California Gov. Gavin Newsom mentioned that he regretted utilizing the phrase “apartheid” to describe the Israeli authorities’s remedy of Palestinians, although he warned “that’s a word you may hear others use” if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushes for territorial features.
Newsom made the preliminary comment throughout a stay look on “Pod Save America” earlier this month, whereas discussing the backlash to Israel over its army operations in Gaza. The governor cited New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and others who Newsom mentioned had been “talking about it appropriately as sort of an apartheid state.”
Many within the Democratic Party have distanced themselves in latest months from the Israeli authorities and allied groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. But Newsom, a prime potential contender for the 2028 nomination, drew consideration for suggesting Israel’s remedy of Palestinians in territories it has managed since 1967 amounted to “apartheid” – a declare Israel strongly rejects.
“Do you regret using the word apartheid to describe Israel?” requested Jonathan Martin of Politico in an interview published Tuesday.
“I do, in this context,” Newsom mentioned, pointing to the February piece by Friedman, who wrote that “Israel by default could become some kind of apartheid-like state in permanent control over the 2.5 million Palestinians.”
“Tom used it in the context of the direction that Bibi is going,” Newsom mentioned.
“Not the current state?” Martin interjected.
“Correct,” Newsom responded. “And that is a legitimate concern I have that I share with Tom, that that direction, if that vision and that direction of the far right, that Bibi is indulging, that if they see the full annexation of the West Bank, then that’s not something – that’s a word you may hear others use.”
The topic got here up throughout a lightning-round part of a sprawling interview when Martin started by asking Newsom if he thought-about himself a “Zionist.”
“I revere the state of Israel. I’m proud to support the state of Israel,” Newsom mentioned. “I deeply, deeply oppose Bibi Netanyahu’s leadership, his opposition to the two-state solution. And deeply oppose how he is indulging the far right as it relates to what’s going on in the West Bank.”