Former president and current GOP front-runner Donald Trump made news last night with his take on the Israel-Hamas war.
With hundreds of Jewish families slaughtered and Israeli airstrikes bombarding Gaza, Trump criticized Israel's leaders, beginning with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for not participating in the drone strike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.
Trump also referred to Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Islamist group designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. in 1997, as “very smart.”
Hamas terrorists have murdered over 1,300 Israeli citizens in the southern part of the country since Saturday and fired thousands of rockets from Gaza. Far to the north, Lebanese-based Hezbollah fighters have exchanged gunfire across the Israeli border, igniting fears of a second front.
Trump claimed that Hezbollah's attacks were sparked by Israel's weaknesses exposed by the Biden administration and Israeli authorities.
The apparently unscripted remarks came during an address to 3,500 supporters at the Palm Beach County Convention Center and went viral.
They drew condemnation from the White House and Trump's closest Republican rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, as The Washington Post reported:
“It is absurd that anyone, much less someone running for President, would choose now to attack our friend and ally, Israel, much less praise Hezbollah terrorists as ‘very smart,'” DeSantis said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
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Trump spokesman Steven Cheung defended the former president's comments as meant to criticize unspecified U.S. officials for giving Hezbollah the idea to attack from the north. He said Trump was referring to a briefing by a senior U.S. defense official on Monday that expressed concern about Hezbollah opening a second front.
“President Trump was clearly pointing out how incompetent Biden and his administration were by telegraphing to the terrorists an area that is susceptible to an attack,” Cheung said. “Smart does not equal good.”
In response, the White House called Trump's statements “dangerous and unhinged.”
It's completely lost on us why any American would ever praise an Iran-backed terrorist organization as ‘smart.' Or have any objection to the United States warning terrorists not to attack Israel,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates chided. “This is a time for all of us to stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel against ‘unadulterated evil.'”
Trump comments came 12 days before the 40th anniversary of Hezbollah's suicide bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beriut, Lebanon. The attack was the single deadliest day for the Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima.
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You know, you can call someone “smart” without meaning you “like” them. It IS smart to be realistic about your enemies.
Saying they’re smart is not the same thing as praising their actions. Would American soldiers in WWII think the German soldiers wre dumb? Of course not. If you listen what Trump is saying it that those guys in Lebanon are smarter than Hamas when it comes to tactics.
Good call on Israel then Not so for terror group bad call
I am disappointed by what I just read that former President Trump said about the Israeli’s and their PM, Benjamin Netanyahu. I have a great deal of respect for Bibi and even more for the people of Israel, and to denigrate the only U.S. ally in the middle east is a mistake. They are honorable people surviving under conditions that most of us cannot imagine, and to have something like this invasion of terrorists, (who are not smart, but are brutal and sadistic), is among the saddest and most despicable acts that these subhuman cretins have done. They should be not just held to account, but should be diminished to the extent that they are never able to mount this sort of reprehensible action again.