Cruz: World faces choice similar to what it faced pre-WWII

by Ben Kamisar and Jonathan Swan - 12/03/15 10:36 AM ET

Presidential candidate Ted Cruz warned the audience at a prominent Republican Jewish conference that the world faces a choice similar to what it faced ahead of World War II.

“We are facing a moment like Munich in 1938, and President Obama, like Chamberlain, has come back from Tehran promising peace in our time,” Cruz told the Republican Jewish Conference (RJC), comparing the recent Iran nuclear deal to an international accord championed by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain that failed to stave off German aggression and ultimately led to war and the Holocaust.

{mosads}”History has not been kind to those who have facilitated the gathering storm of homicidal maniacs who tell us they want to kill us,” the Texas senator added.

The RJC’s board includes major GOP donors including Sheldon Adelson and Paul Singer. All 14 major GOP candidates are slated to speak at the event.

Cruz spoke largely off the cuff as tossed red meat to the conservative Jewish crowd, his only notes contained on a sliver of paper hardly larger than a passport.

To get the crowd booing, all Cruz needed to do was mention Secretary of State John Kerry’s name; Cruz has called on him to resign on multiple occasions for making controversial statements on Israel.

Members of the audience could be heard saying “oh” and “shame” when Cruz mentioned Kerry’s warning that Israel risked becoming an apartheid state.

“I’ll tell you, when John Kerry was nominated, only three senators voted against his nomination,” Cruz said to cheers. “Never have I been prouder to be in that gang of three.”

Cruz got perhaps his biggest cheer — which turned into a standing ovation — when he said that as president he would move the Israeli Embassy to Jerusalem. Congress and the White House have sparred for decades about the embassy’s location, but presidents of both parties have kept the embassy in Tel Aviv because America officially recognizes Jerusalem as an international city.

Immediately after, Cruz got more standing applause saying that a Cruz administration would cut federal funding from any university that supports the “boycott, divestment and sanctions” movement against Israel.

And he repeatedly railed against the Obama administration’s support of the deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program and called the president “nutty” for saying that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is not Islamic.

A devout Protestant, Cruz has long been cheered in conservative Jewish circles. He regularly touts his support for Israel on the trail, has been an outspoken critic of the Obama administration’s relationship with the country and is the only presidential candidate still in the race to have spoken at the RJC’s spring meeting at Adelson’s Venetian hotel in Las Vegas.

Tags John Kerry Ted Cruz