Short answer: Yes. Rudy Giuliani has a long, consistent public record of pro-Israel statements and actions going back to his years as a federal prosecutor and as New York City mayor, continuing through his 2016 remarks to the World Jewish Congress and his 2024 campaign-trail appearances for Donald Trump. As of August 2026, he is alive and his support for Israel remains part of the public record.
What Rudy Giuliani has actually said and done
- 1988: As U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Giuliani began the legal effort to shut down the PLO's Palestine Information Office in New York under federal anti-terrorism law, according to the American Presidency Project at UCSB, citing a 2007 Giuliani campaign press release.
- October 1995: As NYC mayor, Giuliani had PLO leader Yasser Arafat removed from a UN 50th-anniversary concert at Lincoln Center, saying he would not invite someone "implicated in the murders of Americans." The move was criticized as undiplomatic by the Clinton administration at the time. Years later, HuffPost documented Giuliani embellishing his own account of the episode, claiming Arafat had no ticket, which contemporaneous 1995 reporting contradicts.
- 1996: Giuliani visited Israel after a wave of terror bombings, at the invitation of Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, and visited bombing survivors at Shaarei Tzedek Hospital in Jerusalem as a show of solidarity, per the American Presidency Project.
- March 13, 2016: Speaking at a World Jewish Congress dinner at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, Giuliani said, "America should be 100% behind you because you are fighting our battle on the front lines against Islamic terrorism," and, "It is almost unpatriotic not to love Israel," according to the World Jewish Congress.
- December 23, 2019: In an interview with New York Magazine, Giuliani, who is Roman Catholic of Italian descent and not Jewish, said he was "more of a Jew" than George Soros, a Holocaust survivor, while making unsubstantiated claims that Soros had "controlled" a U.S. ambassador. The remark was widely condemned, including by the Open Society Foundations, as playing on antisemitic tropes rather than expressing support for Israel or Jews, reported the Washington Post and CNN.
- October 27, 2024: Speaking in support of Donald Trump at a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, Giuliani said, without evidence, "The Palestinians are taught to kill us at two years old." Giuliani framed the remark as part of the case for Israel against Hamas, but it was condemned by human-rights and medical advocacy groups as anti-Palestinian incitement, according to Salon and ABC News.
The fuller picture
Rudy Giuliani, born in 1944, is Roman Catholic of Italian descent, not Jewish. He has no personal Jewish heritage, despite the 2019 "more of a Jew than Soros" remark, which was widely read as an antisemitism-adjacent talking point rather than a genuine claim about his identity. His support for Israel is long-standing and predates his political fame: it runs from his 1988 anti-PLO prosecutorial work through his NYC mayoralty from 1994 to 2001, his 1996 solidarity visit to Israel, his high-profile ejection of Yasser Arafat from the 1995 UN event, his 2007 presidential campaign, during which he opposed pressure on Israel during peace talks and called Iran's president an "enemy of Israel," and his 2016 remarks to the World Jewish Congress in Jerusalem.
No record was found of Giuliani participating in, or being asked to refuse, any boycott of Israel or Israeli goods. His most recent Israel-related public comments, made while campaigning for Trump in October 2024, framed support for Israel through sweeping and inflammatory claims about Palestinians rather than the more diplomatic language he used earlier in his career, and drew criticism from advocacy groups. Since late 2024, Giuliani's public profile has been dominated by disbarment proceedings, defamation judgments, and a serious pneumonia hospitalization in May 2026, not by new Israel-related statements or events. No fresh public comments on Israel were found for 2025 or 2026.
The bottom line
Rudy Giuliani has a decades-long, well-documented record of pro-Israel words and actions, from his time as a federal prosecutor and NYC mayor through his 2016 World Jewish Congress remarks and his 2024 campaign-trail comments for Trump. He is not Jewish. His most recent Israel-related public remarks, from 2024, leaned toward inflammatory anti-Palestinian rhetoric rather than measured policy statements, and no boycott-related activity involving Israel was found in the record.
Wear where you stand
Whatever you make of any one public figure's record, plenty of people simply want a clear, everyday way to say they stand with Israel. The I Stand With Israel bracelet is a simple, wearable way to do exactly that, and it sits alongside the rest of our I Stand With Israel collection if you're looking for more ways to show support.
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Last updated August 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
