Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Cruz Booed for Telling Mideast Christians That Israel Is an Ally

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) walked out of a conference on Middle East Christians after he was booed for saying Christians “have no greater ally than Israel.”

Prior to Cruz’s speech on Wednesday, the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news website, reported that the “In Defense of Christians” conference was organized by Christian Lebanese with ties to Hezbollah, the militia that has fought several wars with Israel.

The Daily Caller reported that Cruz was booed when he said “Christians have no greater ally than Israel.”

After the booing continued, despite appeals from an organizer, Cruz decided to leave. “If you will not stand with Israel and the Jews, then I will not stand with you,” he said. “Good night, and God bless.”

Cruz in his speech grouped Hezbollah and the Syrian government together with groups like the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and al Qaida.

“Sometimes we are told not to loop these groups together, that we have to understand their so-called nuances and differences,” he said. “But we shouldn’t try to parse different manifestations of evil that are on a murderous rampage through the region.”

A number of Christians in Lebanon and Syria are in loose alliance with the Syrian government and its Shi’ite Hezbollah allies in pushing back against a motley assortment of rebels that include Sunni Islamist groups that have targeted Christians.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.