Anyone who thinks Israel is an "apartheid state" and is losing the war hasn't been paying attention.

This week, California Governor Gavin Newsom felt the need to express his opinion after hearing the following comments by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio:

“The bottom line is this: The president determined we were not going to get hit first,” Sec. Rubio told reporters during a press conference on the conflict in Iran. “It’s that simple. We are not going to put American troops in harm’s way.”

“If you tell the president of the United States that if we don’t go first, we’re going to have more people killed and more people injured, the president’s going to go first,” Rubio added. “That’s what he did. That’s what the president will always do. He will always put the safety and security of our men and women in uniform — and of all Americans — before anything else. That’s what he did here.”

“In addition to that, this threat from Iran — they were hiding behind missiles and drones,” Rubio said. “They wanted to reach a point where you couldn’t touch them, and then they could do whatever they wanted with their nuclear program. There was no way in the world this terrorist regime was going to get nuclear weapons — not under Donald Trump’s watch.”

“There’s a general question of why the president gave the green light, and then there’s a question of why it had to happen this weekend,” prompted a reporter. “Are you saying it had to happen this weekend because of that Israeli action?”

“No,” answered Rubio definitively. “This weekend presented a unique opportunity to take joint action against this threat. We wanted this to have maximum success. We want this operation to be successful at achieving its objectives. I’ll repeat the objectives — the president laid them out yesterday. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. And therefore, it cannot have the things it was hiding behind to have a nuclear weapons program.”

Rubio gave a list: “Number one: We are going to destroy their missiles and their missile launchers. Number two: We are going to destroy their capability to make these missiles and launchers. Number three: We are going to destroy their navy. Those are the objectives. And acting this weekend gave us the highest probability of success in achieving them.”

“The U.S. attack would have happened no matter what? No matter what Israel was planning to do?” the reported prompted again. “Israel was going to act with or without us.”

“The president had already made a decision to act on the timing,” repeated Rubio. “He acted at the timing that gave us the highest chance of success, and that’s what you’re seeing play out right now — and you’ll see it in the days to come. We will systematically take apart their missile program. We will destroy their ability to sponsor terrorism. We will destroy their factories. We will destroy their navy. Those objectives are going to be met. We’re well on our way to meeting them. It will not be easy. There will be a price to pay. But that is a much lower price to pay than having a nuclear-armed Iran.”

“Listen, let me explain this in simple English. Iran is run by lunatics — religious fanatic lunatics,” Rubio went on. “They have an ambition to have nuclear weapons. They intend to develop those nuclear weapons behind a program of missiles, drones, and terrorism so that the world cannot touch them for fear of those things. This is the weakest they’ve ever been. Now is the time to go after them. The president made the decision to go after them — to take away their missiles, their navy, their drones, and their ability to make those things so they can never have a nuclear weapon. That’s why the president made this decision. It was the right decision. The world will be a safer place when these radical clerics no longer have access to these weapons. You see how they’re using them now. Imagine how they would use them a year from now if they had more of them.”

“Several Democrats criticized what you said and argued that Israel is dictating the timeline for the United States,” persisted the reporter doggedly. “Some on the right have also agreed with that. How do you respond?”

“The United States made this decision,” repeated Rubio yet again. “The president of the United States made this decision. Iran cannot have these missiles, cannot have these drones, cannot threaten the world. The president said this is the weakest they’ve ever been. If we don’t hit them now, a year from now — or a year and a half from now — no one will be able to touch them and they’ll be able to do what they want.”

“He made the decision to go,” reiterated Rubio. “He made the decision to go in a joint operation because it gave us the highest chance of success. And he made the decision to go first because he concluded we were not going to get hit first. We were not going to absorb a blow from them. He was not going to run the risk that they could attack us before we could hit them — because in addition to costing lives, it would undermine the effectiveness of our operations.”

Out of all that, Gov. Newsom extrapolated the following: “The United States was forced into this conflict by the precipitous action of Israel/Benjamin Netanyahu.”

It’s a narrative that the journalist interviewing Rubio was obviously pushing; the same statement, dressed as a question, was lobbed several times at President Trump’s Secretary of State.

It isn’t true, but like most clever untruths, partial truth gives it an air of believability.

“The issue of Bibi is interesting because he’s got his own domestic issues,” Gov. Gavin Newsom told an interviewer. “He’s trying to stay out of jail. He’s got an election coming up. He’s potentially on the ropes. He’s got folks on the hard line who want to annex the West Bank. I mean, Friedman and others are talking about it appropriately — it’s sort of an apartheid state.”

“They couldn’t even — I mean, we’re talking about regime change?” scoffed Newsom. “For two years, they haven’t even been able to solve the Hamas question in Israel. So this is — I want to be careful here — but in so many ways, that influence in the context of the conversation of where Trump ultimately landed on this is pretty self-evident.”

“Rubio may have been saying something else in the context of what he ultimately said about being pulled into some of these things, but I’ll just say this: it didn’t surprise me in this context,” Newsom added, oddly. “I don’t know if it was Napoleon or whoever said about a sword, the only thing you can’t use a sword for is sitting on it. And when you bring two aircraft carriers out there and assemble the kind of military force that Trump did over the last few weeks, it didn’t surprise me that they ultimately moved in that direction.”

“Looking down the road, do you think the United States should consider maybe rethinking our military support for Israel?” prompted Newsom’s interviewer.

“It breaks my heart, because the current leadership in Israel is walking us down that path where I don’t think you have a choice but to consider it,” answered Newsom. “To say this is in America’s interest — at a time when affordability is at crisis levels — when you had an administration that literally got elected saying this is exactly the opposite of what they would ever consider doing — the fact that we are now in a regional war, with all these proxies involved…”

“The fact that we’re in this situation, and all the grift and corruption that marks a huge part of this — that’s a real conversation we need to have,” Newsom added piously. “This ‘board of peace,’ and the piece that the Witkoff family is getting, and the piece that Kushner is getting, and the piece that Trump Jr. is getting — those are serious issues.”

Newsom’s entire premise is untrue in addition to being more than a bit of a cop out.

By blaming the conflict on Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu, a leader with few friends remaining on the American left, Gov. Newsom slyly sidesteps the wider question of Israel within the Democratic Party.

Leaving aside the fact that Israelis keep turning to Netanyahu in times of war, and peace. Leaving aside Netanyahu’s popularity within his own electorate. Also, leaving aside the fact that the current political climate in Israel is conservative and more conservative, the liberal political factions in Israel having hit a decade of unpopularity and democratic marginalization.

None of Newsom’s insights about Israel’s war on Hamas are remotely accurate. Israel hasn’t been successful in its war against Hamas?

Has Newsom not been paying attention?

The Israeli military systematically identified and destroyed every known mastermind of the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack, as promised. Every hostage, living and passed away, has been returned to Israel. Israeli intelligence somehow managed to decapitate Hezbollah leadership using that terrorist organization’s own pagers.

This fight was bound to come back to Iran in the end. Iran being the main sponsor of proxy terror in the Middle East and Persian Gulf, was ultimately behind the October 7 terrorist attack against Israel.

A scant few days after the conflict with Iran began in earnest, the entire Iranian government, including its Supreme Leader and all his chief lieutenants, are dead. Their military bases and compounds, destroyed; their military leadership, decimated and scattered.

According to early reports, the Israeli military intelligence agencies hacked every traffic camera in Tehran, for years, in order to track and eliminate the late Iranian ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Diplomatically speaking, Israel is also winning. Iran’s October 7 attack against Israel was designed to break the peace process then blossoming between Israel and its Muslim neighbors — this itself a result of Iran’s proxy terror campaign against its neighboring nations and coreligionists.

It didn’t work.

Not only does the peace and normalization process with Israel continue apace, Israel’s neighbors have now joined the conflict with Iran — on Israel’s side.

It’s hard to see what Newsom sees. If Israel can be said by any stretch of the imagination to be “losing” this war, what would winning look like?

(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)