Democratic mega-donor Haim Saban strongly criticized President Joe Biden's decision to halt the shipment of Israeli weapons in an email to aides on Thursday, urging the administration to reconsider.
The Biden administration halted a delivery of numerous weapons to Israel, including 2,000-pound bombs, due to concerns about Israel's plan to expand military operations in Rafah, which could significantly raise the death toll in Gaza, according to U.S. officials on Tuesday.
Saban, a donor with dual Israeli-American citizenship, who hosted a major fundraising event for Biden’s re-election campaign in Los Angeles in February, wrote the email to administration aides Steve Ricchetti and Anita Dunn, asking them to relay the message to the president.
“We, the U.S., as you stated numerous times, believe that Hamas should be defeated. We, the U.S., in this case YOU Mr. President, have decided to stop sending munitions to Israel to achieve a goal that WE/YOU have set up for Israel and ourselves,” Saban’s statement read. “Even beyond Israel, this sends a terrible message to our allies in the region, and beyond that, we can flip from doing the right thing to bending to political pressure.”
Saban — who earlier interviewed with TheWrap defended Biden’s age and track record, saying, “He is doing really, in my opinion, a great job” — then appealed to Biden’s desire to be reelected for a second term in November.
“Let’s not forget that there are more Jewish voters who care about Israel than Muslim voters that care about Hamas,” he wrote. “Bad, bad, bad decision on all levels. Please reconsider.”
Read the full note via Axios’ Barak Ravid below.
Democratic mega-donor Haim Saban wrote an email to Biden's aides Steve Ricchetti & Anita Dunn about Biden's decision to put on hold a weapons shipment to Israel: "Let's not forget there are more Jewish voters who care about Israel than Muslim voters who care about Hamas" pic.twitter.com/HdeI9iOL3W
— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) May 9, 2024
Saban has been a fervent and generous supporter of Biden’s re-election campaign. His February fundraiser in L.A. ahead of the March presidential primary raised $4.5 million for the campaign.
According to OpenSecrets, Saban made the maximum donation of $3,300 to Biden’s campaign for several months, most recently in December, January and March.
Saban said to TheWrap, “There’s never been a president as supportive in facts, not only in words, of Israel. If you take everything in general, and most specifically, in these dire times for Israel, he’s been pristine.”
He added that his unwavering support placed a political cost on Biden, but without Biden's support, “Israel would be fighting this war with stones and sticks.”
