North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum, one of the rumored candidates on former President Donald Trump’s shortlist of possible running mates, has won the support of some significant Jewish donors because of his strong support of the state of Israel.
Burgum, a former Microsoft executive, said three weeks after the barbaric Hamas massacre of more than 1200 people in Israel on October 7, “We shouldn’t be surprised that Iran would greenlight a massacre after getting billions of dollars from the Biden administration. Biden has turned maximum pressure into maximum concessions. He literally was begging Iran, the world’s leading sponsor of state terrorism, to reenter the failed Obama-Biden Iran nuclear deal that almost guarantees Iran pathways to nuclear weapons. Joe Biden naively believes that these financial bribes would somehow stop Iran from wanting to cross the nuclear threshold.”
“To the university officials, the talking heads, and the far-left politicians on television that try to draw some kind of moral equivalency between Israel and Hamas, your words are abhorrent. … No Hamas or Hezbollah agent anywhere in the world should be able to find safe harbor. And let me go further: Countries like Qatar cannot be allowed to support terrorists. … Hamas leaders in Doha should be considered legitimate military targets. … We know that as Hamas and Hezbollah use human shields, we must stand up and tell the world, it’s Iran with blood on its hands, not the Jewish state that is fighting for its right to exist.”
“We will put an end to Biden’s attempts to undermine Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem; the same goes for the Golan Heights,” he stated.
Burgum also told the Hudson Institute that “Iran’s war on Israel” was “a war on America.”
In April 2023, Burgum signed into law a bill barring anyone contracting with the state from participating in a boycott of Israel; the bill also prevented North Dakota from investing in companies that “would have the effect of requiring or inducing any person to boycott Israel.”
“The thing that always stands out to me is his support of Israel — not only what he had to say about it in his speech, but also back in private conversation,” Fred Zeidman, a top GOP donor, told Jewish Insider. “He understands it, and for that reason I don’t question his support under any circumstance.”
