President Joe Biden and presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump were asked about Israel’s assault on Gaza during Thursday night’s distressing debate.
Biden insisted that Hamas had been “greatly weakened” and said the group should be eliminated, but added that Israel “had to be careful” about dropping large bombs in heavily populated areas.
He also said that parties were nearing a ceasefire as a result of a three-phase plan.
“The first stage is trade the hostages for a cease-fire,” said Biden. “Second phase is a cease-fire with additional conditions. The third phase is for the end of the war. The only one who wants the war to continue is Hamas. They’re the only one still holding out.”
“Israel is the one. And you should let them go and let them go finish the job. He doesn’t want to do it,” responded Trump. “He’s become like a Palestinian, but they don’t like him because he’s a very bad Palestinian. He’s a weak one.”
“I’ve never heard so much foolishness,” said Biden.
“A US president just turned ‘Palestinian’ into a slur to attack another US president,” tweeted Mondoweiss Culture Editor Mohammed El-Kurd. “‘Palestinian’ was used as a slur against the person funding and enabling the genocide of the Palestinian People…. Ok.”
“Trump just throwing around ‘Palestinian’ as a pejorative,” said Zeteo’s Mehdi Hasan. “Brazen anti-Palestinian racism has been normalized in America.”
“Trump just called Biden a Palestinian… ‘a bad one’,” wrote professor and author Marc Lamont Hill. “So many things are wrong and gross and despicable about this statement…”
Trump’s comment occurred amid a series of foreign policy questions, during a debate that was marked by Biden appearing incredibly weak and incoherent and Trump seeming incredibly unhinged.
Biden touted his support for Israel, which has led to the deaths of nearly 40,000 people and the utter destruction of Gaza, while Trump insisted the October 7th attack wouldn’t have happened if he had still been president.
“Israel would have never been invaded in a million years by Hamas,” said Trump. “You know why? Because Iran was broke with me.”
“I wouldn’t let anybody do business with them,” he explained. “They ran out of money. They were broke. They had no money for Hamas. They had no money for anything. No money for terror. That’s why you had no terror at all during my administration. This place, the whole world, is blowing up under him.”
Trump returned to the subject during his closing remarks. “We didn’t stop Israel – it was such a horrible thing, it would have never happened, it should have never happened,” he told viewers. “Iran was broke. Anybody who did business with Iran, including China, couldn’t do business with the United States. They all passed. Iran was broke, they had no money for Hamas or Hezbollah, for terror. No money whatsoever.”
Trump also said that the recent Gaza protests were a thousand times worse than the white supremacist rallies that took place in Charlottesville during 2017.
“We have the Palestinians and everybody else rioting all over the place,” he said. “You talk about Charlottesville – this is a hundred times, a thousand times Charlottesville. The whole country is exploding because of you, because they don’t respect you.”
Trump recently told a group of Jewish donors that he would crack down on the Palestine solidarity movement if elected and even deport students who were involved. “Well, if you get me elected, and you should really be doing this, if you get me reelected, we’re going to set that movement back 25 or 30 years,” he told the participants of a private round-table event.
Outside the debate, protesters rallied on the streets of Atlanta. Among the group was Gabriel Sanchez, a democratic socialist who ousted a Democratic State Representative in last month’s primary.
“I’m a Georgian. I was born and raised here in America, but I’m a human being first,” Sanchez told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Everything that’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank is horrific. We have to do everything we can to stop it.”
JUST A THOUGHT: In the wake of the hatchet job AIPAC did on Jamaal Bowman, if a joint resolution was put before Congress to make Netanyahu the U.S. President by acclamation, how many members of Congress would dare vote against it?
Both candidates are terrible on Palestine. Biden, however is the more repugnant liar, because in fact his policy is supporting exactly the genocidal policy that Trump spoke openly. He is pretending that he wants a cease fire, to hold onto voters for whom Palestine is an important issue. But his position is pathetic. Who can actually believe that, as, effectively, the sole supplier of weapons to Israel, and the country’s most powerful backer in international diplomacy, he has no ability to influence Netanyahu? Working hard for state and national candidates who will have taken the stand for justice for Palestinians is important. Making a decision on who (or if) to vote for president based on this issue, unfortunately, is pointless.
It would be hard to pick out a “low point” of the “debate” — it was all low — but if one wanted to do so, this exchange would be as good as any.
Speaking of Palestinians, here is an opinion piece from The Hill explaining why it is essential to keep them out of America. It’s utterly perverse, and utterly unsurprising.
https://thehill.com/opinion/4743557-plan-to-admit-palestinian-refugees-to-the-us-should-be-met-with-a-resounding-no/
Armed resistance has been and will be a losing hand in American politics, especially by “any means necessary”. Any politician who defends it will not survive. The sooner it becomes about equal rights, the closer they come.
Looking like Trump will be President. His ego is one thing to count on. Recognizing him for “one state or two” would play into his ego and feed his wanting to be the GOAT, the Greatest of all Time… making him, and Americans, into an ally.