In an interview with Israel Hayom reporters at Mar-a-Lago, Trump praised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response to the terror attacks that took place last October.
“I would say I would act very much the same way as you did,” he said. “You would have to be crazy not to. Only a fool would not do that. That was a horrible attack.”
He added that “what I saw on October 7 was one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen,” but says Israel should draw the fighting to a close.
“You have to finish up your war. To finish it up. You gotta get it done. And I am sure you will do that. And we gotta get to peace; we can’t have this going on…and I will say, Israel has to be very careful because you’re losing a lot of the world, you’re losing a lot of support, you have to finish up, you have to get the job done…and you have to get on to peace, to get on to a normal life for Israel and for everybody else.”
The former president seems to blame the images of Israeli bombings of Gaza.
“Well, that’s because you fought back,” he said. “And I think Israel made a very big mistake. I wanted to call [Israel] and say don’t do it. These photos and shots. I mean, moving shots of bombs being dropped into buildings in Gaza. And I said, Oh, that’s a terrible portrait. It’s a very bad picture for the world. The world is seeing this … every night, I would watch buildings pour down on people.”
The interviewer emphasized that Hamas fighters were in the buildings.
Mr. Trump said, “Go and do what you have to do., But you don’t do that.”
“And I think that’s one of the reasons that there has been a lot of kickback,” he added. “If people didn’t see that, every single night I’ve watched every single one of those. And I think Israel wanted to show that it’s tough, but sometimes you shouldn’t be doing that.”
The interviewer said, “Senator Chuck Schumer, just two weeks ago, called on Israelis to go to the polls and change the government. And on top of that, we see, I would say daily interference by the administration. What do you think about what Schumer said about Biden’s support, or lack thereof, for Israel?”
“I think it’s a terrible thing to do,” Mr. Trump said, “because it takes all of your momentum away, because they watch, and they watch the government, they watch the people what’s going on. And it shows great division in the United States, you have to have support.
“And you don’t have the support you used to have. Some 15 years ago, Israel had the strongest lobby. If you were a politician, you couldn’t say anything bad about Israel; that would be like the end of your political career. Today, it’s almost the opposite.
“I’ve never seen you have AOC [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] plus three, these lunatics, frankly [Reps. Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib]. But you have AOC plus three plus plenty of others. And all they do is talk badly about Israel, and they hate Israel, and they hate the Jewish people. And they are open about it.
“Take a look at some of these, Rashida Tlaib, what she says, the way she talks, and they truly hate the Jewish people. And 15 years ago, that would have been unthinkable to be doing that. So Israel has to get, Israel has to get better with the promotional and with the public relations because right now they’re in ruin. They’re being hurt very badly. I think in a public relations sense.”
Mr. Trump blamed Joe Biden for the war because he’s stupid and weak.
“He can’t talk. He can’t put two sentences together. He’s a very dumb person. He’s a dumb person. His foreign policy throughout 50 years has been horrible,” Mr Trump said during the interview at Mar-a-Lago. “If you look at people that were in other administrations with him, they saw him as a weak, ineffective president; they [Hamas] would have never done that attack if I were there.”
Subscribe to the Daily Newsletter
wpDiscuz
