Dave McCormick tapped to chair key Middle East subcommittee
PoliticsPennsylvania senator is supporter of Israel

Dave McCormick tapped to chair key Middle East subcommittee

"I see this as a great opportunity to strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance, expand the Abraham Accords, grow U.S.-India cooperation, and delve deeply into regional energy, economic, and security issues."

David McCormick (pointing) and wife Dina Powell McCormick visit Kfar Azza, one of the sites of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, in early January 2024. (Courtesy photo via JNS)
David McCormick (pointing) and wife Dina Powell McCormick visit Kfar Azza, one of the sites of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, in early January 2024. (Courtesy photo via JNS)

Pennsylvania’s freshman Sen. Dave McCormick has been chosen to chair the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism. McCormick, who unseated longtime Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey Jr. in the November election, ran on a pro-Israel, anti-terror platform.

“I am honored to chair a subcommittee on such critical issues,” McCormick said. “I see this as a great opportunity to strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance, expand the Abraham Accords, grow U.S.-India cooperation, and delve deeply into regional energy, economic, and security issues. I look forward to working with President Trump and my colleagues to deter the Islamic Republic of Iran, stamp down the terror threat, and realize his vision for a more peaceful Middle East. I am hopeful my background and perspective will allow me to lead this subcommittee in a manner that is good for Pennsylvania and the country.”

At a town hall-style event hosted by the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh in October, McCormick told local community members that he and his wife visited Israel in January 2024, just three months after Hamas’ deadly invasion of the Jewish state. While there, they met with survivors of the Hamas terror attack, families of hostages, members of the Israel Defense Forces and Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

“You can’t come away from that without thinking this is Israel’s existential moment, where its very existence is being called into question,” McCormick said. “And since Oct. 7, that’s only heightened with the threat, not only from Hamas, but from Hezbollah and from Iran.

“And so the first reflection is, we have to stand with Israel in defending its very existence,” he continued. “But the second reaction is, when the flare went up, we also saw another fight at home. … We saw that many of our enemies are here at home, either through the explicit antisemitism they’re demonstrating, or even worse, the culpability of weakness, the lack of moral courage, the inability from positions of power to stand up against the fight here at home.”

What happened on Oct. 7, he said, “is a test for all of us.” PJC

Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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