Trump offered up no policies, and a heavy dose of fatalism, in response to a straightforward question about the Israel-Hamas war
People watch the ABC News presidential debate between Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump. Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images
Senior ColumnistRob Eshman
FORWARD
September 11, 2024
Why did former President Donald Trump make the outrageous claim, in Tuesday night’s debate, that Vice President Kamala Harris hates Arabs?
After the moderator asked both candidates how they would break the impasse in ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, Harris answered first, emphasizing that Hamas was the initial aggressor, recounting the horror of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and asserting Israel’s right to defend itself. The answer, she continued, is to keep working toward a ceasefire deal that frees the hostages, eventually reaching a solution that gives the Israelis security and the Palestinians self-determination via a two state solution. She cribbed the careful formulation from her Democratic National Convention address — and President Joe Biden’s plan. But if it ain’t broke… you know the rest.
Former President Donald Trump, on the other hand, didn’t answer the moderator’s very precise question. Instead, he accused Harris of hating Israel, and prophesied that two years into a Harris presidency, Israel will no longer exist. He threw in, for good measure, the baseless claim that Harris also hates Arabs.
If you were looking for a serious discussion on America’s policy on a war that has exacted such a huge toll, you came to the wrong debate. What you got instead was a telling look at Trump’s fears heading into this final stretch of the campaign — about the support he needs to win an essential swing state, and the obstacles he faces in doing so.
Which raises the question: Why didn’t Trump take the opportunity to score points with his pro-Israel supporters?
Related‘She hates Israel’ Trump says of Harris during debate
Trump had an easy route forward. He could have come to the defense of Israel’s conduct in the war. He could have questioned Harris’s assertion that more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, numbers supplied by the Hamas-run Ministry of Health that many in the pro-Israel camp dispute. (That argument is misguided — the Israel intelligence services also use the Hamas-provided numbers — but can still be effective.)
He could have boasted of the actions he took in support of Israel while in office: moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, signing the Abraham Accords, pulling the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal, defending Israel’s settlement policies in the occupied West Bank.
These are positions and policies adored by most of Trump’s Jewish supporters — as last week’s gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition made clear — not to mention his single largest donor, Dr. Miriam Adelson. Trump, who rarely misses an opportunity to proclaim his achievements, blew past a clear one.
Why? One answer is Michigan.
Trump watchers have long said that the former president is at core still a real estate salesman who will say what he needs to say to win the room and close the deal. In this case, the deal he needs to close is Michigan.
There are 105,000 Jews in Michigan, an absolutely crucial swing state, and two-thirds of the state’s Jewish electorate usually votes Democrat. The latest national poll of Jews shows 72% of them lean toward Harris, which means Jews are unlikely to swing Michigan to Trump.
But the state, which President Joe Biden won in 2020 by 154,000 votes, has also has 200,000 registered voters who are Muslim. They are largely unhappy with Biden’s support for Israel. Their vote may be in play.
That explains Trump’s reluctance to hammer home his pro-Israel message — and one of the most bizarre statements of the night, Trump’s baseless claim that Harris “ hates the Arab population.”
Trump didn’t need to worry about losing American Jews. He needed to win over American Muslims and Arabs. He’s selling: Will they buy it?
It would take a willful disregard of Trump’s actual policy record and public statements.
When he was president, Trump rejected Palestinian input into his Middle East peace plan, which cut off the possibility of a Palestinian state. He kept the Palestinians out of the Abraham Accords as well, assuming that all Israel had to do was make trade deals with Dubai and everything would be fine. (Spoiler alert: It didn’t work out that way.) When he opened the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, he closed the U.S. mission to Palestine there.
The man who accused Harris of hating Arabs passed, in 2017, an immigration policy that his aides proudly called a “Muslim ban,” prohibiting entry into the U.S. from six Muslim majority countries.
Under Trump, Islamophobia (as well as antisemitism) increased. Several studies tie the rise in hate crimes to Trump’s rhetoric.
“He was never seen mentioning the contributions of Muslims toward the betterment and improvement of the United States,” wrote the authors of one study. “He always used language to paint them as terrorists, religious extremists, and called them anti-democratic bodies hurting America.”
Or, as Trump told Anderson Cooper on CNN in 2016, “I think Islam hates us.”
You heard none of that from Debate Trump, who was dead set on appealing to Michigan’s Muslim voters. But it’s not because he had a change of heart. His former ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, recently suggested that Trump will redirect U.S. aid earmarked to help Palestinians to instead help fund Israel’s annexation of the West Bank. Campaigning in Iowa last summer, Trump said he would bring the Muslim travel ban back, but “even bigger.”
A Jewish journalism outlet may not be the usual place to review Trump’s record for Arab American voters. But what a second Trump administration would be for Palestinians and Arab Americans is connected to what it means for the future of Israeli democracy and American Jews.
A United States that enables Israel to swallow the West Bank while denying its Palestinian residents equal rights will doom the Jewish state to an apartheid future. An administration that engages in hateful rhetoric and faith-based immigration bans makes our own country less safe for all minorities.
That’s the reality behind Trump’s sales pitch and his groundless Harris-hates-Arabs closer.
The question is, will Michigan’s Arab American voters buy it?
Related opinion Trump really hates the Jews who won’t vote for him — is that different from being antisemitic?
Rob Eshman is a senior columnist for the Forward. Follow him on Instagram @foodaism and Twitter @foodaism or email eshman@forward.com.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward. Discover more perspectives in Opinion. To contact Opinion authors, email opinion@forward.com.
Why did former President Donald Trump make the outrageous claim, in Tuesday night’s debate, that Vice President Kamala Harris hates Arabs?
After the moderator asked both candidates how they would break the impasse in ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, Harris answered first, emphasizing that Hamas was the initial aggressor, recounting the horror of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and asserting Israel’s right to defend itself. The answer, she continued, is to keep working toward a ceasefire deal that frees the hostages, eventually reaching a solution that gives the Israelis security and the Palestinians self-determination via a two state solution. She cribbed the careful formulation from her Democratic National Convention address — and President Joe Biden’s plan. But if it ain’t broke… you know the rest.
Former President Donald Trump, on the other hand, didn’t answer the moderator’s very precise question. Instead, he accused Harris of hating Israel, and prophesied that two years into a Harris presidency, Israel will no longer exist. He threw in, for good measure, the baseless claim that Harris also hates Arabs.
If you were looking for a serious discussion on America’s policy on a war that has exacted such a huge toll, you came to the wrong debate. What you got instead was a telling look at Trump’s fears heading into this final stretch of the campaign — about the support he needs to win an essential swing state, and the obstacles he faces in doing so.
Which raises the question: Why didn’t Trump take the opportunity to score points with his pro-Israel supporters?
Related‘She hates Israel’ Trump says of Harris during debate
Trump had an easy route forward. He could have come to the defense of Israel’s conduct in the war. He could have questioned Harris’s assertion that more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, numbers supplied by the Hamas-run Ministry of Health that many in the pro-Israel camp dispute. (That argument is misguided — the Israel intelligence services also use the Hamas-provided numbers — but can still be effective.)
He could have boasted of the actions he took in support of Israel while in office: moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, signing the Abraham Accords, pulling the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal, defending Israel’s settlement policies in the occupied West Bank.
These are positions and policies adored by most of Trump’s Jewish supporters — as last week’s gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition made clear — not to mention his single largest donor, Dr. Miriam Adelson. Trump, who rarely misses an opportunity to proclaim his achievements, blew past a clear one.
Why? One answer is Michigan.
Trump watchers have long said that the former president is at core still a real estate salesman who will say what he needs to say to win the room and close the deal. In this case, the deal he needs to close is Michigan.
There are 105,000 Jews in Michigan, an absolutely crucial swing state, and two-thirds of the state’s Jewish electorate usually votes Democrat. The latest national poll of Jews shows 72% of them lean toward Harris, which means Jews are unlikely to swing Michigan to Trump.
But the state, which President Joe Biden won in 2020 by 154,000 votes, has also has 200,000 registered voters who are Muslim. They are largely unhappy with Biden’s support for Israel. Their vote may be in play.
That explains Trump’s reluctance to hammer home his pro-Israel message — and one of the most bizarre statements of the night, Trump’s baseless claim that Harris “ hates the Arab population.”
Trump didn’t need to worry about losing American Jews. He needed to win over American Muslims and Arabs. He’s selling: Will they buy it?
It would take a willful disregard of Trump’s actual policy record and public statements.
When he was president, Trump rejected Palestinian input into his Middle East peace plan, which cut off the possibility of a Palestinian state. He kept the Palestinians out of the Abraham Accords as well, assuming that all Israel had to do was make trade deals with Dubai and everything would be fine. (Spoiler alert: It didn’t work out that way.) When he opened the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, he closed the U.S. mission to Palestine there.
The man who accused Harris of hating Arabs passed, in 2017, an immigration policy that his aides proudly called a “Muslim ban,” prohibiting entry into the U.S. from six Muslim majority countries.
Under Trump, Islamophobia (as well as antisemitism) increased. Several studies tie the rise in hate crimes to Trump’s rhetoric.
“He was never seen mentioning the contributions of Muslims toward the betterment and improvement of the United States,” wrote the authors of one study. “He always used language to paint them as terrorists, religious extremists, and called them anti-democratic bodies hurting America.”
Or, as Trump told Anderson Cooper on CNN in 2016, “I think Islam hates us.”
You heard none of that from Debate Trump, who was dead set on appealing to Michigan’s Muslim voters. But it’s not because he had a change of heart. His former ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, recently suggested that Trump will redirect U.S. aid earmarked to help Palestinians to instead help fund Israel’s annexation of the West Bank. Campaigning in Iowa last summer, Trump said he would bring the Muslim travel ban back, but “even bigger.”
A Jewish journalism outlet may not be the usual place to review Trump’s record for Arab American voters. But what a second Trump administration would be for Palestinians and Arab Americans is connected to what it means for the future of Israeli democracy and American Jews.
A United States that enables Israel to swallow the West Bank while denying its Palestinian residents equal rights will doom the Jewish state to an apartheid future. An administration that engages in hateful rhetoric and faith-based immigration bans makes our own country less safe for all minorities.
That’s the reality behind Trump’s sales pitch and his groundless Harris-hates-Arabs closer.
The question is, will Michigan’s Arab American voters buy it?
Related opinion Trump really hates the Jews who won’t vote for him — is that different from being antisemitic?
Rob Eshman is a senior columnist for the Forward. Follow him on Instagram @foodaism and Twitter @foodaism or email eshman@forward.com.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward. Discover more perspectives in Opinion. To contact Opinion authors, email opinion@forward.com.
Harris calls for Gaza war to end ‘immediately’ and Trump says Israel ‘will not exist’ if he loses
Harris asked to explain her repeated claims that Israel has the right to defend itself, but also that “it matters how” Israel conducts the war.
By Ron Kampeas
Harris asked to explain her repeated claims that Israel has the right to defend itself, but also that “it matters how” Israel conducts the war.
By Ron Kampeas
September 11, 2024
In the first debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, Harris said Israel’s fight against Hamas was justified but that the war “must end immediately,” in part because of how many Palestinians have been killed.
Trump predicted that if Harris wins, Israel would disappear “within two years.”
Moderators at the debate on Tuesday night in Philadelphia asked Harris to explain her repeated claims that Israel has the right to defend itself, but also that “it matters how” Israel conducts the war.
Harris made the same arguments she has in the past, saying she would ensure Israel could defend itself and that she believed Hamas was to blame for the war.
“Let’s understand how we got here. On Oct. 7, Hamas, a terrorist organisation, slaughtered 1,200 Israelis, many of them young people who were simply attending a concert, women were horribly raped, and so absolutely I said then, I say now, Israel has a right to defend itself. We would,” she said.
She continued, “How it does so matters, because it is also true far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed — children, mothers. What we know is that this war must end. It must end immediately.”
She did not lay out her own plan to end the war, instead leaning into the efforts of President Joe Biden to bring about a hostage release deal before he leaves office. Hamas and Israel have been negotiating for months over a deal that has not materialized, and hopes have recently dimmed that the sides will come to an agreement in the near future.
“The way it will end is we need a ceasefire deal, and we need the hostages out,” she said. “And so we will continue to work around the clock on that.”
As the Democratic nominee, Harris has had to contend with two Democratic constituencies, supportive and critical of Israel, that are at odds with each other, and has sought to stick to Biden’s policies of backing Israel while conveying sympathy for the mounting Palestinian casualties. She called for Palestinian statehood, which the current Israeli government forcefully rejects.
“We must chart a course for a two-state solution, and in that solution, there must be security for the Israeli people and Israel, and an equal measure for the Palestinians,” she said. “But the one thing I will assure you always: I will always give Israel the ability to defend itself, in particular as it relates to Iran, and any threat that Iran and its proxies pose to Israel.”
Trump, as he has before, claimed the Oct. 7 attack would not have happened on his watch because of sanctions he placed on Iran, which funds the terror group. He said Iran was “broke under Donald Trump” and unable to fund its other proxies including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, both of which have attacked Israel. About the war, he said, “I will get that settled, and fast,” though he did not elaborate.
He also mentioned that Harris did not attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress this summer, instead speaking at an event in Indiana. Netanyahu met with both candidates later in the week.
On Tuesday, Trump made a new claim: that Israel would disappear in two years if Harris were elected.
“She hates Israel,” he said. “If she’s president, I believe that Israel will not exist within two years from now, and I’ve been pretty good at predictions, and I hope I’m wrong about that one.”
He also sought to appeal to Harris’ perceived vulnerabilities among Arab Americans who have been critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza.
“At the same time, in her own way, she hates the Arab population, because the whole place is going to get blown up, Arabs, Jewish people, Israel will be gone,” he said.
Harris shot back that she does not hate Israel. “Oh, that’s absolutely not true. I have, my entire career and life, supported Israel and the Israeli people,” Harris said. “He knows that.”
In another section of the debate, about the pro-Trump riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Harris brought up Trump’s remarks after the deadly neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. President Joe Biden repeatedly cited the Charlottesville rally and Trump’s response as the reason he ran for president in 2020.
“Let’s remember Charlottesville, where there was a mob of people carrying tiki torches, spewing antisemitic hate, and what did the president then, at the time, say? There were fine people on each side,” she said. She also brought up something Trump said in a debate with Biden in 2020, where he told the Proud Boys, a far-right group, to “stand back and stand by.”
Trump said that the “very fine people” claim had been “debunked.” Trump backers have pointed out that in the same press conference where he said there were “very fine people on both sides,” he also condemned neo-Nazis — suggesting that the “fine people” remark was referring to peaceful protesters who wanted to preserve Confederate statues and who were marching alongside the extremists. The vast majority of protesters at the rally were white supremacists and neo-Nazis.
In the first debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, Harris said Israel’s fight against Hamas was justified but that the war “must end immediately,” in part because of how many Palestinians have been killed.
Trump predicted that if Harris wins, Israel would disappear “within two years.”
Moderators at the debate on Tuesday night in Philadelphia asked Harris to explain her repeated claims that Israel has the right to defend itself, but also that “it matters how” Israel conducts the war.
Harris made the same arguments she has in the past, saying she would ensure Israel could defend itself and that she believed Hamas was to blame for the war.
“Let’s understand how we got here. On Oct. 7, Hamas, a terrorist organisation, slaughtered 1,200 Israelis, many of them young people who were simply attending a concert, women were horribly raped, and so absolutely I said then, I say now, Israel has a right to defend itself. We would,” she said.
She continued, “How it does so matters, because it is also true far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed — children, mothers. What we know is that this war must end. It must end immediately.”
She did not lay out her own plan to end the war, instead leaning into the efforts of President Joe Biden to bring about a hostage release deal before he leaves office. Hamas and Israel have been negotiating for months over a deal that has not materialized, and hopes have recently dimmed that the sides will come to an agreement in the near future.
“The way it will end is we need a ceasefire deal, and we need the hostages out,” she said. “And so we will continue to work around the clock on that.”
As the Democratic nominee, Harris has had to contend with two Democratic constituencies, supportive and critical of Israel, that are at odds with each other, and has sought to stick to Biden’s policies of backing Israel while conveying sympathy for the mounting Palestinian casualties. She called for Palestinian statehood, which the current Israeli government forcefully rejects.
“We must chart a course for a two-state solution, and in that solution, there must be security for the Israeli people and Israel, and an equal measure for the Palestinians,” she said. “But the one thing I will assure you always: I will always give Israel the ability to defend itself, in particular as it relates to Iran, and any threat that Iran and its proxies pose to Israel.”
Trump, as he has before, claimed the Oct. 7 attack would not have happened on his watch because of sanctions he placed on Iran, which funds the terror group. He said Iran was “broke under Donald Trump” and unable to fund its other proxies including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, both of which have attacked Israel. About the war, he said, “I will get that settled, and fast,” though he did not elaborate.
He also mentioned that Harris did not attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress this summer, instead speaking at an event in Indiana. Netanyahu met with both candidates later in the week.
On Tuesday, Trump made a new claim: that Israel would disappear in two years if Harris were elected.
“She hates Israel,” he said. “If she’s president, I believe that Israel will not exist within two years from now, and I’ve been pretty good at predictions, and I hope I’m wrong about that one.”
He also sought to appeal to Harris’ perceived vulnerabilities among Arab Americans who have been critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza.
“At the same time, in her own way, she hates the Arab population, because the whole place is going to get blown up, Arabs, Jewish people, Israel will be gone,” he said.
Harris shot back that she does not hate Israel. “Oh, that’s absolutely not true. I have, my entire career and life, supported Israel and the Israeli people,” Harris said. “He knows that.”
In another section of the debate, about the pro-Trump riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Harris brought up Trump’s remarks after the deadly neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. President Joe Biden repeatedly cited the Charlottesville rally and Trump’s response as the reason he ran for president in 2020.
“Let’s remember Charlottesville, where there was a mob of people carrying tiki torches, spewing antisemitic hate, and what did the president then, at the time, say? There were fine people on each side,” she said. She also brought up something Trump said in a debate with Biden in 2020, where he told the Proud Boys, a far-right group, to “stand back and stand by.”
Trump said that the “very fine people” claim had been “debunked.” Trump backers have pointed out that in the same press conference where he said there were “very fine people on both sides,” he also condemned neo-Nazis — suggesting that the “fine people” remark was referring to peaceful protesters who wanted to preserve Confederate statues and who were marching alongside the extremists. The vast majority of protesters at the rally were white supremacists and neo-Nazis.
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