At a meeting of Jewish Republicans, the former US president said that, if re-elected, he would reintroduce entry bans on Muslim-majority countries.
Former US President Donald Trump promised at a meeting of Jewish Republicans to reintroduce an entry ban on Muslim-majority countries if he is re-elected. “We will keep radical Islamic terrorists out of our country,” Trump said Saturday at the annual meeting of the Jewish Association of Republicans. “Do you remember the entry ban? On the first day I will reintroduce our entry ban”, he assured.
At the beginning of his presidency in 2017, Trump imposed significant restrictions on travel from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and, initially, Iraq and Sudan. The order was quickly challenged in court as discriminatory against a religious group, but was popular among Trump’s voter base. Joe Biden reversed the travel ban in his first week as president in 2021.
Support for Israel
Trump was one of several conservative Republican presidential candidates who reiterated their support for Israel in the war against Hamas at the gathering of influential Jewish donors. The former president described the conflict as a “battle between civilization and barbarism, between decency and depravity, and between good and evil.”
Support for Israel is a key issue for major US political parties and a rare case of foreign policy that can influence the voting behavior of US citizens – particularly given the large number of Jewish voters.
Thousands in pro-Palestine demonstrations
Meanwhile, in the Brooklyn neighborhood of New York, thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets on Saturday to protest Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. About 1.6 million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Muslims live in the US East Coast metropolis.
The Palestinian radical Islamic organization Hamas launched an unprecedented major attack against Israel on October 7th. According to Israeli information, around 1,400 people were killed. Since then, Hamas has also fired thousands of rockets at Israel.
In response to the attacks, Israel isolated the Gaza Strip and launched massive airstrikes. Israel also announced a major ground offensive in the Gaza Strip. Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip have killed more than 8,000 people since the start of the war, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, according to figures released on Sunday. (APA/AFP)