Former Texas representative and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke said on Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump has turned the U.S.-Israel relationship into a partisan issue.
“Certainly the president is trying to [turn Israel into a partisan issue]; I don’t think he’ll be successful in that,” he told Haartez at the LGBTQ synagogue Beit Simchat Torah in Manhattan. “Certainly Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu has tried to do that [with] the lack of respect that he showed to President [Barack] Obama, the partisan politics in which he’s participated here in the United States.”
“But we don’t have to accept that, and I don’t,” he added.
O’Rourke, who in April called Netanyahu “racist” in response to a campaign pledge to annex parts of Judea and Samaria if he were to win re-election that month, said that “I would do everything I could to work with Prime Minister Netanyahu if he is in power and if I am lucky enough to serve as president, and to support the U.S.-Israel relationship.”
Additionally, O’Rourke reiterated his support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“It is the only way that I think you achieve those goals of human dignity and security, self-determination and the safety that people should be able to depend on in their day-to-day lives,” he said.
O’Rourke is one of 10 candidates who will be in the next Democratic presidential primary debate on Sept. 12.