Title: Furious About the Gaza War? Trump Is Still Far Worse for the Palestinians - U.S. News - Haaretz.com
Get out and Vote! For Trump! As a reminder for anyone who might have forgotten, Trump is the "Best Friend Israel Ever Had," and that matters a lot to this email list as I read the New Right/National Conservative wing of the Quincy Institute promote J.D. Vance, Vivek Ramaswamy, Kevin Roberts, et al. And secondarily therefore, Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, et al. Trump will "get out of the way" so they can "Finish the Job," as this email list disproportionally is so eager for!
The record shows...
First, a reminder of Trump's policies as president. It's hard to overstate this: few presidents have made more of an effort to constrain, diminish and flat-out humiliate the Palestinians. Other analysts, like Mehdi Hasan, have aptly summarized the long litany of his bad policies for Palestinians, but a quick review is in order.
He shuttered the Palestinian mission in Washington, ended U.S. funding for the UNRWA refugee agency, and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo decreed that settlements are just dandy, not at all a violation of international law. Trump also recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, not directly an anti-Palestinian move but a harbinger of what he planned to do regarding occupied territory in the West Bank.
His administration moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, effectively recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the whole place without saying so. That move devastated Palestinians and wrecked their support for the two state solution in our surveys (support on both sides dropped below the halfway mark around then – Palestinians lost hope and Israelis figured, why bother?).
All this was before the "one-sided 'deal of the century,'" said my colleague, the Palestinian pollster and political analyst Khalil Shikaki, "which gave Israel all they wanted and more." The Israeli government lost even the residual sense of pressure to return to negotiations: "When a mediator gives you more than you ask for, what do you expect?" noted Shikaki. Trump's plan was even terrible for Palestinian citizens of Israel, proposing to effectively remove them from Israel through border changes.
Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump visits The Great Commoner cafe in Dearborn, Michigan while Hamtramck mayor Amer Ghalib stands to his rightCredit: Getty Images via AFP/CHIP SOMODE
For many Arab Americans, or anyone opposed to the war in Gaza, the choice on Tuesday is excruciating.
Vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, although the Biden administration has failed to end the war, mass death and ruination of Gaza. Or vote for Donald Trump, who has promised retroactively that the war would never have happened if he had been president, but who walks, talks and governs like a racist, anti-immigrant bully. Some cannot face either option and might avoid voting – but they risk taking the blame for the outcome.
Surveys illustrate their dilemma. Two recent polls show the presidential candidates in a dead heat among Arab Americans: 45 to 43 percent in an early October YouGov survey for Arab News, with Trump in the lead. A September Zogby poll for the Arab American Institute found a nearly-identical breakdown (42 to 41 percent, in Trump's favor), compared to 59 percent who supported Joe Biden in Zogby's 2020 polls. In the YouGov poll, more respondents thought Trump would resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict better than Harris (39 to 33 percent).
But it's not only about Arab Americans who can tip the swing state of Michigan. As Shibley Telhami, a political scientist and Middle East expert at the University of Maryland reminds me, there are plenty of Democratic voters who are neither Palestinian, Arab nor Muslim, but are furious with the administration for Gaza. He noted that nearly one-fifth of them in Minnesota voted "uncommitted" in the Democratic primary, despite the state having a tiny Arab-American population.
Susan Glasser on how a second Trump presidency will be different
But the decision is upon us. And any voter who thinks the Gaza war is an important part of the choice – like the 81 percent of Arab-American voters in the Arab American Institute poll who say it's somewhat or very important to their vote – must consider the mountain of evidence that a vote for Trump would be a disaster.
In fact, there is so much evidence that it can be broken down into categories.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump talking with Arab-American restaurant owner Albert Abbas, in Dearborn, Michigan, last Friday.Credit: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
The record shows...
First, a reminder of Trump's policies as president. It's hard to overstate this: few presidents have made more of an effort to constrain, diminish and flat-out humiliate the Palestinians. Other analysts, like Mehdi Hasan, have aptly summarized the long litany of his bad policies for Palestinians, but a quick review is in order.
He shuttered the Palestinian mission in Washington, ended U.S. funding for the UNRWA refugee agency, and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo decreed that settlements are just dandy, not at all a violation of international law. Trump also recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, not directly an anti-Palestinian move but a harbinger of what he planned to do regarding occupied territory in the West Bank.
The front cover of the Arab American News, with the lead story about an endorsement of Jill Stein, in Dearborn in September.Credit: Rebecca Cook/Reuters
His administration moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, effectively recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the whole place without saying so. That move devastated Palestinians and wrecked their support for the two state solution in our surveys (support on both sides dropped below the halfway mark around then – Palestinians lost hope and Israelis figured, why bother?).
All this was before the "one-sided 'deal of the century,'" said my colleague, the Palestinian pollster and political analyst Khalil Shikaki, "which gave Israel all they wanted and more." The Israeli government lost even the residual sense of pressure to return to negotiations: "When a mediator gives you more than you ask for, what do you expect?" noted Shikaki. Trump's plan was even terrible for Palestinian citizens of Israel, proposing to effectively remove them from Israel through border changes.
Palestinians, in turn, lost it for the United States. By the end of the Trump presidency, the portion of Palestinians who thought a two-state solution was no longer viable had risen from 52 percent in 2017 to nearly two-thirds (65 percent) in our joint survey in 2020.
Pro-Palestinian and Lebanon demonstrators marching with a banner against Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, in Michigan on Saturday.Credit: Rebecca Cook/Reuters
Finally, the Abraham Accords appeared in 2020, a quixotic form of peace that was intended – at least for Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump – to circumvent the Palestinians and leave them in the stateless dustbin of history.
The fallout was a pan-Palestinian sense of abandonment and, for Hamas, fury at the possibility of future normalization deals. Israel paid the price of that rage on October 7. Palestinians are paying the price for Israel's response. It's true the war didn't start under Trump – he just piled on the kindling until the whole edifice went up in flames on someone else's (not blameless) watch.
A new Trump presidency will be slavishly devoted to Netanyahu – or the cronies in the Trump presidency will be. Netanyahu and his government want to annex the West Bank formally, or lay a cornerstone for settlements in Gaza? David Friedman and Jared Kushner will show up to the ceremonies.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin clapping as Ivanka Trump unveils an inauguration plaque during the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, May 2018.Credit: Menahem Kahana/AFP
Who supports Harris?
Next, consider all the leading voices who share precisely the same anger at the Biden administration but have nevertheless endorsed Harris and told the truth about Trump.
"When Donald Trump passed the Muslim Ban, it was the then Senator Harris who filed a bill in the Senate seeking to provide access to legal counsel for our brothers and sisters caught in [it]. Vice President Harris held the first Eid Al-Adha celebration in American history at her home, welcoming Muslim leaders from across America into her living room. This is beyond symbolism; it is an affirmation that Islam is an American religion."
Last, consider America
On the topic of Trump's attempt to ban immigration from Muslim countries, the final argument is this: Consider yourselves, Americans.
Start with Arab Americans. One of the most wrenching findings in the YouGov survey was that even as this community cracked in half over the presidential vote, the same respondents believe that racism and hate crimes against them are more likely to rise under Trump than Harris: 46 to 23 percent, respectively. Harris also leads for these voters on the question of which candidate is more sensitive to the "national needs and problems" of Arab Americans in the U.S.: 39 percent, compared to 31 percent for Trump.
Non-Arab Democratic voters who prioritize Gaza would also find a Trump administration extremely hostile to their activism at home. Republicans are not only a bulwark against any policy constraints on blank-check support for Israel – constraints that will almost certainly step up under Harris. Republicans support laws to suppress legitimate political speech calling for boycott against Israel, and engineered the resignation (ouster) of three university presidents for not being harsh enough on anti-war protesters.
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris holding a campaign event on the National Mall in Washington last week.Credit: Leah Millis/Reuters
Beyond all these specific pieces of evidence lies a simple matter of the Trumpian political agenda, versus those who care about the fate of Palestinians. Presumably, we all want Palestinians to live through the current catastrophic assault, but survival and subsistence are not enough. Palestinians have the right to self-determination, political independence, geopolitical unity in Palestine, opportunities for education, growth, a functioning economy – in short, freedom. I cannot speak for Palestinians, but my personal friends and colleagues would like a democratic Palestine too.
Trump wants to take away freedoms of Americans. He has already done so, as the majority of American women know. He wants a personal-loyalist authoritarian regime, mired in corruption and shot through with religious fundamentalist ideologues as his political allies.
If that's the kind of Palestine anti-war activists want, perhaps he's their partner. He'll be grateful for their vote for the few seconds it takes him to reinstate the ban on Muslim immigrants, or to outlaw protests for Palestine. If he does pressure Israel to reach a cease-fire, he'll use his famous art of the deal: As if Palestinians haven't paid enough already, he'll promise Israel heaven and earth to stop the war. My guess? He'll serve Palestinian statehood on a platter for Israel to carve up.
A man who disposes of democracy at home will never contribute to the political rights and freedoms of Palestinians, or anyone else.
