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Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar listens to remarks by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller during a ministerial meeting on political violence, at the State Department in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 16, 2026. Credit: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar listens to remarks by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller during a ministerial meeting on political violence, at the State Department in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 16, 2026. Credit: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, speaking at a major U.S.-organized ministerial meeting aimed at launching the Trump administration’s “unprecedented global offensive against the transnational threat of Radical Left terrorism,” accused Hamas of funding what he called “provocative flotillas to Gaza.”
Sa’ar told the conference, which was attended by officials from over 60 nations in Washington on Thursday, that “terrorist organizations operate hand-in-hand with radical left-wing forces and build an operational alliance with extreme left-wing elements in Western democracies in Europe, Latin America, Africa and beyond.”
Citing the Global Sumud Flotilla, Sa’ar said that “the purpose of the flotilla was to breach a legal naval blockade and serve the interests of terrorist organizations, mostly Hamas,” adding that “Hamas documents seized by the IDF point to funding, operational involvement and covert ownership of the vessels through a Spanish front company.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the conference that the U.S. will push to focus international counterterrorism efforts on “far-left terror.”
In his speech, Rubio said the Islamic militancy threat was “severely diminished” due to coordinated international efforts but that rising left-wing violence was a “blind spot.”
“We can and we must identify and map this threat and rebuild our counterterrorism architecture to defeat it,” Rubio said, citing a transnational threat from groups who hate the West and target its politicians and infrastructure.
The White House, meanwhile, issued a statement saying that, “Under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump, far-left extremism will be treated with the same seriousness and ferocity the world has long reserved for jihadist terrorism.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced new tools aimed at combatting illicit funding, saying “at President Trump’s direction, Treasury is expanding its efforts to identify organizations that abuse charitable and nonprofit structures as vehicles for illicit finance. We are examining where tax-exempt status has been exploited, where charitable entities have become financial conduits for foreign influence activity.”
Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller said “one of the hallmarks of left-wing violence and terrorism is its completely pre-textual and disingenuous appeal to civil liberties in an effort to shield its own violence.”
“When the leftist, who does not believe in freedom, who does not believe in civil rights, who does not believe in any ordinary notion of justice, protests that we are violating his rights, understand that he is lying to try to persuade people who are not closely following the political scene that some injustice has been perpetrated against him. We must stay the course and be completely unflinching in the pursuit of justice against these enemies of civilization,” he added.