of conversation we have to have if we want to solve the problem of antisemitism.”
Fox has made videos since Oct. 7 that have shined a light on hypocrisy and a lack of education among anti-Israel protesters. He told JNS that he hopes Monday’s rally will spread “a message of unity.”
“We’re standing here with Christians, Muslims. I just met Native American chiefs, who are here in solidarity with Israel,” he said. “We are trying to show that even if you disagree with people on one matter, Israel is what matters.”
Fox, who emceed the rally, has been disappointed in the lack of clear messages, or even outright silence, from many Hollywood Jews and influencers.
He told JNS that his newfound fame is a “double-edged sword.”
“Some days it feels like a lonely battle, but honestly, when I read the comments and the views, they speak for themselves,” he said of his videos, which have garnered over 1 billion views and impressions since the war began.
“When you see those metrics, you realize that you’re chipping away day-by-day at this indoctrination that’s happened to our culture, especially young people,” he told JNS.
Susan Michael, the U.S. director for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, an outreach group that connects churches to Israel, told JNS that she was particularly proud that Monday’s crowd included pro-Israel Muslims and Hindus, as well as Christians.
“It shows how important it is for us to come out in the streets, be seen and to stand with Israel and to remember the horrific terrorist attack of last year,” she said. “We do not want the world to forget, and a part of today is to bring that remembrance of what Israel suffered.”
Liora Rez, the founder and executive director of the grassroots StopAntisemitism watchdog, told JNS at the rally that it is critical for Israel’s friends, who showed up on Monday, to continue advocating even, and especially, in less friendly conditions, when Jew-hatred manifests.
“Don’t be quiet. Speak up, and if you see something that kind of stirs your stomach, contact us,” Rez said. “It’s so important for the public to show that American values and Israeli values are one and the same.”