Former President Donald Trump criticized Israel’s decision to visually publicize its ongoing war in the Gaza Strip in an interview on Sunday, March 24.
“It’s a very bad picture for the world. The world is seeing this … every night, I would watch buildings pour down on people. It would say it was given by the Defense Ministry, and said whoever’s providing that, that’s a bad image.”
His interviewers said that Hamas terrorists were in those buildings, and President Trump said, “Go and do what you have to do,” but advised not showing it, arguing that the broadcasting is one of the reasons why there’s been “a lot of kickback.”
“I think Israel wanted to show that it’s tough, but sometimes you shouldn’t be doing that,” he said.
He also warned the Israeli journalists that their country needed “to finish up your war.”
“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,” he said. “And you have to get on to peace, to get on to a normal life for Israel and for everybody else.”
But the former President voiced overall support for Israel’s campaign.
Trump Blames Biden for Oct. 7
Former President Trump also blamed President Joe Biden for the attack last fall, calling his successor “a very dumb person” and saying that Hamas has no respect for him.“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,” he said.
Along with commanding respect, President Trump said Israel would have never have been attacked if he were still president of the United States because when he did occupy the Oval Office, “Iran was broke,” and he made sure China and 47 other nations couldn’t buy oil from Iran by threatening to tariff every single product and cease doing business with them.
“They had no money for Hamas,” he said. “They had no money for Hezbollah. They had no money for anybody. And now they’re sitting with $221 billion in cash, and they control Iraq, which has $300 billion in cash.”
He also criticized other American politicians like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) (D-N.Y.) for speaking out against Israel and calling for its people to vote out the current government. He noted that Israel used to have “the strongest lobby” in Washington, D.C., and now, it’s the complete opposite.
“You have AOC plus three plus plenty of others,” he said. “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.”
In contrast, President Trump touted his record on Israel, saying he was “the best president in history by a factor of 10 to Israel.”
Previous actions he specifically mentioned included bringing the Abraham Accords to fruition, recognizing the Golan Heights as Israel’s territory, and moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.
He also said that when Iran wanted to make a deal with him, he said that 90 percent of the deal would have been that the country did not get a nuclear weapon.
“Iran is 35 days away from having a nuclear weapon because of the incompetence of Biden; he is an incompetent president,” he added. “He’s the worst president our country’s ever had. And it’s so sad when I see what’s happening in Israel and Ukraine and other places.”
While President Trump said he did not think it was appropriate for him to tell Israel what to do, he said that Israel cannot allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon.
