TEL AVIV, Israel – Elise Stefanik, a House Republican leader seen as a potential running mate for Donald Trump, gave a speech before Israel’s parliament on Sunday in which she criticized President Joe Biden’s approach to the war in Gaza.
Stefanik, the fourth-highest-ranked Republican in the House of Representatives, is the latest of several U.S. politicians from both sides of the aisle to visit Israel since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack triggered the war in Gaza. But it is rare for such visitors to speak in Israel’s parliament, known as the Knesset.
Speaking at a session dedicated to combating anti-Semitism around the world, Stefanik promised to help “crush anti-Semitism at home and provide Israel with what it needs, when it needs it, without strings attached.”
She was referring to Biden’s decision to delay the delivery of about 3,500 bombs weighing up to 2,000 pounds each, and his refusal to supply offensive weapons for a long-promised Israeli invasion of the southern city of Rafah. The administration fears that such an operation will plunge Gaza into an even more serious humanitarian catastrophe.
“There is no excuse for an American president to block aid to Israel that has been properly approved by Congress, and there is no excuse for easing sanctions on Iran,” she said.
Stefanik, a representative from upstate New York and a strong Trump supporter, is believed to be on the short list of his potential running mates.
In December, she grilled university presidents in a five-hour congressional hearing about anti-Semitism on campus. Two of the university presidents, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, resigned soon after.
“Total victory is not just physical self-defense, but ideological self-defense,” Stefanik said during the session, referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s frequent assertion that Israel must achieve “total victory” in the war against Hamas.
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