Businessman and former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain has died at age 74 as a result of the coronavirus, his website posted on Thursday.
While it wasn’t certain how he contracted COVID-19, he did attend U.S. President Donald Trump’s GOP rally in Tulsa, Okla., on June 20, with a crowd of thousands.
Cain, who ran in the 2012 presidential election, was an outspoken supporter of Israel.
On Fox News the day before announcing his candidacy in May 2011, Cain blasted U.S. President Barack Obama’s view that the Jewish state should return to its pre-1967 borders.
Cain stated that if elected, his stance on Israel would be, “You mess with Israel; you are messing with the United States of America. It’s that simple. I want to protect that relationship because they have been our only consistent ally in that part of the world.”
In another interview that month by Chris Wallace on Fox News, when asked about the Palestinian “right of return,” Cain replied, “That’s something that should be negotiated.”
When Wallace clarified that the idea meant that “the Palestinian refugees, the people who were kicked out of the land in 1948, should be able or should have any right to return to Israeli land,” Cain said, “Yes. But under—but not under Palestinian conditions. Yes. They should have a right to come back if that is a decision that Israel wants to make” and that “it’s up to Israel to determine the things they will accept.”
Cain later admitted that hadn’t been familiar with the issue. In August, he went on a four-day visit to the Jewish state, where he met with Israeli politicians and toured sites such as the Western Wall and Yad Vashem.
At a news conference at King David Hotel before leaving, he said, “I think the Israeli people is more interested in peace than the Palestinians. Look at history and the fact that you’re getting bombed on the southern border. It is clear to me that Israel is more interested in peace than those seeking to deny the peace process.”
“Herman Cain was a leader in business and politics,” RJC spokesperson Neil Strauss told JNS. “He was a credit to our country and our party.”
Cain is survived by his wife, Gloria, and their two children.
