Far-right National Security Minister MK Itamar Ben-Gvir endorsed former US president and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in an interview with Bloomberg published on Wednesday.
“I believe that with Trump, Israel will receive the backing to act against Iran,” Ben Gvir said in the interview. “With Trump, it will be clearer that enemies must be defeated,” he said.
Ben-Gvir’s comments came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to speak in the US Congress on Wednesday, meet US President Joe Biden and probable Democratic Party nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, and meet Trump on Friday.
Ben-Gvir accused the Biden administration of “preventing Israel from winning.”
“The US 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 to Bloomberg. “That happened on Biden’s watch and fed Hamas with lots of energy,” he added.
Ben-Gvir’s comments ran against most other Israeli politicians, including Netanyahu himself, who have preferred to remain neutral in the presidential race. “A cabinet minister is supposed to maintain neutrality, but that’s impossible to do after Biden,” Ben-Gvir said in the interview.
Calling for further action against Iran and Hezbollah
The national security minister also criticized Israel’s response to the Iranian missile and drone attack in April, saying that “Israel should respond to attacks on it in a determined, pain-inflicting manner” and also called for an attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon, “The sooner the better.”
The timing of the interview’s publication joins a number of other incendiary steps that Ben-Gvir took in Netanyahu’s absence. The national security minister created a storm after conditioning his party’s support for a bill promoted by Shas MK Aryeh Deri, a key Netanyahu ally, on him becoming part of a forum that sets policy and makes decisions regarding the ongoing war.
In addition, Ben-Gvir held a conference on Wednesday in the Knesset in which he announced that contrary to the status quo that has existed for decades, Jews are permitted to pray during visits to the Temple Mount.
