
© TwitterMayor Pete Buttigieg from his twitter feed, March 2019.
Last May, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg went to Israel with the American Jewish Committee and two weeks later
discussed his trip with that organization. At the time Israel was killing Palestinian protesters at the Gaza fence
- 60 on one day within days of Buttigieg's visit, getting global
attention - yet Buttigieg repeatedly praised Israel's security arrangements as "moving" and "clear-eyed", said the U.S. could learn something from them, and blamed Palestinians and Hamas for the "misery" in Gaza.
He also faulted fellow Democrats for making snap judgments based on "90-second cable news versions of what's going on over there."
Buttigieg, 37, a former Navy intelligence officer
, is today a rising star in the Democratic presidential field as a midwestern mayor with a reputation for intelligence and pragmatism. In his 22-minute discussion with the AJC's Seffi Kogen last May, Buttigieg never mentioned the Gaza protests directly. But he said that if you only visited Israel, you'd see what wise judgments Israelis are making.
Comment:
Update 1/4/2019: Voice of Europe reports Malta court charges hijackers with terrorism: