New York: Taking a jibe at former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s “finish them” remarks on the Hamas militant group, fellow Indian-American Republican presidential aspirant Vivek Ramaswamy has said that this is “not a video game”.
Haley had called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “finish them” (Hamas)” after the Palestinian militant group launched the surprise attack from the Gaza Strip on southern Israel..
“Rabidly shouting “FINISH THEM!!!” isn’t a coherent solution to a complex problem. This is the real world, not a video game,” Ramaswamy wrote on X on Monday as he reposted a video by TV host Tucker Carlson on American foreign policy following the attacks on Israel.
“@NikkiHaley has foreign policy “experience” & it shows,” Ramaswamy wrote, taking further pot-shots at Haley, who had blasted the 38-year-old entrepreneur, saying he has “no foreign policy experience and it shows”.
In one of the sharpest exchanges between two Indian-American candidates during the first Republican presidential debate in August, Haley had accused Ramaswamy of supporting America’s foreign adversaries and abandoning its friends.
“He wants to hand Ukraine to Russia, he wants to let China eat Taiwan, he wants to go and stop funding Israel… You don’t do that to friends. What you do instead is you have the backs of your friends,” Haley told Ramaswamy on the debate stage.
Notably, Ramaswamy had said on Russell Brand’s Rumble show recently that he would end funding to Israel when a $38 billion package ends in 2028.
Taking to X on Sunday, Haley wrote: “This is not just an attack on Israel — this was an attack on America. Finish them @Netanyahu. They should have hell to pay for what they have just done. “
Ramaswamy had said that the US should use the attacks in Israel as a wake-up call and strengthen its own borders.
Appearing in the Tucker Carlson show on Monday, Ramaswamy also questioned the US and Israeli intelligence that allowed the attack to happen.
“What the heck went wrong with US-Israel intelligence to allow this attack to happen? The same broken apparatus that allowed this mess to transpire can’t be the same one we trust to clean it up. Everyone else seems to think this is a ‘question for later’,”but this is really a question for now,” Ramaswamy told Carlson.
Ramaswamy’s comments came as 11 Americans, “many of whom made a second home in Israel”, were killed in the ongoing conflict between Hamas and the Jewish nation.
US President Joe Biden acknowledged that there were American citizens who still remain unaccounted for.
“We are working with Israeli officials to obtain more information as to their whereabouts,” he said.
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