Elon Musk visited Israel on Monday and toured the ruins of Kibbutz Kfar Aza with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the billionaire businessman and investor said he wants to help in the region.
Musk visited Kfar Aza, a community a mile from the Gaza border where nearly 20% of residents were killed or kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7, when terrorists invaded Israel and killed about 1,200 people and kidnapped approximately 240 others.
His visit comes after the White House criticized him earlier this month for engaging on X, formerly Twitter, with a post they deemed antisemitic. Orthodox Jewish commentator Ben Shapiro defended Musk's comments. Last week, Musk sued the watchdog Media Matters for saying that X ads appeared next to antisemitic content.
While in Israel, Musk watched a short film of the massacre, which included footage from Hamas terrorists perpetrating the acts.
"It’s one thing, obviously, if civilians die accidentally, but it’s another thing to revel in the joy of killing civilians," Musk said during a livestreamed conversation with Netanyahu on X. "That’s evil."
Musk also expressed a commitment to helping rebuild the region, without Hamas.
"I'd like to help as well. I think it's important to pair a firmness in taking out the terrorists, those who wish, intent on murder, and those who wish at the same time to remain, which is also what happened in Germany and Japan," Musk said, referring to how the allies rebuilt Germany and Japan after defeating them in World War II.
He also said the current situation is "quite a rare thing in history. Usually the victor pillages the loser, and if you look after World War I, the Treaty of Versailles was a big mistake."
The treaty forced Germany to pay heavy reparations to the allies after World War I, and some historians cite it as a major cause of World War II.
Both Netanyahu and Musk expressed hope that Gaza could be rebuilt and deradicalized after the war is over.
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