Republican Donald Trump irks Jewish donors, draws fire from 2016 rivals, with

“Just relax. You’ll like me very much, believe me”.

“Is there anyone in this room who doesn’t negotiate deals?” he continued later. “Good luck with that'”.

“Not the speech you thought you were gonna hear, right?” Graham asked the audience. “My friend Marty Davis from Paramount gave me a copy of Mein Kampf, and he’s a Jew”.

On the issue of the civil war in Syria, Cruz and Rubio took different approaches to whether Syrian President Bashar Assad should be removed from power. But he was rewarded with applause from potential donors.

In contrast, South Carolina Sen.

It is totally freaky that he would say something so offensive to Jewish voters. “If I could do that, it would make me so happy”, the Republican front-runner said. Ted Cruz, held another one at the opening of his speech. “The only Republicans who have ever won have run on all three legs of the conservative stool: They have run as fiscal conservatives, social conservatives and national security conservatives”.

The eyebrow raising comments kept coming, such as when Trump told the room that he’s a negotiator, “like you folks”.

Mr. Carson, who has been trying to reverse perceptions that he does not have substantive knowledge about foreign policy, repeatedly mispronounced the name of the militant Palestinian group Hamas as he rushed through a prepared script before the Republican Jewish Coalition.

The Little Sisters of the Poor, the group of nuns Cruz was referring to, are actually not being required to pay for contraception – or “abortion-inducing drugs”, for that matter.

There was one issue that all candidates had to weigh in on – and if they didn’t put it in their speech, they were asked about it in Q&A: Jerusalem.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was forced to apologize to Adelson personally previous year after using the term “occupied territories” while describing a trip to Israel.

“The Adelsons are generally pleased with all of the Republican candidates and feel that the primary process will work its way out”, he said. “But he didn’t answer the question”. Otherwise “we lose courage, and our adversaries move forward”.

Furthermore, he displayed stunning ignorance of what is going on in Israel. And he got the crowd especially exercised when he attacked Secretary of State John Kerry for his suggestion that Israel risked becoming an “apartheid” state. That agreement lifts some sanctions on Iran – whose leaders have threatened to destroy Israel – in exchange for the reining in of its nuclear program. “He didn’t advance his goal of showing any foreign policy….”

“We certainly have learned some facts that are concerning and weigh on our minds”, Marco Rubio said early in his speech before the Republican Jewish Coalition presidential forum.

Trump in that interview suggested the burden of peace rested largely on the shoulders of the Jewish state, saying a peace deal “will have to do with Israel and whether or not Israel wants to make the deal – whether or not Israel’s willing to sacrifice certain things”. “And the reason, I know why you’re not going to support me, and you’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money”.

One is how freely he insults, denigrates, and offends a variety of groups-to the extent that Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank flat-out calls him a bigot and a racist and criticizes other Republican candidates for being hesitant to call out Trump in the same way. Adelson is rumored to be leaning toward backing Rubio, but his equally influential wife, Miriam Adelson, may favor Cruz.

Like all of the Republican candidates, Mr. Rubio is a fierce defender of Israel. “If the nominee of the Republican party will not allow for an exception for rape and incest, they will not win”, he said.