Israel's extremist minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, was met by anti-war protesters from Unxeptable, a group of Israeli expats, upon his arrival in Florida, US, a video posted online showed.
Embarrassed, Ben-Gvir is seen waving at protesters on Monday as they accuse him of ignoring the Gaza hostage-truce deal.
The Trump administration permitted a previously shunned extremist minister to visit the US. Since October 2023, he has opposed hostage-truce deals to end Israel's genocidal war on Gaza.
"The former terrorist boasts about sabotaging Gaza ceasefire deals which would save our hostages. We will pursue him to the end of the Earth, to Miami, to New York and to Washington, DC. Ben Gvir's violence and racism are beyond the pale. He is a disgrace," Unxeptable said in a tweet posted on X.
"He is not welcome in our country. He does not represent us as Jews or as Israelis. We steadfastly oppose his dark vision for Judaism, Israel and for the Middle East," said UnXeptable, that calls itself "a grassroots movement launched by Israeli expats in support of a democratic Israel."
UnXeptable said that before becoming a minister in Netanyahu's extremist regime, Ben Gvir "decorated his living room with a portrait of mass murderer Baruch Goldstein. As the minister in charge of Israel Police, he has overseen the unprecedented doubling of murder rates."
"No matter our views on Israeli politics or on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as American-Jewish community leaders, we must stand firm on this: Minister Ben-Gvir and his Jewish supremacy are not welcome among us," it said in a statement ahead of Ben-Gvir's arrival in the US — his first official visit since he joined the Benjamin Netanyahu extremist government in 2022.
Most extreme figures in Netanyahu regime
A statement by Ben-Gvir's office said the minister will visit several states and meet representatives of the Jewish community as well as US officials during his trip.
The statement, however, did not specify how long his visit would last.
The former US administration of Joe Biden had boycotted Ben-Gvir over his anti-peace rhetoric, incitement to violence against Palestinians, and his support for settlement building in the occupied territories.
Hardline Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich had faced a similar boycott under Biden, but he visited Washington in February under the Trump administration.
Ben-Gvir and Smotrich rank among the most extreme figures in Netanyahu's regime, both notorious for their anti-Palestine rhetoric and public calls to expel Palestinians from their land.
The two ministers have openly encouraged Zionist settler violence against Palestinians and their properties in the occupied West Bank, where attacks have escalated dramatically since the start of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023.
Ben-Gvir draws his ideology from that of American-born extremist Meir Kahane, a former Israeli MP whose Kach party was banned in Israel after the 1994 murder of 29 Palestinians praying in Hebron by one of his supporters.
The United States designated Kach offshoot, Kahane Chai, a foreign terrorist organisation in 1997.
While the US removed Kahane Chai from its Foreign Terrorist Organizations list, it has been deemed a Specially-Designated Global Terrorist organisation under US law since 2001.
