House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) last Sunday said Israel’s victory in Gaza would begin by wiping Hamas “off the face of the Earth.”
In remarks before the Israeli Knesset last Sunday, Stefanik said there was “no retrievable dignity” for the Palestinian terror group and its Iranian backers.
Describing herself as a leading proponent of former President Donald Trump, Stefanik also called for a return to Trump’s Middle East policies. She argued that Trump understood that the United States must call the enemy “by its name and destroy it.”
Stefanik explained that the enemy was found “inside the gates” of the UN and within “powerful Western institutions” in the United States where “the vile virus of antisemitism” was allowed to spread.
Stefanik said that total victory would be achieved not just through physical defense but also ideological defense. She dismissed the ongoing campus protests in the United States, saying the college students were “cosplaying Hamas.”
Stefanik also blasted President Joe Biden for withholding military aid to Israel, saying his administration had no excuse to prevent the shipment of weapons.
The Biden administration announced earlier this month that it was putting a hold on offensive weapons shipments to Israel to prevent US bombs from being used on civilian centers in Gaza over its opposition to Israel’s operation in the southern city of Rafah.
Stefanik assured the Knesset that she and the Republicans have been clear that the President of the United States should not be permitted to block weapons shipments that had been approved by Congress.
In a statement responding to Rep. Stefanik’s remarks, White House spokesman Andrew Bates insisted that Israel had “no better friend” than President Biden.
Bates noted that Biden was the first US president to visit Israel during a time of war and claimed that the president’s support for Israel was “ironclad.”
