In his transient time within the Home, freshman Jewish Congressman Randy High quality has constructed a status for combative outbursts — significantly about Muslims.
However the Florida Republican ignited a brand new spherical of controversy earlier this month with a collection of disparaging remarks about Palestinians and what he known as “mainstream Muslims” that his critics —on the left and proper — say will not be simply provocative however quantity to “genocidal.”
“I don’t know the way you make peace with those that search your destruction. I feel you destroy them first,” High quality stated throughout a Dec. 10 listening to with the Home Committee on International Affairs, after remarking, “There must be a reformation, actually, of Islam.”
He doubled down on comparable rhetoric geared toward “mainstream Muslims” and “mainstream Islam” within the week that adopted, and has intensified his stance following the Hanukkah terror assault in Australia by avowed ISIS supporters.
“It’s time for a Muslim journey ban, radical deportations of all mainstream Muslim authorized and unlawful immigrants, and citizenship revocations wherever potential,” he declared in an announcement posted to social media. “Mainstream Muslims have declared conflict on us. The least we will do is kick them the hell out of America.”
High quality’s remarks — which have additionally included placing blame on Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar “and her fellow Somalis” for a public help fraud scheme carried out largely by Somali defendants — go far past what different Jewish pro-Israel elected officers have stated publicly. They’ve been extensively condemned, together with by different Jews.
“As part of the Jewish group, I do know that I need to converse out,” Noam Shelef, of the progressive group New Jewish Narrative, stated in an announcement. “Rep High quality, who wears a kippah, shall be seen as a face of the American Jewish group. His hate isn’t who we’re.”
But at a second when the worldwide Jewish group is reeling from the aftermath of the Australia assault, High quality’s help among the many conservative pro-Israel Jews he seeks to domesticate has not been dented in any apparent manner.
The Republican Jewish Coalition stays in High quality’s nook, and pro-Israel lobbying big AIPAC has endorsed him heading right into a contested major for his reelection. Since his preliminary feedback about Muslims, he has spoken at a convention hosted by the Jerusalem Put up, attended Lawyer Normal Pam Bondi’s Hanukkah occasion and spoke at a Hanukkah gathering for Younger Jewish Conservatives. A few of his followers inform JTA they suppose his feedback about Muslims are on the mark.
“It definitely isn’t the phrases that I personally would use to explain the state of affairs,” Matt Brodsky, a Jewish GOP strategist who labored with Trump’s first-term Center East diplomatic group and has labored on political campaigns for Muslim Republicans, instructed the Jewish Telegraphic Company.
However, Brodsky stated, “He may very nicely be making a degree that the Muslims who would stand with Jews or stand with Israel are usually the exception, not the rule. And I don’t know that I’d argue in another way.” Brodsky added that, within the grief of the Australia assaults, he doesn’t need “to be splitting hairs over what a Jew says.”
Then-State Rep. Randy High quality, at podium, and colleagues from the Florida Legislature endorse a proclamation backing Israel within the second week of its conflict with Hamas, Oct. 18, 2023. (Florida Senate/Wikmedia)
The Trump administration additionally appears to agree with High quality’s evaluation on proscribing Muslims from coming into the nation. On Dec. 16, the federal authorities added the Palestinian Authority, in addition to new Muslim-majority nations together with Syria, to its journey ban.
Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, of Alabama, additionally not too long ago known as for a Muslim ban, resulting in condemnation from Chuck Schumer, the Jewish Democratic Senate minority chief. (On Dec. 14, Vickie Paladino, a Republican member of the New York Metropolis Council, made comparable remarks claiming that expelling Muslims would support the struggle towards antisemitism, and expounded on her views within the Queens Jewish Hyperlink.)
Reached for remark, High quality pointed to his social media statements but additionally appeared to melt his stance.
“Not all Muslims are or help terrorism,” High quality wrote to JTA. He added that he was “grateful” for “Muslims like” Ahmed el-Ahmed — the bystander in Australia who was shot whereas disarming one of many gunmen, and has been praised by Jewish teams for his heroism.
Such folks, High quality added, “simply wish to stay in peace [and] prosperity with the remainder of us.”
High quality, who was elected in an April particular election in a deep-red district with few Jews that he himself nonetheless had not moved into months after his victory, has made his Jewish identification an unmissable element of his politics. He wears a kippah on the Home ground, is an unwavering Israel supporter and has known as out members of his personal occasion who he believes have crossed the road into antisemitism. On social media, the place he’s adopted the “Hebrew Hammer” moniker, he exhibits off new MAGA-themed yarmulkes he added to his assortment.
Half and parcel with that persona are High quality’s views on Muslims and Palestinians, which some even in his occasion contemplate excessive. As the correct normally is wrestling with a bigger drawback of antisemitic affect and the erosion of a once-assured consensus in help for Israel, High quality’s bellicose rhetoric has made enemies on his facet of the aisle — whilst he, like many different conservatives, has claimed to be following within the footsteps of Charlie Kirk, the slain founding father of Turning Level USA.
In July, amid stories that Israel was withholding humanitarian support to Gaza, High quality concurrently known as such stories “a lie” and in addition declared, “Launch the hostages. Till then, starve away.” The American Jewish Committee and different teams decried his remarks. An undaunted High quality repeated the phrase “starve away,” together with variations like “#KeepOnStarving,” a number of instances within the waning months of the Israel-Gaza conflict — whilst backlash to his remarks grew on the correct.
“A Jewish U.S. consultant calling for the continued hunger of harmless folks and youngsters is disgraceful,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Georgia Republican and up to date Trump critic who shall be leaving the Home in January, tweeted after High quality’s July remarks about Gaza.
Lauren Witzke, a QAnon activist and former Republican Senate candidate in Delaware who attended Turning Level USA’s latest AmericaFest gathering, has repeatedly slung private insults at High quality. She has promised to “personally fundraise for the candidate who primaries this genocidal freak who will get off watching children and infants being blown to items.” (Aaron Baker, a challenger who additionally ran towards High quality in April, took Witzke up on the provide whilst he has made his personal help for Israel a part of his marketing campaign platform.)
Speaker of the Home Rep. Mike Johnson, left, swears in Rep. Randy High quality, proper, because the newly elected congressman’s spouse, Wendy High quality, seems to be on, on the U.S. Capitol, April 2, 2025. (Workplace of Speaker Mike Johnson/Wikipedia)
Tucker Carlson, himself a lead driver of antisemitic conspiracy theories on the correct and an emergent critic of Israel, has additionally lambasted High quality over the congressman’s calls, in Could, for Gaza to be nuked. Throughout his tackle at AmericaFest, the latest gathering hosted by right-wing group Turning Level USA at which antisemitism was a scorching subject, Carlson extra usually criticized Republicans who he stated had been “attacking tens of millions of Individuals as a result of they’re Muslims. It’s disgusting. And I’m a Christian.”
On the time of his “starve away” remarks, High quality had not but been endorsed by AIPAC for reelection. Certainly one of his non-Jewish major opponents, Palm Coast Metropolis Council member Charles Gambaro, harshly criticized High quality’s Gaza remarks and declared that Gambaro, too, would search AIPAC’s endorsement.
Since then, AIPAC has endorsed High quality.
“The professional-Israel group helps Rep. High quality due to his work to strengthen America’s partnership with Israel,” an AIPAC spokesperson instructed JTA earlier this month.
One other Jewish establishment persevering with to again High quality: the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Following his “destroy them first” remarks, the Jewish Democratic Council of America stated High quality “is blatantly participating in hate speech.” The RJC’s X account, in flip, blasted its Democratic counterpart for condemning High quality.
“You might be complete clowns,” the RJC declared in a tweet directed on the JDCA.
The RJC continued: “Perhaps begin with holding Hakeem Jeffries accountable for campaigning with and endorsing antisemite Mayor-elect of NYC, Zohran Mamdani.”
The bigger digital ecosystem of hard-line supporters of Israel has additionally often championed High quality. “Congressman Randy High quality is talking fact to energy — and it issues,” Betar USA, a pro-Israel group that has additionally demanded “blood in Gaza” and whose members have protested exterior mosques, tweeted Dec. 17, a day after High quality tweeted, “We both get up or Mainstream Muslims will conquer the West for good.”
“At a time when too many politicians keep silent or disguise behind cowardly speaking factors, Randy High quality stands unapologetically for America, for Israel, and for ethical readability,” the Betar submit continued. “He says what others are afraid to say — and he doesn’t again down.”
Gabe Groisman, a Jewish podcaster and former mayor of Bal Harbour, Florida, has additionally approvingly featured High quality on his podcast.
Not all Jewish conservatives agree with High quality’s bluster.
“On the one hand, I’m glad there may be any individual who’s giving voice to a extra sturdy pro-Jewish, pro-Israel standpoint,” one Jewish nonprofit skilled who ran for workplace as a Republican instructed JTA after High quality’s “starve away” remarks this summer time. “However, I want it was somebody aside from Randy High quality.”
With out questioning High quality’s pro-Israel bonafides, the previous candidate — who requested to stay nameless, citing ongoing involvement in Jewish organizations — believed the politician was failing to satisfy the second.
“These of us who’re publicly, overtly Zionist, and particularly those that search public workplace primarily based on their Zionism, I feel have an obligation to be considerate about how they current themselves,” the Republican stated, evaluating High quality’s outbursts unfavorably to these of far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. “They are saying issues that are then used towards Israel within the worldwide press.”
For Brodsky, although, High quality is a needed truth-teller at a time when vocal Israel critics comparable to Omar get what he believes is a free go for their very own excessive remarks.
“I personally don’t like entering into video games the place we take care of shoving a microphone in completely Republican faces to be able to justify something a Republican stated, however we don’t try this for Ilhan Omar,” he stated. Brodsky had labored on the 2024 marketing campaign of a Muslim Republican challenger to Omar till he was fired over tweets wherein he acknowledged that Israel ought to “carpet bomb” an space of Lebanon the place Irish peacekeepers had been stationed.
High quality continues to be embracing his position as a heel of kinds. When Omar known as for his expulsion earlier this month over his “destroy them first” feedback, he had a easy retort: “Go for it.”
