Israeli Far-right Minister Ben-Gvir Endorses Trump, Says Biden Bowing Out 'No Big Loss' - Israel News - Haaretz.com
Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir weighed in on the U.S. presidential race, making his preference for Republican nominee Donald Trump clear in an interview with American media outlet Bloomberg News.
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"I believe that with Trump, Israel will receive the backing to act against Iran," Ben-Gvir said in an interview published on Wednesday. "With Trump it will be clearer that enemies must be defeated."
"A cabinet minister is supposed to maintain neutrality," the Otzma Yehudit leader conceded, "but that's impossible to do after Biden." With respect to President Joe Biden's announcement last week that he was withdrawing from the 2024 presidential race, Ben-Gvir called it "no big loss," saying that Biden's withholding of weapons shipments to Israel proves he does not fully support the country's campaign against Hamas.
"The U.S. has always stood behind Israel in terms of armaments and weapons, yet this time the sense was that we were being reckoned with — that we were trying to be prevented from winning," Ben-Gvir said. "That happened on Biden's watch and fed Hamas with lots of energy."
Ben-Gvir has been a vocal critic of Biden since Hamas' attacks on October 7, regularly accusing him of aiding the terrorist group by withholding aid to Israel, despite his administration having supplied Israel with hundreds of ammunition shipments and a $14 billion military aid package since the war began.
In May, Ben-Gvir made international headlines and drew widespread condemnation when he tweeted "Hamas <3 Biden," in reaction to the president's comments to CNN that he would freeze arms transfers to Israel should the military advance into Rafah.
During his interview, he weighed in on Iran, in particular Netanyahu's "weak," response to the hundreds of drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles Iran launched at Israel in April, its first ever direct attack on the country. "Israel should respond to attacks on it in a determined, pain-inflicting manner," Ben-Gvir asserted.
He also said he is in favor of a full-blown war with Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based militant group backed by Iran that has been exchanging strikes with Israel since the war in Gaza began, leaving Israel's northern border communities all but deserted for nearly ten months and dozens of civilians and soldiers injured or killed.
"The sooner, the better," Ben-Gvir said of Hezbollah.
Just as Ben-Gvir's comments to the American media were going public, he was simultaneously creating a media firestorm back in Israel. On Wednesday morning, Jerusalem time, the minister spoke at a conference in the Knesset called "Israel's Return to the Temple Mount," vowing to change the status quo that prohibits Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount/Al Aqsa compound in Jerusalem's old city.
"They always tell me 'political leadership' is against it. I am the political leadership. And the political leadership allows Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount," he claimed. His statements drew immediate criticism from lawmakers from within the coalition and from the opposition, with some calling for Netanyahu to fire the minister immediately.