Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, compared Israel to “an apartheid state” on Tuesday in comments highly critical of the country’s joint war with the United States against Iran.
Newsom, seen as a front-runner for his party’s 2028 presidential nomination, made the comment during an appearance in Los Angeles to promote his book, Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery. He was asked whether the United States should rethink its military partnership with Israel.
“It breaks my heart, because the current leadership in Israel is taking us down that path, where I don’t think we have a choice in that consideration,” Newsom said.
“To say this in the interest of the United States at a time when affordability is at crisis levels, where you have an administration that was literally elected saying this is the exact opposite of what they would ever consider doing, the fact that we’re in this regional war (with) all of these proxies, all the scamming and corruption that marks a big part of this as well, is a real conversation we need to have.”
Newsom made the “apartheid” comment when the event’s moderator, Pod Save America host Jon Favreau, asked him about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, known as Bibi. The governor cited New York Times opinion writer Thomas Friedman, who wrote on Tuesday that the war could propel Netanyahu to an electoral victory that would fuel even more extremism in Israel, against American interests.
“The Bibi issue is interesting because she has her own internal problems,” Newsom said.
“He’s trying to stay out of jail. He’s got an election coming up. He’s potentially on the ropes. He’s got hardliners who want to annex the West Bank. Friedman and others are appropriately talking about it, (as) a kind of apartheid state.”
It is not the first time Newsom has criticized Netanyahu, or Donald Trump’s decision to partner with Israel to attack Iran, during his book tour. On Saturday, he accused the president of “doubling down on stupidity” during his State of the Union address to Congress, and said Trump’s eagerness to involve the U.S. military in Iran was due to “weakness disguised as strength.”
In a conversation in January with conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro, Newsom said he was “very clear in my love for Israel and my condemnation of Bibi, and there is a distinction.”
He said he could understand why people thought, from images of Israel’s war in Gaza, that Israel had committed genocide there, but he did not share the view, although he said Israel’s military action was “disproportionate.”
He said: “I have a lot of problems with the way Bibi ultimately conducted the war. I didn’t like the way he talked about the Palestinian people.”
