(Los Angeles, CA — March 4, 2026) — StandWithUs calls on California Governor and likely Presidential candidate Gavin Newsom to correct multiple deeply misleading claims he made about Israel and the war with Iran’s regime.
According to numerous sources, Iran has been rebuilding key elements of its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and working to shield them from future military strikes. With support from China, Iran’s regime seeks to build so many missiles that no missile defense system would be able to stop them from causing mass destruction. Reasonable people can disagree about the political and military actions of their government, as well as how political leaders explain those actions to the public. However, it is dangerous for senior elected officials like Governor Newsom to downplay the threat of Iran’s nuclear ambitions and massive production of ballistic missiles.
Newsom went on to say that columnist Thomas Friedman and others have “appropriately” accused Israel of apartheid in the context of “hard line” Israeli political figures seeking to annex the West Bank/Judea & Samaria. However, Friedman has never repeated the apartheid slander against Israel. Instead, he has warned that if the Israeli government were to annex land without giving citizenship and equal rights to Palestinians who live there, it could become “some kind of apartheid-like state.”
Annexation is a deeply controversial idea inside and outside of Israel. There are many Israelis who oppose it and make arguments similar to Friedman’s. There are also many others who support it for various reasons (see here for further background). Newsom could have made clear that he was echoing concerns about a possible future scenario involving annexation. However, he instead appeared to falsely accuse Israel as a whole of currently being “sort of an apartheid state.”
Whether Newsom misspoke or intentionally attacked the world’s only Jewish state for political gain, he should publicly correct the record. Antizionist hate groups have long slandered Israel – a diverse democracy – as an “apartheid state.” Their aim is to exploit people who suffered under South Africa’s racist regime and dehumanize Israelis. Israel is the only free country in the Middle East according to Freedom House. It is a Jewish and democratic state where an Arab Supreme Court Justice sent a Jewish President to prison and oversaw recent national elections, billions of dollars have been spent to improve the wellbeing of Arab citizens, and affirmative action programs exist to counter discrimination. The “apartheid” slander also erases the fact that Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are not Israeli citizens, and the vast majority do not want to be. They have been caught in a tragic conflict between Israel and terrorist groups.
These facts do not negate the need to fight discrimination in Israeli society (similar to other societies), or address hardships and suffering caused by the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. However, the purpose of the “apartheid” slander is not to solve these problems. It is telling that many antizionists, including so-called human rights groups like Amnesty International, claim that the only way to end “the apartheid,” is to strip away Jewish rights to self-determination and dismantle Israel entirely. Newsom should reject both the accusation and the destructive, hateful, and anti-peace agenda behind it.
Finally, we urge Newsom to clarify that the U.S. should not stop supporting Israel’s self-defense. If Iran’s regime and other terrorist groups believe the U.S. no longer has Israel’s back, they will very likely escalate their genocidal attacks against the world’s only Jewish state. This would lead to even more horrific and destructive wars for Israelis, Palestinians, and others. Weakening U.S.-Israel cooperation would also allow these extremists to become an even greater threat to others in the region and beyond, including Americans. While both Israeli and U.S. leaders have openly discussed phasing out U.S. military aid to Israel in its current form, any steps in that direction must be taken in a strategic way that will strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance.
