Trump, in the Republican Party platform, has pledged to “seek peace in the Middle East.” Trump’s son-in-law and former senior adviser, Jared Kushner, reportedly is still encouraging Saudi Arabia’s buy-in to the accords, something Biden also pushed hard for prior to the Oct. 7 attack.
In his interview with Al Arabiya, Trump predicted that he would bring Iran into the Abraham Accords along with at least a dozen other countries — something that, if it were to happen, would entail a major realignment in which the top regional adversary of Israel and the United States becomes an ally. Trump did not detail how that shift would occur.
“I think we would have had something. I think we would add something very special, we’ll still have something,” Trump told Al Arabiya.
Palestinian statehood
Neither mentions the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu’s government has rejected the possibility of a Palestinian state, particularly since the Oct. 7 attack. And that outcome — once a bipartisan aspiration in Washington — is also absent from Trump and Harris’ speeches.
Harris does not mention “two states” or Palestinian statehood in her speeches, sticking to the vaguer formulation of “self-determination.” But Bash signaled that two states is still the preferred solution.
“American foreign policy has not changed with respect to our interests in the Middle East,” he said.
Trump has depicted his sidelining of the Palestinians as one of the triumphs of his presidency. He has also boasted of shutting down the Palestinian mission to Washington and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, actions reviled by Palestinian leaders. The peace proposal he unveiled in 2020 left Israeli West Bank settlements intact — and was dismissed out of hand by Palestinian leaders.
“I defunded the Palestinian Authority and choked off all of the money to Hamas, don’t forget, nobody ever did that,” he said last month at the Israeli American Council conference. (US funds never reached Hamas.)
Trump, though, remains unpredictable: He rattled Netanyahu in July when he publicly thanked Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for wishing him a full recovery from his attempted assassination. Shortly afterward, he had a warm meeting with Netanyahu.
Harris has rattled Israel supporters with her nods toward pro-Palestinian activists…
Harris’ sympathy for the right of pro-Palestinian protesters to speak out at her events can unsettle pro-Israel activists — and has provided attack fodder for the Trump campaign.
This week, speaking in Milwaukee, protesters challenged her to call Israel’s actions a “genocide.” She would not, but repeatedly said that she wanted a ceasefire. After security escorted out the protesters, she told her supporters, “What he’s talking about, it’s real” and “I respect his voice.”
That statement set off a firestorm among Republicans, who accused her of confirming that she believed Israel was committing genocide.
Her campaign told Israeli media that she did not believe Israel was committing genocide. “She didn’t agree with defining the war as a genocide, and she has not expressed such a stance in the past, as this is not her position,” an official said. The official characterized her words as “sympathy for the genuine feelings that the issue evokes in many people.”
Trump supporters have highlighted other instances where Harris appeared to express understanding of Israel’s opponents. And since last Oct. 7, they’ve made a point of noting that public protests against Israel generally come from the left, including on college campuses.
“You have the Democratic nominee who has given an interview saying she really understands where the anti-Israel, antisemitic protesters on campuses are coming from,” said Richard Goldberg, who served on the NSC under Trump. “You have the Republican nominee, the former president, saying he’s going to deport those people who are not American citizens, who are rabble rousing on college campuses. If you have children who are going to college in college, grandchildren, this contrast could not be starker.”
…and Trump has worried the pro-Israel crowd with his move toward isolationism.
Since leaving office, Trump has grown closer to isolationists. His running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, opposes assistance to Ukraine,and held up an Israel funding bill because it had a Ukraine component.
It is not a comfort to traditional conservative pro-Israel Republicans that Vance and others insist their opposition to foreign defense funding does not extend to Israel, noting that, for example, Russia and China both have links to Iran. And there are isolationists close to Trump who don’t support continued aid to Israel, most prominently Tucker Carlson, the conservative talk show host.
Twenty-one Republicans in Congress, including some of Trump’s most ardent backers, opposed emergency funding for Israel this year. In a post on his social network in February, Trump proposed loans instead of direct assistance to other countries; he did not name Israel specifically.
Goldberg, the former Trump NSC staffer, acknowledged that it is hard to anticipate where Trump will end up. “If anybody says they’re going to predict Donald Trump, they should get out of foreign policy, get out of the media, get out of any business,” he said in an interview this summer at the Republican convention.
Still, he noted that Trump had the final word in shaping the Republican Party platform, which pledged to “stand with Israel, and seek peace in the Middle East” and to “rebuild our Alliance Network in the Region to ensure a future of Peace, Stability, and Prosperity.”
Harris and her surrogates have portrayed her as a defender of the United States’ traditional commitment to international alliances. Like Biden, her supporters say, she is committed to the continuation of defense assistance to Israel — despite calls from some Democrats to condition or end the aid.
“As vice president, Kamala Harris has been a strong supporter of military assistance for Israel,” Bash said. “And I don’t foresee that changing.”
This article was originally published at www.jpost.com
