Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia ripped the Trump administration on Tuesday after the State Department announced that it would no longer issue visas to Palestinian children in need of medical care amid Israel’s relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
Why It Matters
Greene has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration’s policy vis-à-vis Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, which has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
She recently became the first Republican lawmaker to refer to Israel’s military assault on the besieged territory as a “genocide,” amid allegations that the Israeli government’s actions and ongoing blockade of humanitarian aid have led to widespread starvation in Gaza.
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What To Know
Greene torched the State Department in a lengthy social media post on Tuesday, singling out two recent developments related to Israel’s Gaza policy and the arrest and subsequent release of an Israeli official charged with soliciting sex electronically from a minor.
“Two recent decisions made by the State Department both involve children,” Greene wrote on X. “We need to be the America that allows war torn children to come here for life saving surgeries and the America that never releases a foreign child sex predator that our great [law enforcement officials] caught. But in this circumstance those war torn children are from Gaza and this foreign child sex predator is from Israel and works directly for [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu].”
The State Department has denied that the U.S. government played any role in the release of Tom Artiom Alexandrovich, a senior official in Israel’s National Cyber Directorate. Alexandrovich was among eight people charged last week after a sting operation “targeting child sex predators,” the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department announced.
Reuters, citing Israeli media reports, said Alexandrovich was released and is back in Israel, facing a felony sex crime charge.
“Would it be antisemitic to drag Netanyahu’s Cyber Executive Director back and prosecute this pos to the full extent of the law and at the same time let Palestinian kids who had their limbs and bodies blown apart receive surgeries in America?” Greene wrote on social media.
“I’m not saying bring in refugees or use tax payer dollars, not at all, but when did America’s heart grow so cold to refuse innocent children privately funded surgeries and then they return home after they recover?” she added. “Wouldn’t we allow Israeli children if they were the ones needing surgery? Or war torn children from any other country?”
The State Department announced on Saturday that it will halt all visitor visas for people from Gaza, saying it’s pausing the program to carry out a “full and thorough review of the process and procedures” used to grant the “medical-humanitarian” visas.
The Trump administration’s decision came after a social media campaign from far-right extremist and social media influencer Laura Loomer, who accused the humanitarian group HEAL Palestine, without evidence, of “mass importing GAZANS into the US” under the “false claim” of humanitarian aid.
Loomer’s allegations centered around the Ohio-based organization’s announcement on August 4 that 11 critically injured children, ages 6 to 15, had arrived in the U.S. for medical care.
Greene, who has spread misinformation and antisemitic conspiracy theories in the past, accused the U.S. of being “subservient” to Israel on Tuesday, writing: “And the most concerning question is when and how did America become so subservient to Israel that we immediately release a CHILD SEX PREDATOR after arrest, with a 100% locked up case with evidence, and let him off to fly back home to Israel??”
“Would we do that with a Mexican child sex predator? Chinese child sex predator? Any other country’s child sex predator?” she wrote. “I know God does not discriminate in his love for children. Why would we?”
What People Are Saying
The State Department wrote on X Monday: “The Department of State is aware that Tom Artiom Alexandrovich, an Israeli citizen, was arrested in Las Vegas and given a court date for charges related to soliciting sex electronically from a minor. He did not claim diplomatic immunity and was released by a state judge pending a court date. Any claims that the U.S. government intervened are false.”
Loomer wrote on X: The “Trump administration needs to shut this abomination down ASAP before a family member of one of these GAZANS goes rogue and kills Americans for HAMAS.”
The State Department wrote on X Saturday: “All visitor visas for individuals from Gaza are being stopped while we conduct a full and thorough review of the process and procedures used to issue a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas in recent days.”
What Happens Next
It’s unclear when—or if—the State Department will resume granting humanitarian parole to Gazan children in need of medical care.
