Deputy Minister for Regional Affairs Ayoub Kara says he personally supported Trump for the US presidency, but kept quiet because the prime minister told him to.
“I had the honor to be among the only ones, apart from the prime minister, to visit the Trump headquarters in NY, and I was afraid — like many others — to identify and publicly support him, so as not to hurt the government,” says the Druze lawmaker, who is a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party.
Ayoub Kara (Jusmine/Wikimedia Commons)
Kara says the PM “told us unequivocally not to comment on either candidate, and asked us not to respond until after the elections, and I’m happy that we complied with his request. We didn’t comment and we didn’t get involved… It’s no secret that everyone had a preference, and I think that most of the Israeli public wanted Trump and most of the Jewish population in the US… wanted Clinton.”
He hails the “special ties” with the US, which he says are independent of the president, and hails Trump’s win as “wonderful news” for the “settlements in Israel, for the status of a united Jerusalem, and for the free world.”
— Marissa Newman
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