Independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr offered staunch support for Israel in a Reuters interview, calling it a "moral nation" that was justly responding to Hamas provocations with its attacks on Gaza and questioning the need for a six-week cease-fire backed by President Joe Biden.
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Independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr
(Photo: EPA/ERIK S. LESSER)
Biden has also been a vocal defender of Israel since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, but he has recently pressured it to stem the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and accelerate a six-week cease-fire for hostage releases and aid delivery.
Asked if he supported a temporary cease-fire in Gaza, Kennedy told Reuters: "I don't even know what that means right now."
Kennedy said that each previous cease-fire "has been used by Hamas to rearm, to rebuild and then launch another surprise attack. So what would be different this time?" he said.
Kennedy, 70, spoke to Reuters in a wide-ranging interview on Monday from his office at his Spanish-style home in Los Angeles, hidden by tropical plants and hedges.
Support for Israel has become a political wedge issue inside the Democratic Party, as the death toll in Gaza tops 30,000 and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows to push an assault into Rafah.
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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Kennedy and US President Joe Biden
(Photo: AFP, REUTERS/Jonathan Drake, Reuters)
Kennedy's policy proposals, including a pledge to make homeownership easier and crack down on corporate subsidies, have gained some traction among U.S. voters unenthusiastic about Biden, a Democrat, or his Republican rival Donald Trump in the presidential election.
Kennedy is backed by 15% of registered voters, versus 39% for Biden and 38% for Trump, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll.
That level of support means Kennedy could have a significant impact on the election in November, with strategists claiming he could help Trump by pulling more votes from Biden. He will announce a running mate on March 26; names floated include football player Aaron Rodgers, who refused the COVID vaccine, lawyer Nicole Shanahan and U.S. Senator Rand Paul.
His opposition to a cease-fire and his full-throated support for Israel could be at odds with many young voters, whom he counts as one of his strongest constituencies.
Speaking from an office crammed with bookshelves, taxidermied animals and insect specimens, Kennedy told Reuters he sees wars as either moral crusades that should be pursued or wars of choice that should be avoided.
"World War I was an immoral war. It was a war of choice. We should have never gone," he said.
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Israel did not choose this war, he said, comparing it to U.S. involvement in World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Kennedy said Hamas was to blame for Gaza's destruction, failing to embrace a two-state solution and firing thousands of missiles into Israeli cities like Tel Aviv.
"Any other nation that was adjacent to a neighboring nation that was bombing it with rockets, sending commandos over to murder its citizens, pledging itself to murder every person in that nation and annihilate it, would go and level it with aerial bombardment," Kennedy said.
"But Israel is a moral nation. So it didn't do that. Instead, it built an Iron Dome to protect itself so it would not have to go into Gaza."
He said Hamas gave Israeli leaders no choice after fighters stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Kennedy added that he thinks a U.S. president should be contacting leaders from Russia, Turkey and Egypt to put an end to Hamas.
Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, nearly 32,000 people have been reportedly killed in Israel's retaliatory onslaught, according to Gaza's Hamas-controlled health authorities, with thousands more feared lost under the rubble.