Mike Sapraicone, Republican Conservative candidate for US Senate in New York and retired New York detective, spoke to Arutz Sheva – Israel National News, during his visit to Israel about what he learned about October 7th only when he arrived here, on his opinion about Hamas and US politics, and his solution for “encouraging understanding” between politicians.
Sapraicone says that it was important for him to visit Israel “and try to understand what went on here and actually have ‘my boots on the ground,’ to see what was going on here. We got in about 4:00 a.m. on Monday morning and we haven’t stopped since then. We were able to go down South and we were at a kibbutz and saw the devastation there and the whole village destroyed. This was the first time I actually understood what went on. People were saying that Hamas and the Palestinians came in, and I didn’t know what that meant. They showed us that the Palestinians came in that morning with their bags of clothes in order to move in and take over places. They were very much part of the killing. That’s not part of the story that I think I got as an American. I didn’t understand that at all.
“We’re seeing all these protests going on at home and on the college campuses. It’s about ‘protect Palestine, protect Palestine.’ They were murderers, they were actual murderers. We were able to look over to Gaza, maybe 100 yards from where were standing, and it was just unbelievable. Earlier that day we had been in a small village that was one of the first villages that was attacked and we saw that this was a village with older senior citizens and they actually had maps that were pointing to where they were going, and what their scheme was. They were going to attack seniors, who couldn’t get out of the shelters. All the houses were burnt out and the bullets were shot into the safe rooms. There were red marks on the houses to show where people had been killed. Then we went up towards Nova and we were able to see the actual shelter where Hersh Goldberg-Polin was fighting for his life. They were throwing grenades out of that shelter and that’s where he lost his arm and then was taken hostage. We just got in that morning, right after they had been found. What a disgrace that is! If Hamas really wanted a ceasefire, I don’t understand why they killed those hostages. Maybe they feel they have nothing to lose. I’m trying to understand that more and more. This isn’t just a war against the country; it’s a religious war,” explains Sapraicone.
Sapraicone continued his visit up north, to an area he describes as, “Very quiet. As we drove into the town, there was nobody there; the town was abandoned. We went to the police station, and I spoke to the police. We had to put on vests and helmets. They told us that by the time the siren goes off, it’s usually too late because we’re so close to Lebanon. You hear an explosion and then the siren. Just after we left there, we got a notice that 14 missiles had been dropped on the area where we were just 30 minutes earlier.”
Sapraicone is a candidate for the Republican party and sees the Biden Administration “without a doubt as the ones putting the pressure on Israel. I think we’re looking at it in the wrong way. It’s very disturbing to hear him and everyone else, the vice president, the secretary of state, the Secretary of Defense say, ‘Don’t.’ What does ‘don’t’ mean? Don’t what? People need to be held accountable. Countries need to be held accountable. What does ‘don’t’ mean? Don’t do it or what? What’s the ‘or what’? Iran is just pretty much doing anything it wants and helping their allies to destroy Israel, but my concern is ‘will we be next’? Will America be next? We’re looking at our borders and with the illegal immigration and the crime going on in America, we’re letting people in that aren’t vetted. Last year alone there were 150 people found on the terrorist watch list, but there are thousands and thousands of young people of military age who coming in from all over the world into our country.”
He continues: “I said that we’ve never really had a war on mainland America, but 9/11; that was the beginning. We were able to stop that and so far, so good. But what’s next for us? We’re showing support and solidarity for Israel, but again we’re saying, ‘Don’t do this or we’re going to say no more,’ ‘get the hostages back,’ everybody wants the hostages back, there’s no doubt about that, but we need to eliminate Hamas. We need to eliminate what Iran is doing and how they’re helping Hamas and the Houthis. We need to do something to step up and we’ve shown weakness in America in the last three and a half years. I’m a Republican and I’m a supporter of President Trump and he’s endorsed me, but he showed strength. We don’t know if this war could have happened with President Trump, but it didn’t, and we didn’t have Russia and Ukraine.”
On the rise in antisemitism, Sapraicone says: “I look at just the college campuses, as an example, and wonder how are we allowing this. When they infiltrated one of the halls in Columbia and the NYPD came in and made an arrest, 70% of the people they arrested were not even students at Columbia, so you have these bad actors and professional antagonists coming in and filling our people with this theory of hate, about what’s going on in the world and how Hamas is correct and how Israel is wrong. Some of these young students who were protesting had no idea what they were protesting against. Some of the protesters are saying that we need more rights as gay people and we need to stand by Palestine. Well, if you were gay and you came to Palestine, you wouldn’t survive. I don’t think our students even know this. Their heads are being filled up with this antisemitic garbage and we’re allowing it. We have to stand strong. Being strong is being educated. I always look at us as a great educational country, but things are turning and you at these great universities, Columbia, Harvard, Yale, NYU, just on the East Coast alone, and the radicalism, the ideology, that’s going on there is so different. We’re not teaching our children what common sense is, what family is, what unity is, and who we should stand united with. I don’t think we should financially support these institutions.
“Our politicians also need to be held accountable; not just for what they’ve done, but what they have not done. We don’t do that. We’re not dealing with common sense. Our politicians are pandering to their bases and not thinking about what’s logical, what we need. Back when I was a youngster, and I’m 68 years old, politicians might argue on the floor of the house or the Senate, but then they’d go out and have a cup of coffee or a cigar or a dinner together and they’d talk. Now when you say to somebody ‘I’m a Republican,’ they say, ‘I’m not talking to you.’ I’ve never seen that before. Now I see that every place I go. But I think what’s important is I’m saying, ‘let me explain my philosophy, let me explain my agenda and background of where I come from, and people are listening. You need that dialogue; it’s important all around the world,” says Mike Sapraicone.
