The Shift: Debate shows both candidates are in full agreement when it comes to Palestine

Earlier this week Kamala Harris and Donald Trump squared off in their first (and possibly only) presidential debate.

There weren’t a lot of surprises when it came to the question of Israel and the Gaza genocide. When asked about the situation, Harris spoke about Israel’s “right to defend itself” and claimed that the Biden administration is working “around the clock” on a ceasefire deal.

Trump countered with an unhinged rant and quickly changed the topic to Ukraine, only to return to the issue and call Harris an Israel-hater who will eliminate the country within two years if elected.

“I have my entire career and life supported Israel and the Israeli people,” Harris assured viewers.

Trump also said, if elected, he would negotiate with Netanyahu before he assumed the presidency. That’s a violation of the Logan Act, if anyone cares.

Sunjeev Bery summarized the situation succinctly at The Intercept:

“On stage last night during the presidential debate, as the war on Gaza grinds on, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump battled over who had the most pro-Israel and anti-Iran credentials. After a brief moment of hope that Harris might offer something different to American voters, this seemed to confirm a grim status quo: No matter who is elected president, the U.S. will remain deeply invested in structures of violence and repression across the Middle East.”

After the debate outlets like NPR and ABC News published fact-checks of statements made by the candidates, but you won’t find any site that pushed back on Harris’s assertion that Hamas committed mass rapes on October 7.

The moderators mentioned that over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed and asked how a ceasefire could be achieved, but they didn’t ask either candidate if Israel should be subjected to any kind of red line or whether weapon sales to foreign countries should be conditioned over human rights violations. They also didn’t ask about American citizen Aysenur Eygi, who was killed by an Israeli sniper in the West Bank last week. They didn’t ask about the 2,000 pound bombs that Israel just dropped on a refugee camp, melting human bodies and burying people alive.

Harris has publicly stated she won’t shift from Biden’s existing policies in the region and there’s nothing in her recently released policy page to suggest she would. On that portion of her campaign site she pledges her unequivocal support for Israel and takes a hawkish stance on Iran.

“Vice President Harris will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to protect U.S. forces and interests from Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups,” it declares. “Vice President Harris will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself and she will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself. She and President Biden are working to end the war in Gaza, such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination. She and President Biden are working around the clock to get a hostage deal and a ceasefire deal done.”

One can probably assume that a Harris administration would continue to expand Trump’s Abraham Accords. Those deals normalized relations between Israel and the governments of the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco. This meant the establishment of massive weapons packages with the Palestinians purposely cut out.

It hasn’t only been supported by Biden, but by most Democrats. Just a few months before the October 7 attack an expansion of Trump’s policy was approved in the House, with a vast majority of Democrats supporting the effort. It passed 413-13, with only eleven Democrats and two Republicans voting against the bill.

Amy Littlefield, abortion access correspondent at The Nation, said it all on Democracy Now the next day:

“Can we just pause for a minute and talk about how sick it is that we’re now almost a year into Israel’s war on Gaza, and the only — and, you know, images emerging every day of mothers and fathers in Gaza weeping over the bodies of their dead infants and children, and the only dead baby we heard mention from the debate stage was a figment of Donald Trump’s imagination?”

Aysenur Eygi

The sequence of events from Aysenur Eygi’s death through its current aftermath are sadly so predictable.

Once again we saw Israel’s army kill an American citizen. This time it was a 26-year-old woman who was in the occupied West Bank, peacefully protesting further illegal settlements in the area.

First, came the inevitable Israeli statement denying guilt. The army said “very likely” Eygi had been “unintentionally” shot by a solider, but people should realize that the incident took place during a “violent riot” and that the sniper was firing toward a “key instigator.”

At Monday’s White House briefings, Biden officials refused to even acknowledge that Israel was responsible for Eygi’s death. “I’m not going to get ahead of the process here,” State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters when questioned about her death. When given the opportunity to condemn the killing, Patel declined.

Then we had Biden publicly reiterate the Israeli government’s claims. Telling reporters that Eygi’s death was “apparently..an accident,” which occurred because a bullet had “ricocheted off the ground.”

Biden faced backlash over the comments. The next day Kamala Harris and he each put out a statement expressing their outrage over the killing and calling for “full accountability.” Biden reportedly still hasn’t reached out to Eygi’s family.

Now we have the usual investigation proving that Israel was lying.

The Washington Post spoke with 13 eyewitnesses and Beita residents and reviewed over 50 videos from the day. The paper found that Eygi was shot more than half an hour after the confrontations that the army referenced and 20 minutes after protesters had moved down the main road. She was 200 yards away from Israeli forces.

The paper reached out to the Israeli army and asked why they fired at activists so long after they retreated, when they were too far away to pose any sort of threat. No response.

Now we are seeing calls for an independent investigation, just like we saw after the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh.

“President Biden claimed to be ‘outraged’ and ‘deeply saddened’ by Israel’s murder of our comrade Aysenur Eygi, but his actions tell a very different story,” reads a statement from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), of which Eygi was a volunteer. “While he described the shooting as ‘unacceptable,’ he is refusing the family’s demand for an independent, transparent investigation and continuing to trust the murderers to investigate themselves. Aysenur’s family and the ISM have been clear that we have no confidence in any Israeli investigation, given the Israeli army’s longstanding practice of using investigations as exculpatory coverups. We continue to demand a transparent and independent investigation.”

Expect State Department officials to be asked about this continually in the coming weeks. They will call for transparency and accountability, but never acknowledge that Israel investigating its own crimes is a bad idea. They will insist they take matters like this very seriously and nothing will change.