Republican’s ‘nuke Gaza’ comment ‘a clear call to genocide’

A US Republican congressman has provoked outrage after suggesting nuclear weapons should be dropped on Gaza ‘like Nagasaki and Hiroshima’.

US Representative Tim Walberg could find his comments about the war in Gaza backfire at the ballot box. Picture: AFP

A US Republican congressman has provoked outrage after suggesting nuclear weapons should be dropped on Gaza “like Nagasaki and Hiroshima”.

Tim Walberg, a representative for Michigan, was speaking at a gathering with constituents. Responding to a question about President Joe Biden’s plan to build a pontoon off Gaza’s coast to boost the flow of aid, Mr Walberg said the US “shouldn’t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid”. Referencing the two Japanese cities on which the US dropped atomic bombs at the end of World War II, he said “it should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick.”

Video of the incident spread on social media and the Council on American-Islamic Relations said it was a “clear call to genocide”. A spokesman for Mr Walberg said the comments were “not a literal statement, but a metaphor to show urgency to defeat these enemies swiftly”.

Mr Walberg is seeking re-election in November and could find his comments backfire at the ballot box, given Michigan has one of the largest Muslim populations in the US. At the Democratic presidential primary election in February more than 100,000 Michigan voters marked their ballots “uncommitted” to signal fury at Mr Biden’s refusal to demand a permanent ceasefire.

The Times