Trump promises to restore ‘travel ban’ targeting Muslim countries if re-elected

“We will keep radical Islamic terrorists the hell out of our country,” Trump told the audience attending the annual summit of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

“You remember the travel ban? On day one I will restore our travel ban.”

At the start of his presidency in 2017, Trump imposed sweeping restrictions on the entry of travellers from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and, initially, Iraq and Sudan. The order was quickly challenged in court as discriminatory against a religious group, but the bans, along with Trump’s hardline anti-immigration agenda, were popular with his base.

Trump compares himself to Mandela, promises an Iron Dome for US

Biden “was proud to overturn the vile, un-American Muslim ban enacted by his predecessor,” a White House spokesman said.

Trump told the event, held in Las Vegas, in the southwestern state of Nevada, that he would “defend our friend and ally in the State of Israel like nobody has ever.”

The former reality show host, the overwhelming favourite to win the party nomination to run against Biden next year despite facing multiple criminal prosecutions, spoke after sparking fury in recent weeks by describing Lebanon-based Islamist group Hezbollah as “very smart” and criticising Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Hamas militants killed at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians.

More than 8,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s relentless retaliatory bombardments, mainly civilians and many of them children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

Ivanka Trump ordered to testify in Donald Trump’s New York fraud trial

DeSantis and others pointed to what they said was rising antisemitism on US college campuses, and proposed removing funding for universities and cancelling visas for pro-Palestinian foreign students.

“We need cultural chemotherapy to fight this cancer,” Senator Tim Scott said.

“Any student with a visa who calls for genocide should be deported.”

The only woman in the race, Nikki Haley, Trump’s former ambassador to the United Nations, has evoked fears of anti-Semitic attacks on US soil.

Gaza war will be ‘long and hard’, Netanyahu says, as Israel launches 2nd phase

“As president I will change the official federal definition of antisemitism to include denying Israel’s right to exist,” said Haley, adding she would strip tax breaks from schools that do not combat antisemitism.

“College campuses are allowed to have free speech, but they are not free to spread hate that supports terrorism,” she said. “Federal law requires schools to combat antisemitism. We will give this law teeth and we will enforce it.”

The organisers said the newly installed Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise would address the gathering on Saturday night.

Former Vice-President Mike Pence surprised the gathering on Saturday when he announced he was dropping out of the 2024 presidential race, becoming the first major candidate to suspend his campaign.

“It’s become clear to me: this is not my time,” he said. “After much prayer and consideration, I have decided to suspend my campaign for president.”

Support for Israel is a huge issue for both political parties in the United States, and a rare instance of foreign policy that matters at the ballot box, thanks in part to the large number of Jewish voters.

It is also a significant issue for evangelical Christians for whom the existence of a Jewish state is a key precondition for the hoped-for “second coming” of Jesus Christ.