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By Arlene Bridges Samuels

The term simpatico took on new life last Friday night, August 23, in Glendale, Arizona, when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stepped onto the stage and was welcomed by Donald J. Trump. Simpatico is a word rarely used and means in part, “characterized by shared interests.” It has been absent from our political context for years after the friendship between Republican President Ronald Reagan and former Speaker of the House Democrat Tip O’Neill.

Watching history unfold on our television, my husband and I saw upwards of 20,000 attendees at Glendale’s Desert Diamond Arena explode with extended applause and cheers the moment RFK Jr. walked onto the stage following Trump’s first-rate introduction. Trump and Kennedy together—Republican and Democrat—have connected in areas of common ground. They are reviving simpatico to “Make Health Great Again,” secure our southern border, and support Israel’s moral war to defend its nation in an unasked-for war. Both leaders clearly understand that terror is the Islamic Regime’s key export to the Middle East and around the world.

Shabbat was not celebrated that Friday night in the Desert Diamond Arena. Nonetheless, as a pro-Israel Christian, I viewed it as a political Shabbat—unity conveyed as a kind of shalom! I was refreshed and hopeful that political conversations could once again grow in civility.

RFK Jr. represents an Israel-related legacy from his uncle John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his father Robert F. Kennedy, who were assassinated five years apart. I decided to revisit the CBS Archives, where I relived with tears my clear remembrance of seeing CBS newscaster Walter Cronkite in New York City take off his glasses and look up at the clock as he reported the unthinkable news.

Visibly holding back his emotions, Cronkite solemnly announced that President John Fitzgerald Kennedy had died from an assassin’s bullet at 2 p.m. EST on November 22, 1963. During my senior year of high school in 1963, CBS was one of only three television channels. The 35th president of the United States, riding in a Dallas, Texas, presidential motorcade with his beautiful wife in a stunning pink suit, was only 46 years old.

The weeks followed with our entire nation in shock and mourning, much like 9/11 when our country united in grief. For those of us who remember President Kennedy’s assassination 61 years ago and saw the attempted assassination of President Trump on TV on July 13, we felt that shock again, yet thankfully with a miraculous outcome. Of course, today’s toxic political atmosphere in no way resembles our national mourning in 1963. Then, political party did not matter. Today, more than a few Americans voiced regret that Trump’s would-be assassin had missed his mark. 

The Kennedy family history of pro-Israel support is a generational mix. John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Ted Kennedy veered away from the anti-Semitic leanings of their father, patriarch Joseph Kennedy. The three brothers, all politicians, were known for their support of the Jewish state and initiated important actions on behalf of Israel and the Jewish community.

For RFK Jr., his family story is especially poignant and challenging. Five years after JFK’s assassination, 42-year-old Robert Francis Kennedy sought the Democratic nomination for president. In 1968, a Palestinian domestic terrorist assassinated him. During his immediate arrest, by his own admission, legal immigrant Sirhan Sirhan voiced the hatred he harbored for Robert Kennedy, who supported Israel’s 1967 Six-Day War. Sirhan declared, “I did it for my country.”

Before Trump’s massive rally on August 23, I listened to Kennedy’s exceptional speech at his Phoenix, Arizona, press conference. There he announced his suspension, not termination, of his campaign. Kennedy initially ran for the Democratic Party nomination, but on October 9, 2023, he had declared himself as an independent after disillusionment with his party. He left saying that the Democratic party had “dramatically departed from the core values I grew up with.”

Kennedy described it now as a “party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big ag, and big money.”

Then, in a pivotal moment during his press conference, Kennedy explained another decision to millions of his supporters: “Many months ago, I promised the American people that I would withdraw from the race if I became a spoiler. … In my heart, I no longer believe that I have a realistic path of electoral victory in the face of this relentless, systematic [Democratic] censorship and media control. So, I cannot in good conscience ask my staff and volunteers to keep working their long hours or ask my donors to keep giving, when I cannot honestly tell them that I have a real path to the White House.”

Kennedy went on to say, “Our polling consistently showed that by staying on the ballot in the battleground states, I would likely hand the election over to the Democrats, with whom I disagree on the most existential issues: censorship, war, and chronic disease.” Adding to his already dramatic announcement, he said he was in the process of removing his name from the ballot in the 10 battleground states. His speech on YouTube is inspiring.

RFK Jr. admits that his agonizing decision has created division in his large extended family, where some feel betrayed, and others support his position. The current family landscape is an added problem he previously encountered on another issue.

Last year, after beginning his Democratic presidential campaign on April 19, rumors began circulating on social media that he was an anti-Semite. Upon hearing that, his good friend, celebrity Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, invited Kennedy to a public dialogue to clarify his positions. This dialogue was held in New York on July 25, 2023, and was entitled “On Jews and Israel,” transcribed by Jaime Kardontchik. After I learned more about RFK Jr.’s policies regarding Israel, it was clear that this propaganda was intentional. RFK calls his own experiences and struggles “the government’s censorship-industrial complex.”

Here are some of his significant statements in the dialogue with Rabbi Boteach:

“Three great causes drove me to enter this race … then persuaded me to leave the Democratic Party and run as an independent, and now to throw my support to President Trump.” The causes he cited were: free speech, the war in Ukraine, and the war on our children.

• “The Holocaust was the worst aberration in modern human existence. I grew up with those thoughts, and I grew up believing that the state of Israel was an extraordinary blossom in the desert, an oasis of democracy and values of human rights mixed in a sea of totalitarianism.”
• “I have taught law for 35 years. There is no country in the world with a judiciary like Israel. … And that is evidence of the humanity that you see in all of Israel.”
• “A Palestinian who wants to criticize its government had better do it in Israel. If he does that in the West Bank [or in Gaza], he’ll be arrested and tortured and killed.”
• “The Israel Defense Forces send their people to do ‘retail combat’ door to door, putting IDF soldiers at risk to avoid civilian casualties. Israel is unique in the Middle East … only attacking military targets. The Palestinian Authority, in contrast, has a long tradition of deliberately targeting civilians.”

Kennedy is no stranger to ancient (or modern) Jewish history or its enemies; in fact, his knowledge is encyclopedic. He understands Israel’s 3,700 years on their land. He understands the anti-Semitic hatred poured into the minds of Palestinian children. He mentions that former Palestinian leader Arafat died a billionaire and that Hamas leaders have hundreds of millions of dollars.

He recounts the numerous deaths in his family, his wife’s suicide, and his extended family, then shares that he “takes those tragedies and tries to help other people, to lighten the burdens of others, knowing what to say to console them and try to make something good in my own character that comes out of these tragedies.”

At the end of their dialogue in New York last year, Rabbi Boteach asked Bobby—the name Trump used Friday night to introduce him—“Do you believe in God?” Bobby replied, “God is the center of my life.” And then he said, “Shmuley, I am going to be a great champion for Israel.”

President Reagan and Tip O’Neill would be proud of the Trump-Kennedy partnership.

We welcome you to join our CBN Israel team to pray and reflect on this Scripture in Proverbs 27:17, offering wisdom to encourage, coach, and challenge each other: “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”

Prayer Points:

• Pray for the Trump-Kennedy alliance to produce great campaigning results.
• Pray for believers to prayerfully encourage teamwork.
• Pray for vigilance and protection for Trump, Vance, and Kennedy.
• Pray for our God of Angel Armies to deploy them to Israeli civilians and soldiers.

Arlene Bridges Samuels is the weekly feature columnist for CBN Israel since 2020. Working on the staff of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as their SE Regional Outreach Director for nine years, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as the Leadership Outreach Director part-time for their project American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel, is published at AllIsrael.com and The Jerusalem Connection, and has traveled to Israel since 1990. By invitation, she attends Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summits as part of Christian media worldwide.  In 2024, Arlene and her husband Paul co-authored Mental Health Meltdown: Illuminating the Voices of Bipolar and Other Mental Illnesses. www.TheMentalHealthMeltdown.com.

By Arlene Bridges Samuels

Today, among numerous women’s prayer groups, Christian Women for Israel (CW4I) are an inspiring example of standing with Israel and praying for her people. An international group of women devoted to prayer, education, advocacy, and peace for all people in Israel, the 70,000 CW4I members worldwide come from every state and from 30 countries.

Christian Women for Israel was cofounded by Peggy Kennedy and Pastor Leah Miles. Leah and Peggy’s CW4I partnership, officially set up in 2018 as a program of The Esther 414 Foundation, quickly gained importance when the menacing Islamic Regime’s threats and proxies grew more strident in 2021 by intensifying its clearly stated goals against Israel. Peggy explains the “pillars” of the foundation as support for Israel, underserved communities, women’s empowerment initiatives, and sharing Jesus’ love in demonstrated ways. 

Like everyone else around the globe, Kennedy and Miles could not have anticipated the outbreak of Hamas’s unmitigated brutality that began on October 7, 2023. When this Iranian proxy took delight in its massacres—recorded on their own body cams as evidence—the world reacted with shock and moments of compassion. That compassion lasted only a few short days before slander and misinformation saturated the airwaves.  

Nevertheless, amid the heavy blanket of Jew hatred covering Israel and all Jews, today’s global modern-day army of CW4I is pressing in with unrelenting prayer matched with action to ease the heaviness and trauma. The reincarnation of ancient Persia’s vile Haman has been active since 1979, when the Islamic Regime’s genocidal Shia Islam ayatollahs overthrew the government. The hateful campaigns of the apocalyptic imams crush their own population, which longs for freedom. Now more than ever, the world needs praying Esthers on their knees who then stand up with merciful humanitarian acts.

The book of Esther’s calling card for CW4I is well known in Mordecai’s wise admonition to the Queen: “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14)

Christian Women for Israel began in a small yet determined way after its cofounders met at the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. In 2018, information-gathering pioneers Leah Miles, her mother Elaine Anderson, and daughter Allison Cacella-Lauer traveled to Israel as a generational trio. Prior to their trip, Leah described their intensive prayer efforts. “We collected thousands of prayer requests before our trip, typed them, printed then cut them out, and rolled them up.” The trio spent hours at the Western Wall while stuffing the Wall’s ancient crevices and praying over each request.

In 2019, CW4I inaugurated its Goodwill Ambassador’s program, financing a group of 14 women led by Pastor Robbie Glover and cofounder Peggy Kennedy. The Ambassadors served as volunteers in a soup kitchen, delivering meals to shut-ins (including Holocaust survivors), assisting new Jewish citizens, and visiting with soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces to encourage these valiant men and women. The CW4I Ambassadors also spent prayer times at the Western Wall, in never-to-be-forgotten hours at one of Judaism’s holiest sites. The Western Wall stands surrounded by centuries of powerful prayers rendered by millions of worshippers.  

After the inaugural CW4I Ambassador’s trip in 2019, COVID-19 hindered plans for future volunteer trips to Israel. The horrific Hamas invasion on October 7 and ongoing war have further curtailed trips. Nonetheless, Leah Miles makes their efforts clear: “Even though we are not on the ground in Israel, what we do here is to use our voices and influence.” 

Ongoing prayers for Israel and Jewish communities worldwide continue as a hallmark of CW41. Since October 7, the organization has added a significant partnership with Vision for Israel to raise finances for a portable bomb shelter. A location for the bomb shelter will not be hard to find, as Israel is fighting a battle for survival on seven fronts: Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran. Israel has operated in all seven theaters since October 7, 2023.

Leah’s past and present association with the award-winning MorseLife Foundation’s Holocaust Now, which helps low-income survivors, also indicates her wide-ranging activism. While raising her young children, she also served as the only Christian on the Florida Holocaust Task Force. The task force’s efforts resulted in the Florida Legislature passing the Holocaust Education Bill in 1994, which required all school districts to incorporate Holocaust lessons as part of public-school instruction in grades K-12 to achieve Holocaust literacy.

Leah credits two very special older Jewish friends who delivered meals together in those early days as her encouragers for advocacy, which has lasted for decades now. She is thankful for the “seeds they planted in me.” Christian Women for Israel endures as a force to be reckoned with, in prayers asking the Commander of Angel Armies to enable Israel to have victory again—after many centuries—over modern enemies like Haman who want to destroy them.

If you are not yet involved in prayer and action, CW4I welcomes you. They describe themselves as a “band of ordinary women doing extraordinary things” and are “devoted to prayer, advocacy, and peace for all people in Israel.”

As in Esther 4:14, is God calling you for such a time as this? A time when the Biden/Harris administration has removed sanctions against Iran? Where the U.S. government adds billions to the evil regime’s coffers, taking the handcuffs off the world’s most dangerous terrorist nation? The results are open doors of death and destruction in Israel, plus covert goals against the United States and beyond. And now, bands of ordinary women have an extraordinary opportunity to stand with Israel. Learn more here.

We welcome you this week to join our CBN Israel team to pray with us, recalling God’s affection for His chosen people in Deuteronomy 7:8: “The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be His people, His treasured possession.”  

Prayer Points: 

• Pray that Esther 414 and CW4I will grow exponentially.  
• Pray for all women who care for Israel to seek ways to bless His people.
• Pray for Israel’s victory in a seven-front war against Iran’s and its terror proxies.
• Pray for the Iranians who are suffering under the regime.

Arlene Bridges Samuels pioneered Christian outreach for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). After she served nine years on AIPAC’s staff, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as Outreach Director part-time for their project, American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel and has traveled to Israel since 1990. She co-edited The Auschwitz Album Revisited and is on the board of Violins of Hope South Carolina. By invitation, Arlene attends Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summits. She also hosts her devotionals, The Eclectic Evangelical, on her website at ArleneBridgesSamuels.com.

By Arlene Bridges Samuels

When the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) hired me as its first Southeast Regional Christian Outreach Director in 2007, an exceptional privilege awaited me. AIPAC’s foresight as a historically Jewish institution to welcome Christians, Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians into pro-Israel advocacy was not only an act of unity but has turned out to be a necessity now more than ever since the October 7 massacres and kidnappings. Glancing into the rearview mirror after retiring nine years later in 2016, I remain indebted to AIPAC for being a pro-Israel advocate before and after my position as its first outreach director.

AIPAC’s leadership and training have embodied a rare coalition of diverse people with only one shared goal: strengthening the U.S./Israel relationship in Congress among both Democrats and Republicans. AIPAC is (and since 1954 has been) an American organization laser-focused on one purpose: to work with the administration and members of Congress to benefit both Israel and the United States of America.

Education, facts, and relationships have powered AIPAC’s influence taking hold more prominently from the 1990s onward. AIPAC was often described by many as a political action committee focusing on the last three letters of its acronym. It is still Public Affairs Committee.

However, in a timely decision in 2022 amid the doses of poison polluting American politics, AIPAC expanded by adding two political action committees: the AIPAC PAC and a super PAC called United Democracy Project. In this election cycle, both Republican and Democratic donors are contributing to AIPAC’s PACs for current Democratic and Republican members of Congress and candidates running for office.

About each of these candidates, AIPAC donors are interested in one simple fact: Is the legislator or candidate a demonstrated supporter of the U.S./Israel relationship? Recently two House members, outspoken against Israel’s right to defend its existential attacks supported by the Islamic Regime, have lost their primaries: Cori Bush (D-MO) and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY). A great outcome for AIPAC and pro-Israel advocates.

In my staff position with AIPAC, I informed and engaged pastors, churches, and Christian leaders in businesses, ministries, and national organizations throughout the Southeast and beyond. For nine years I communicated one foundational message to Christians: We must follow in the footsteps of famous biblical trailblazers whose stories we love. Moses was an ancient lobbyist when he approached Pharaoh to “let my people go.” Esther prayerfully took a political stance while hosting a dinner to honor King Ahasuerus. There she revealed Haman’s genocidal plot to murder her people, the Jews.

Because Moses and Queen Esther acted on God’s directions and strategies to lobby two powerful leaders, the Jewish people miraculously survive to this very day. This is politics at its finest, appealing to a leader with a life-altering request on behalf of Jews. After October 7, Christians living today find ourselves at a turning point in world history with Israel and the Jewish community as the centerpiece globally.

Given that politics and the U.S. Congress are so unpopular today, is there any sense in following ancient Moses and Esther in their dangerous times into controversy and chaos today? The horrors of October 7 provide our answer.

Whether or not you are an advocate for Israel though AIPAC or another effective organization, it is essential to understand the benefits for the United States in supporting our greatest ally, Israel. The small nation of Israel is an island of democracy and freedom in a sea of dictatorial regimes. To estimate the benefits Israel offers the U.S. is impossible. However, it is decidedly an enormous return on investment.

One of the key benefits to Americans is Israeli intelligence, which helps us with our own security and counterterrorism strategies. As drug and human trafficking cartels, violent gangs, and known terrorists flood our open southern border, Israel’s intelligence capabilities are a vital benefit.

The strong friendship between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the U.S. military produces shared technologies and techniques that benefit both nations. By pioneering innovative technologies that include cyber defense, sensors, electronic warfare systems, and battlefield medical support, Israel helps save American soldiers. Both militaries share know-how to improve equipment and tactics.

The U.S. also benefits economically, since more than 75 percent of security assistance to Israel is spent in the United States at weapons factories— which helps create thousands of excellent American jobs. Israel is a crucial location for the War Reserves Stock Allies-Israel program. The United States owns and manages weapons worth $3.4 billion—stored in Israel for U.S. military use. With the Middle East teetering on a more expansive level of war—and American military assets in the region—a stockpile is invaluable.

As our only democratic ally in the Middle East, Israel defends itself by itself and does not ask for American boots on the ground. This diminutive nation is forced to spend more on defense as a percentage of its GDP than any other nation in the industrialized world. Nonetheless they are indeed grateful for the U.S. Congress, Christian supporters, and our military presence in the air and on their ships.

One of AIPAC’s staff and volunteer activists’ most important roles annually is to interact with Congress to make sure Israel receives its annual security aid. As Israel now fights a multi-front war, security aid primarily funds Israel’s purchase of weapons needed to defend itself. For those of us who consistently pray for Israel, we can thank God that our Congress performs the vital function of keeping the Jewish people safer in their homeland.

Politics on behalf of the U.S.-Israel relationship can then become a holy act in a secular context.

For pro-Israel Christians who either disdain politics and the U.S. Congress—or who are discouraged with perceived congressional inaction—read this next paragraph closely. Jewish, Christian, Black, Hispanic, and Asian members of AIPAC are following Moses and Esther as role models. In 2024, AIPAC worked in Washington to pass the largest security funding in Israel’s history: $4 billion for the Iron Dome and David’s Sling, $4.4 billion to replenish U.S. stockpiles, $3.5 billion to acquire more weapons for its multi-front war, and $1.2 billion for Iron Beam, Israel’s emerging laser system that will intercept rockets and drones at a fraction of the cost. Click here for more details.

AIPAC and its activists have educated Congress with many facts that have produced excellent legislation. Highlights include bans on funding UNRWA and the anti-Israel UN Commission of Inquiry; the No Technology for Terror Act restricting American technology to Iran; sanctions on groups like Hamas that use humans as shields; and the Mahsa Amini Human Rights and Security Accountability Act, which holds the Islamic Regime accountable for the brutal repression of its citizens. These are but a sampling of what Congress is enacting legislatively despite the far-left members of Congress led by the terror-supporting Squad.

AIPAC has grown into an organization of more than 4 million pro-Israel Americans living in 435 congressional districts who are working to strengthen bipartisan support for the U.S.-Israel relationship.

While America is more secure when Israel is strong, history repeatedly proves that the God of Abraham, Isacc, and Jacob has preserved His chosen people for thousands of years. While God’s promises remain nevertheless, believers must position ourselves in prayer and action for our spiritual homeland, where our Jewish Jesus walked on earth and fulfilled Scriptures in the Old and New Testaments.

Our CBN Israel team welcomes you to pray with us this week from Psalm 122:6—Jerusalem, we pray that you will have peace, and that all will go well for those who love you.

Prayer Points:

• Pray for the majority of the U.S. Congress to remain committed to Israel.
• Pray that any anti-Semitism in Congress will no longer be a reality.
• Pray for AIPAC, its staff, and activists, for enduring strength.
• Pray for more Christians to follow Moses and Esther in politics.

Arlene Bridges Samuels pioneered Christian outreach for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). After she served nine years on AIPAC’s staff, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as Outreach Director part-time for their project, American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel and has traveled to Israel since 1990. She co-edited The Auschwitz Album Revisited and is on the board of Violins of Hope South Carolina. By invitation, Arlene attends Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summits. She also hosts her devotionals, The Eclectic Evangelical, on her website at ArleneBridgesSamuels.com.