A key Netanyahu coalition partner says Trump is best for Israel

Galit Altstein | (TNS) Bloomberg News

Israeli far-right cabinet member Itamar Ben Gvir took the unusual step of endorsing Donald Trump as the next U.S. president, saying a return of the ex-leader would bolster the chances of victory against Iran’s allied militant groups and the Islamic Republic itself.

“I believe that with Trump, Israel will receive the backing to act against Iran,” the minister for national security told Bloomberg in an interview. “With Trump it will be clearer that enemies must be defeated.”

The head of Jewish Power — a nationalist party that’s key to the survival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition — Ben Gvir has been an outspoken critic of cease-fire talks that could stop the fighting in Gaza, at least temporarily, and see some of the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas freed in return for the release of Palestinian prisoners.

His opposition to a truce has the ability to undermine internationally mediated attempts to reach a deal, which the U.S. has pushed for months. That said, he opposed a cease-fire agreement in late November — the only one to date — but did not go as far as quitting government.

Ben Gvir’s comments underscore how the Israel-Hamas war has strained relations with the U.S. and come ahead of Netanyahu’s address to the U.S. Congress in Washington on Wednesday. The prime minister, on his first trip abroad since the war against Hamas started in October, is scheduled to meet U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday, before traveling to Florida to see Trump on Friday.

Netanyahu himself has remained neutral and said it’s essential for Israel to work with whatever government runs its most important ally.

Trump will likely face off against Harris in November’s presidential election. The decision by Biden not to run is no great loss to Israel, Ben Gvir, 48, said in his Jerusalem office. The U.S. leader has failed to support the country fully in its campaign against Hamas, the minister said, citing delayed supplies of weapons.

“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.”

While Biden and his top officials repeatedly urged Israel to do more to protect civilians in Gaza and engage in truce negotiations, the president visited Israel after the Hamas invasion on Oct. 7 that triggered the war. His administration has supplied Israel with hundreds of ammunition shipments and a $14 billion military aid package.

More than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war started, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, much of which has been reduced to rubble. Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European Union, killed about 1,200 people on Oct. 7 and took about 250 hostage.

A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority said Wednesday that the U.S. should use Netanyahu’s vist as an opportunity to urge him to stop the conflict.

Ben Gvir appreciates endorsing Trump may go down badly with other Israeli officials.

“A cabinet minister is supposed to maintain neutrality, but that’s impossible to do after Biden,” he said.

Iran fire

Israel’s brief exchange of direct fire with Iran in April, following an attack on Tehran’s diplomatic buildings in Syria, has been a source of frustration for Ben Gvir and other far-right cabinet members such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who see it as a missed opportunity to assert military dominance.

“Israel should respond to attacks on it in a determined, pain-inflicting manner,” the minister said, bemoaning Netanyahu’s muted reaction to Iran’s unprecedented attack with missiles and drones, almost all of which were intercepted with the help of the U.S., U.K., France and Jordan. At the time, Ben Gvir described Israel’s counter strike on a military site near the city of Isfahan as “weak.”

Trump maintains a hard line against Iran and has said the Islamic Republic wouldn’t have attacked Israel had he been in office. During his term as president that began in 2017, he walked away from a deal between Iran and world powers over its nuclear-development program, which hasn’t been reinstated under Biden.

Trump has also said Israel must end the war in Gaza and laid the blame for the Oct. 7 attack on Netanyahu.

Ben Gvir didn’t address Harris’ policies directly but implied they would be a continuation of Biden’s. The U.S. attitude toward Israel needs to change, he said, suggesting that will only happen with Trump.

The minister warned he would quit Netanyahu’s government — potentially collapsing the whole coalition — if a cease-fire deal is reached that he can’t support.

That would include one that prevents Israel from being able to resume fighting against Hamas and leads to a mass release of Palestinian prisoners involved in lethal attacks on Israelis.

Ben Gvir’s preference would be to escalate pressure against Hamas — both with military force and by depriving Gaza of humanitarian aid. He’s also in favor of a full-blown war with Hezbollah, a Lebanese-based militant group supported by Iran.

“The sooner, the better,” he says of Hezbollah.

Such talk unnerves many in Israel and the country’s allies. Hezbollah is the most powerful militant group in the Middle East, with far more missiles and fighters than Hamas.

Yet he says Israelis back him. Jewish Power is the only party in Israel’s coalition government that’s gaining support in the polls.

“Many Israelis realize that I was right all along,” he said. “Their sympathy doesn’t come from nowhere.”

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(With assistance from Julius Domoney.)

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