Israel has become associated with “genocide” among American students, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said.

“For the first time since the establishment of the State of Israel, among the American public, Israel has become a negative brand,” Bennett said in a recent interview.

“If you ask an American student, ‘Israel — what comes to mind?’ They say genocide. That’s the situation,” Bennett said in an interview on the “Itai Segal Podcast” on the All-in platform.

Drawing a comparison with how countries are commonly associated with symbols, he added: “You say Italy — ‘pasta, spaghetti.’ You say Israel — ‘baby killers.’”

Bennett rejected that perception, saying: “Obviously, that isn’t true, and it isn’t fair, but that is the situation.”

Read: Israel ‘deliberately targeting’ Gaza children

He also blamed part of the shift in public opinion on what he described as Qatar’s influence in the US.

“Part of this is because we allowed Qatar to operate and build influence for 25 years,” Bennett said.

The interview comes as Israel faces growing international criticism over its war on Gaza and the worsening humanitarian situation in the enclave.

Last October, a US-backed ceasefire agreement went into effect in the Gaza Strip.

Since then, however, repeated Israeli truce violations have killed more than 1,300 Palestinians across the enclave and have left more than 4,300 others injured.

Hundreds of bodies of slain Palestinians, meanwhile, have been pulled from under the rubble of destroyed infrastructure.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began its genocidal war on the coastal strip in October 2023.

Additionally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been wanted since 2024 by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israeli rabbi calls for Palestinians’ expulsion from occupied West Bank

An Israeli rabbi has called for Palestinians to be expelled from the occupied West Bank, claiming that non-Jews have no national rights in what he described as the “land of Israel.”

In footage published on Sunday by Al Jazeera English, Menachem Ben Shahar is heard telling a group that Arabs who refuse to accept Jewish sovereignty should leave the territory.

Read more: Killing of Palestinian children and teens by Israel surges in West Bank

Ben Shahar also said that even a 5-year-old child “loses his right to exist” if the child’s parents are considered “enemies,” according to the broadcaster.

The date and precise location of the encounter were not immediately clear.

Israeli police detained and questioned Ben Shahar in October 2025 on suspicion of spreading extremist messages and inciting violence against Palestinians, according to Israeli media. He had previously called for the Palestinian town of Huwara to be “wiped out.”

All Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law. The International Court of Justice said in a July 2024 advisory opinion that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and should end “as rapidly as possible.”