Even as Palestinian rights groups focus their anger on President Biden. Donald J. Trump shaped Middle East policy when he was president, fueling calls for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and Israel's annexation of the West Bank.
These policy prescriptions, expressed by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and former Ambassador to Israel David M. Friedman, represent a right-wing approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that goes beyond even the Trump administration's biased pro-Israel proposals. Suggests. For two-state solutions. In interviews with conservative Israeli publications, Trump made contradictory statements about the policies he pursues. But he said he would meet with Friedman to discuss the former ambassador's plans for Israel's annexation of the West Bank.
But rather than sounding the alarm, some Palestinian organizers say Biden is the real threat and that the Republican challenger's comments have already led to the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians. He still insists that it cannot be compared with policy.
“The fear of a second Trump term no longer resonates,” said Abed Ayoub, national executive director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which organizes Arab American and progressive voters in Michigan. Ta.
Ayoub suggested that Democrats could be forced to reconsider their stance on Israel if Trump is re-elected because activists have shunned Biden.
The ideas expressed by Friedman and Kushner raised eyebrows. At a Harvard University forum that drew widespread attention for the first time last week, Mr. Kushner, a developer who has actively pursued overseas real estate deals through connections he made while making policy decisions in the White House, said, “Gaza's water supply “The front real estate could be very valuable.” ” He also suggested that Palestinians be “removed” from the besieged territory.
“It's a bit of a disappointing situation on the ground, but from an Israeli perspective, we're going to do our best to clean it up after we remove our people,” Kushner said. He said there was a possibility of relocating Palestinian civilians to the arid Negev desert in southern Israel.
Over the weekend, Friedman criticized Vice President Kamala Harris on social media for saying that the 1.5 million Palestinians sheltered in the southern Gaza city of Rafah have nowhere else to go, echoing Kushner's calls for his expulsion. It seems like I did. If Israel attacks.
Friedman suggested that Palestinians in Gaza could relocate at any time.
“She 'studyed the map' and concluded that the people of Rafah had nowhere to go.” Friedman writes: “It must have been a very small map. It obviously excluded Egypt and other Arab countries.”
Friedman later responded to accusations from Palestinian rights activists, writing that he “advocates for temporarily removing civilians from danger during wars.”
“It looks like they want them to suffer in order to maintain their anti-Israel narrative,” Friedman said. said on social media.
Meanwhile, Mr. Friedman has been promoting his “Future of Judea and Samaria” plan, using Biblical terminology for the West Bank and asserting Israel's right to annex the territory, a long-standing U.S. Under the policy, it claims that its territory should occupy the largest portion. ultimately a sovereign state of Palestine. The West Bank has been under military occupation since his 1967.
Mr. Friedman announced his plan last month at a conference of national religious broadcasters in Nashville, calling Mr. Biden's new push for a two-state solution with Israel and Palestine side by side “a dead letter.” ” he called.
Both the Biden campaign and the White House responded cautiously to the sensitive issue of Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza and its aftermath. White House aides reiterated that the president rejected the forced removal of Palestinians from Gaza, the rebuilding of Israeli settlements in the area, and the “shrinking” of the Gaza border. And he said he would continue to seek Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza.
“President Biden shares the goal of ending violence and a just and lasting peace in the Middle East,” campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said in a statement.
Trump campaign spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt said the Republican presidential candidate did not intend to signal a change in policy with his comments about Israel Hayom, in which he called for Israel to “end the war” and then He urged them to pursue some form of peace. .
“I fully support Israel's right to defend itself and eliminate the threat of terrorism,” Levitt said in a statement. “He also believes that Israel's interests are best served by completing this mission as quickly, decisively and humanely as possible so that peace and stability can be restored to the region.”
The overall tone of President Trump's interview with Israel Hayom was confusing and contradictory. In addition to calling on Israel to “finish the job” in the Gaza Strip, he also appeared to criticize Israeli propaganda efforts. “Every night I watched buildings rain down on people,” he said, suggesting such footage should not have been disseminated.
These contradictions were not lost on Palestinian activists either. “He said Israel should be careful, not because it's killing Palestinians, but because it's losing diplomatic support,” said Tarek Khalil, Chicago director of American Muslims for Palestine. Ta.
But activists involved in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's full push to withdraw U.S. military aid to the Israeli government say they won't be forced to support Biden's re-election because of Trump's rhetoric. He said no.
“It is noteworthy that even Mr. Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu's strongest ally in the world, believes that Israel is losing public opinion in the world and in the United States,” he said, coordinating communications with Palestinian rights activists. Waleed Shahid says. “On the campaign trail, even if President Trump were to do the same, Biden would face even more scrutiny from voters in the Gaza Strip, as he was the president who supplied arms for a disastrous war.”
Khalil was more candid about his ambivalence toward Trump, saying, “Just because his rhetoric is more extreme doesn't mean he's worse.” “Trump’s words are ugly, but he is the one enabling genocide, Biden.”
Like Ayoub, Khalil believes that Biden's oft-repeated framework (the November election will be a choice between two candidates rather than a referendum) is about Arab American voters and their allies. He said that he would not be able to gain the support of young progressives. .
“You can't use the opposition to undermine what you've done,” Khalil said.
That sentiment is definitely bad news for Biden, who is contesting votes in Michigan, a key battleground state with a large Arab-American population. His decision on Monday to have the UN Security Council approve his call for a binding ceasefire in Gaza appears to have done nothing to sway his opposition.
Ayoub said the Biden administration's abstention from voting was “obviously a change in policy.”
“But at the same time, they're still sending weapons, they're still financing them, they're still doing a lot of things that contribute to the genocide,” he added.
White House officials said Tuesday that the administration is working to bring humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, including pressuring the governments of Israel and Egypt to open border crossings and forcing the resumption of fuel shipments to the Strip. We reviewed in detail the measures taken.
But none of that has proven persuasive as Israel presses ahead with a military operation to destroy Hamas, the perpetrators of the October 7 killing of about 1,200 Israelis.
Ayoub said Trump and Biden are “not the only binary choice” and that “there is no obligation for Palestinian rights activists or peace activists to choose between those two options.” . If the byproduct of our choice is another Trump administration, Democrats need to consider what they did in the lead-up to the next election. ”
Jonathan Swan Contributed to the report.