Gavin Newsom says he regrets using ‘apartheid’ to describe Israel, stresses he ‘deeply opposes Bibi’

California Governor Gavin Newsom says he regrets his recent remarks in which he used the word “apartheid” to describe Israel, telling Politico that he doesn’t believe it’s currently an appropriate to describe the Jewish state but would be if it annexed the West Bank.

“And that is a legitimate concern I have… 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,” Newsom says, using Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nickname.

Newsom is also asked if he considers himself a Zionist.

“Do I consider myself Zionist? I revere the state of Israel. I’m proud to support the State of Israel. 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,” says the California governor, who is considered an early frontrunner to be the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee in 2028.