National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was blacklisted by Biden administration, meets Republican leaders at US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
By David Rosenberg, World Israel News
A senior Israeli government minister, who was blacklisted by the Biden administration, visited US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida on Tuesday, during his first visit to the United States as a representative of the Netanyahu government.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir toured the Miami area on Tuesday, visiting Israeli business owners and a local prison, before attending an event held by Republican lawmakers and businesspeople at Mar-a-Lago.
“During the event, Minister Ben-Gvir was invited to speak before members of Congress and Republican senators, and he was received warmly and held extended conversations with them,” a spokesperson for the minister said on Wednesday morning.
Addressing the attendees in Hebrew, Ben-Gvir said, “I love you very much, I love the American people. We have a shared war against jihad.”
“I have spent many years fighting against them,” Ben-Gvir continued, listing his policy as minister of imposing tougher conditions on jailed terrorists.
“It used to be like a hotel over there. We took away their privileges.”
Ben-Gvir met with US House of Representatives Majority Whip Tom Emmer (MN-R), telling the senior Republican lawmaker that “Hamas’s food warehouses need to be bombed.”
“Emmer responded to the minister that he is following his work and supports his actions,” Ben-Gvir’s office said.
After the dinner, Ben-Gvir tweeted that attendees backed his calls for tougher steps in Gaza to pressure Hamas to release the remaining 59 hostages.
“I had the honor and privilege of meeting with senior members of the Republican Party at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. They expressed support for my very clear position on how action should be taken in Gaza — that the food and aid warehouses must be bombed in order to create military and political pressure to bring our hostages home safely.”
The Biden administration had blacklisted both Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who ran on a joint list with Ben-Gvir in 2022, and mulled imposing travel bans on the two.
Ben-Gvir visited an Israeli-owned gun shop in the Miami area, along with a kosher supermarket and the Everglades Correctional Institute, where he met with several Jewish inmates and observed rehabilitation programs.
The minister is slated to visit Yale University on Wednesday, and New York City on Thursday.
Far-left Israeli expatriate activists living in the US, including members of the UnXeptable group have announced plans to demonstrate against Ben-Gvir’s visit.