Donald Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon has described himself as a proud 'Christian Zionist' at a pro-Israel event in New York.
Bannon was among a host of current and ex-advisers to the President attending the Zionist Organisation of America's (ZOA) annual dinner including the Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, the former press secretary Sean Spicer and Sebastian Gorka, an old adviser to Trump with ties to the Hungarian far-right.
'I am not a moderate, I'm a fighter,' Bannon said, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 'And that's why I'm proud to stand with the state of Israel. That's why I'm proud to be a Christian Zionist.'
Bannon is chair of the hard-right media outlet Brietbart which he described as 'the platform for the alt-right'.
The ZOA, a right-wing pro-Israel outfit, also heard from Friedman who lambasted the Obama administration's approach to Israel and praised Trump's attitude.
'We came into office on the heels of perhaps the greatest betrayal of Israel by a sitting president in American history,' Friedman said, referring to the December 2016 United Nations Security Council resolution that condemned Israeli West Bank settlements which the US allowed to pass by abstaining. 'I hope you agree with me that we have turned a page since the dark days of last December. Gone are the days when the United Nations bashes Israel with impunity.'
Friedman said the President agrees with Israel's view of the Iran Nuclear Deal as being dangerous for its security as he added that Trump was also supportive of Israeli settlements although he refused to use that word.
'The president recognises the critical importance that Judea and Samaria never become the failed experiment that we saw in the Gaza Strip,' Friedman said, using a term for the West Bank favoured by Israel's right. 'And perhaps most importantly, you will never hear the president make the case, as his predecessor did, that there is some symmetrical relationship between, let's say, building a house in the Samarian village of Halamish and the brutal murder of a father, son and a daughter in Halamish at a Shabbat table.'
