Former President Donald Trump’s veracity and knowledge of Middle East geography are under new scrutiny after he claimed to have been to Gaza, a war-torn country There is no evidence that he has ever visited the Palestinian territories.
The Republican candidate for November’s presidential election told right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt that a violent Israeli military insurrection had killed more than 41,000 people and left most buildings badly damaged or destroyed in a small coastal strip. Trump raised eyebrows after saying that he had been there. The attack is in response to the attack by Hamas on October 7 last year. Approximately 1,200 Israelis were killed in the Hamas attack, and about 250 were taken hostage.
Asked by Mr. Hewitt if Gaza would be reborn as Monaco if properly rebuilt, Mr. Trump replied:
“It could be better than Monaco. It has the best location, the best water, the best of everything in the Middle East. It’s the best, I’ve been saying for years.
“I’ve been there and it’s tough. This is a tough place…before all the attacks and before all the back and forth that’s happened over the past few years.”
He continued: “So they had the back side of their plants facing the ocean. As far as that was concerned, there was no ocean. They never took advantage of it. If you’re a developer, you’re looking at weather, water, everything. , you know the climate could be the most beautiful. It could be the best in the Middle East.
Hewitt visited the region even before the war and disputed President Trump’s claims that infrastructure had been severely damaged due to repeated clashes between Israel and the extremist group Hamas, which has ruled the region for many years. did not chant.
But the New York Times said there is no record of Trump ever visiting there while he was president or before.
The paper quoted campaign officials as saying: “Gaza is in Israel. President Trump has visited Israel.”
Indeed, some far-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current coalition have called for the annexation of Gaza, which has not previously been part of Israel.
The territory was home to several thousand Jewish settlers until 2005, when then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon evacuated them under a disarmament plan.
Asked by Axios for further explanation, Trump campaign spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt said in an emailed statement that the former president had “visited Gaza before,” but it was unclear when. I didn’t.
Trump visited Israel as president in 2017, visiting Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Gaza and the West Bank are separate territories, approximately 40 miles apart at their closest points. To access each other, you must go through Israel.
President Trump’s comments on Gaza’s potential were criticized for describing waterfront property in the Gaza Strip as “very valuable” and suggesting Israel remove civilians, his son-in-law said. This is echoed by Jared Kushner, a former adviser and special envoy to the Middle East during his tenure as president. While cleaning.
President Trump has made support for Israel a central pillar of his campaign, but has also drawn accusations of anti-Semitism, saying Jewish voters will have “a lot to do with the loss” if he loses in next month’s election. I’m there.
At an event in Florida on Monday to mark the first anniversary of last year’s Hamas attack on Israel, he argued that anti-Semitism in American partisan politics is confined to the Democratic Party and does not exist in the Republican Party.
His comments come in 2022, along with rapper Kanye West, who has also been accused of anti-Semitism, and Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist who has been active in denying the Holocaust, from his club Mar-a-Lago. I overlooked the fact that I had invited him to “.
Questions over President Trump’s claim to Gaza come as Trump has already been accused of spreading disinformation over the Biden administration’s response to Hurricane Helen, which caused widespread damage in the southeastern U.S. state. It’s coming out inside.
