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Israel’s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was set to address a meeting at Yale University, a day after being honored at a lavish dinner at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
Ben-Gvir, who has past convictions for supporting terrorism and was considered persona non grata under the Biden administration, attended a fundraising event at the Florida resort on Tuesday, where he told attendees about harsh new measures implemented against Palestinian prisoners.
“I love the American people very much,” Ben-Gvir told attendees via a translator. “We have a joint war against the jihad.”
Trump himself was absent and the minister was not expected to meet the US president, but Ben-Gvir’s spokesperson said the minister met with “dozens of senior businessmen from Miami” and the Republican House majority whip, Tom Emmer, according to the Times of Israel.
Emmer did not respond to a request for comment.
Ben-Gvir posted on X that he “had the honor and privilege of meeting with senior Republican Party officials at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate”, though it is unclear who those officials were.
“They expressed support for my very clear position on how to act in Gaza and that the food and aid depots should be bombed in order to create military and political pressure to bring our hostages home safely.”
Ben-Gvir, a hardline Jewish settler from the occupied West Bank who has advocated for the deportation of all Arab citizens, has been an integral part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition since 2022, and has threatened to leave his side should the war in Gaza end.
His presence in the Israeli government has been a source of international concern; major American Jewish organizations distanced themselves from his current visit, and demonstrators allied with Yale’s Students for Justice in Palestine set upprotests on the university’s grounds ahead of his scheduled appearance at a meeting of Shabtai, a Jewish society based at the university.
Yale did not return a request for comment.
Khaled Elgindy, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, expressed alarm at Ben-Gvir’s reception in the United States.
“The fact that someone like Ben-Gvir … is even being hosted by US institutions is in and of itself deeply disturbing,” said Elgindy. “That the GOP is aligned with the most fanatical elements in Israeli politics, while perhaps not surprising, is extremely alarming and does not bode well for the stability of the region.”
Ben-Gvir was convicted in 2007 of racist incitement and support for groups on terrorism blacklists. For years, he prominently displayed a photo in his living room of Baruch Goldstein, who massacred 29 Muslim worshippers in Hebron in 1994.
In 2022, the Biden administration condemned Ben-Gvir’s visit to the memorial of violently racist and anti-Palestinian rabbi Meir Kahane, whom the national security minister was a follower of in his youth.
“Celebrating the legacy of a terrorist organization is abhorrent. There is no other word for it,” US state department spokesperson Ned Price said at the time. “We urge all parties to maintain calm, exercise restraint, and to refrain from actions that only serve to exacerbate tensions and that includes in Jerusalem.”
But since joining Netanyahu’s coalition government, Ben-Gvir has continued his provocations, including an inflammatory visit to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound last year – also a historically significant and highly venerated holy site in Judaism – that drew international outrage and a rebuke from Netanyahu himself last summer. Ben-Gvir again visited the Al-Aqsa mosque earlier this month, prompting more outrage in the region.
The White House did not return a request for comment.
Following Yale, Ben Gvir was expected to address a gathering on New York’s Upper East Side, focusing on “securing Israel post-October 7th”.
