Many in Arizona’s Jewish community are worried about Trump’s ties to Putin and Putin’s continued support for Hamas, the terrorist organization responsible for the attack on Israel.

According to a report from The Hill, “The evidence for Russian involvement in this atrocity is circumstantial but present. Putin benefited from leveraging Hamas to incite terror and generate an Israeli response to distract the U.S. government from supporting Ukraine, and he used Iran to achieve his end.

Russia’s relationship with Iran — a principal supporter of Hamas — suggests a more nefarious relationship.

Hamas leaders traveled to Moscow in March 2023, where according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, their meeting “touched on Russia’s unchanged position in support of a just solution to the Palestinian problem.” 

More recently, Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh was in Moscow on Sept. 10. At the time, Hillel Frisch, a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, thought the purpose of the meeting was “to signal [Moscow’s] displeasure with Israel, perhaps in relation to Ukraine.” 

Arizona’s Jewish community concerned with Trump’s continued admiration for Putin—and MAGA’s on the record antisemitism

Enter Putin and his ongoing support for Hamas. 

Reportedly, there was only one real winner when war broke out in Israel — Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Putin’s enabling of his “Arsenals of Evil” ally, Iran, resulted in the opening of a new front in Gaza and Putin’s war against the West.  

Trump and his longtime friendship and adoration of Putin ought to make any American shudder.

The Associated Press and the White House has reported that Russia is executing soldiers who have failed to follow orders and threatening entire units with death if they retreat from Ukrainian artillery fire.

It’s a development that U.S. national security officials believe reflects Russia’s morale problems 20 months into its grinding invasion of Ukraine, said White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. 

“It’s reprehensible to think about that you would execute your own soldiers because they didn’t want to follow orders and now threatening to execute entire units, it’s barbaric,” Kirby told reporters. “But I think it’s a symptom of how poorly Russia’s military leaders know they’re doing and how bad they have handled this from a military perspective.”

Trump’s longtime admiration of Putin is steeped in. And Trump himself has called for public executions…rhetoric in line with ruthless dictators like Putin, and no, he wasn’t kidding. 

According to a person familiar with the matter, late last year, Trump “privately mused” about “creating a flashy, government-backed video-ad campaign that would accompany a federal revival of these execution methods.” The videos would reportedly include “footage from these new executions, if not from the exact moments of death.”

Trump, if elected, is reportedly committed to expanding the use of the federal death penalty and bringing back banned methods of execution, sources say. Specifically, Trump has talked about bringing back death by firing squad, by hanging, and, according to two of the sources possibly even by guillotine. 

These forms of execution (and carried out without any kind of resemblance of a fair trial) are methods implemented by Russian President Vladimir Putin and other murderous dictators. 

Trump has often reportedly lauded those leaders who use an “eye for an eye” delivery of the ultimate punishment. 

And if you are Trump’s enemy. Beware. He thrives on talking revenge and his MAGA base cannot get enough of the bloodletting language. 

According to a Washington Post report, Democratic Representative, Jake Auchincloss, who sits on the U.S. House Select Committee on China recently said that both Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping are both hoping that former President Donald Trump will be in the White House in 2024.

“Let me be crystal clear here: Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are salivating at the prospect of President Trump re-entering the White House in 2025,” Auchincloss said at Semafor’s World Economy Summit on Wednesday. 

“January 6, 2021, was Xi Jinping’s best day in office because when the United States degrades its own democracy on the world stage for people all over to witness, it undermines the power of our example,” Auchincloss said.

Republicans have moved closer and closer to publicly and unapologetically cozying up to authoritarian governments, perhaps more than ever before in U.S. history. 

A frequent contributor for Northeast Valley News and a prominent Jewish American who has owned a popular business in the Valley for several decades is deeply concerned with the direction of his country.

“My American Jewish brothers and sisters are being manipulated by MAGA—these deceivers are steeped in antisemitism but say they support Israel.”

“I know of many in my community who are alarmed and getting more anxious after Donald Trump’s antisemitic words of Hitler and this disgusting language is growing more intense.”

The Nazi and white supremacy ideologies are chillingly gaining momentum in the U.S.

Today we are seeing and hearing chants and public displays of a return to that kind of thinking and the antisemitic rhetoric is ripe among GOP MAGA candidates that were mostly defeated in the mid-terms but they are making a slow but steady comeback as the nation nears 2024. 

The 64-year-old business owner told Northeast Valley News that he is deeply troubled by growing antisemitism—but worse, the apparent acceptance of it on the part of many GOP political candidates and even some elected officials.  It’s difficult to know how to respond to someone so legitimately frightened by the kind of antisemitic rhetoric and communication associated with many in the MAGA GOP and certainly Trump’s own words alongside his alliance to Putin. 

This longtime member of Arizona’s Jewish community chose to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation and threats but told Northeast Valley News that he is concerned with the rampant and growing language of antisemitism. 

During the midterm elections—the speeches of antisemitism, endorsements of holocaust deniers and other Nazi proponents on the part of many MAGA candidates was chilling and the longstanding Jewish business owner sees this kind of rhetoric growing stronger and louder amid the pro-Palestinian protests.

Kari Lake, the former GOP candidate for governor and now U.S. Senate candidate, and Mark Finchem, the former Republican nominee for Secretary of State, both endorsed Jarrin Jackson a widely reported, loud and venomous antisemitic—the endorsement was shocking—and yet, both candidates continue to drop specific language and use names that are recognized among far right platforms as a dialect of antisemitic meaning and a “white replacement” manifesto.

But many in the Jewish community recognize this “code” language for exactly what it is—antisemitism.

Arizona Secretary of State nominee, Mark Finchem’s recent tweet reads:

“Democratic politicians on the ballot in Arizona are liars and deceivers. They want total control     over you and our state. Their loyalty is to George Soros and Mike Bloomberg. They want Arizona to be like California. Do not be deceived.”

Reportedly, and in response to the Finchem tweet, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Phoenix tweeted,“@RealMarkFinchem: your reliance on #antisemitic tropes to spearhead your campaign is an embarrassment to the majority of #Arizona residents.”

Lake has reportedly been called out for doing the same.

The Arizona Republic wrote, “Lake, like her kooky conspiracy cohort, Mark Finchem, the Republican candidate for Arizona secretary of state is constantly bringing up the name of George Soros, which she knows is a Jew-hating dog whistle for the antisemitic base of the Trump-controlled GOP.”

According to The Daily Beast, GOP Secretary of State candidate, Mark Finchem “had his fundraiser co-hosted by a self-identified “truther” who adheres to the QAnon conspiracy theory and has spent years propagating baseless lies like the Sandy Hook shooting being a “false flag” and Sept. 11 being an “inside job.”

Blake Masters, the former U.S. Senate candidate reportedly tried to lie about being endorsed by a widely reported antisemitic—namely, Gab CEO, Andrew Torba—the endorsement of Masters by Torba went even further when Torba said he’d vote for Masters over Trump.

Torba is the founder of the far-right social network, and openly antisemitic. He recently made headlines by insisting that Christians are “done being controlled” in “our own country” by the 2 percent minority—by which he meant Jewish people—adding, “We’re not bending the knee to the 2 percent anymore.”

Master’s reportedly lied about his non-association with Torba in an early campaign denial in which he rejected Torba as a “a nobody”—  but in a leaked audio, obtained by Jewish Insider— Masters is clearly associated with the far-right social media entrepreneur, whose platform entertains such extremist views and antisemitic rhetoric that it has been removed from both Twitter and Facebook.

Abe Hamadeh the former GOP pick for Attorney General has also, through his own rhetoric, sown the seeds of antisemitism.

In an online forum, Hamadeh once wrote, “If you think Jews aren’t big in America (2%) how come 56% of them are CEOS…Jews are influential and for the most part rich. It’s good we’re targeting Arabs now, next, we will target Jews,”

Even though the midterm MAGA candidates have each denied being antisemitic, Lake, Finchem and others repeatedly dropped the name George Soros and even Mike Bloomberg in campaign speeches and communications—both men are Jewish—and both, according certain recognizable antisemitic rhetoric antisemitic “code” are responsible for America’s ills.

Data published by the American Jewish Committee reports that one out of every four Jews in the U.S. has been the subject of antisemitism over the past year.