Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, leader of the far-right Jewish Power party, landed meetings with four Republican members of Congress on Monday during a visit to Capitol Hill.
Ben Gvir, an outspoken proponent of the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, told The Times of Israel that the lawmakers he met with included Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), the head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who previously volunteered with the Israeli military and once wore his IDF uniform on Capitol Hill.
Mast is a strong backer of the Israeli settlements and recently directed his staff to refer to the Israeli-occupied West Bank as “Judea and Samaria,” a biblical name the state of Israel uses to refer to the Palestinian territory. Ben Gvir is a West Bank settler himself and wants Israel to annex the territory.
Ben Gvir also met with Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Claudia Tenney (R-NY), and Mike Lawler (R-NY). The Israeli minister said he didn’t come to discuss a particular issue but wanted the US lawmakers to get to know him.
“I didn’t ask them afterward whether they’ll vote for Ben Gvir, but they wanted to get to know me and I think they really liked what they heard,” he said.
Ben Gvir said the lawmakers expressed their full-throated support for Israel and didn’t put any pressure on him to change policies. The meetings come as Israel is slaughtering dozens of Palestinians in Gaza every day and has been imposing a total blockade on the territory for nearly two months, as children are starving.
Ben Gvir has called for Israel to bomb food and aid stocks inside Gaza and claimed he received support for the idea from senior Republican officials that he met at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last week.
The Israeli minister has faced protests as he has traveled around the US and was confronted by antiwar activists when he was on Capitol Hill. “Israeli war criminal Itamar Ben Gvir can’t handle confrontation from protestors at the US Capitol,” Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK, said in a post on X that included a video of a confrontation with Ben Gvir.
“As minister of ‘National Security,’ Ben-Gvir has openly endorsed the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and intentionally bombs civilians, aid, and civilian infrastructure,” Benjamin added.
