The Israel-HAMAS War has created another divisive issue in the 2024 United States presidential elections. Following the brutal HAMAS attack on Israel on October 7, 2024, Israel immediately began a huge bombing of Gaza which has resulted, at the time of this writing, in deaths of over 30,000 Palestinians and the destruction or significant damage of over 80% of its infrastructure and buildings. The Benjamin Netanyahu's government's response to the HAMAS attack, which resulted in over 1200 Israeli deaths, has infuriated large swaths of the global community, including thousands of Americans.
A key question is how the ongoing Israel-HAMAS War will affect this year's elections. Ax the recent Michigan Democratic Party primary indicated, many of Joe Bidne's supporters are highly disappointed with his Gaza War policy. They feel he has been too meek in his criticism of Netanyahu. The Israeli leader seeks to continue the war to prevent elections which he would lose and also possibly face jail time due to his ongoing corruption trial. Will the Israel-HAMAS War cause Biden to lose the presidential elections?
The answer to this question depends on whether Biden can reenergize the base which allowed him to win in 2020. This coalition will need to mobilize young voters in the 18-30 demographic, people of color, union members and, in Michigan, a key battle ground state, Arab-American voters who are several hundred thousand strong. Biden won Michigan in 2020 by 150,000 votes. If Arab-American defect die to their anger at his Gaza War policy, they could hand the election to Donald Trump.
Arab-American anger, as well as that of African-Americans who identify with the Palestinian cause, young people, including many Jewish youth, and large numbers of Americans more broadly who are revulsed by the daily images of death and destrcution in Gaza, is understandable. I count myself among those who find Netahyahu's policies in Gaza reprehensible.
These considerations notwithstanding, let's return to the Trump presidency to see what American policy towards Israel and the Palestinians looked lime then. First, Trump appointed David M. Friedman ambassador to Israel, a post which won narrow US Senate confirmation.
A founder of Americans Friends of Beit-El Institutions and a columnist for the settlement news website, Arutz Sheva, Friedman has been a supporter of the Israeli far -right, raising funds for settlements, and actively involved in preventing the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. He had no diplomatic experience prior to being appointed ambassador.
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| David Friedman with far-right Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich |
Breaking with a tradition of both Republican and Democartic presidents, Trump moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He did nothing to stop the rapid growth of settlements in the West Bank whose construction on occupied territory is considered illegal under international law. Indeed, the Trump administration gave the Netanyahu government a green light to pursue whatever policies it wanted in the West Bank and Palestinian East Jerusalem.
The Trump administration implemented the Abraham Accords in September 2020 which normalized realtions between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. In October, Morocco and Sudan, which was removed from a list of states supporting terrorism and received a $1.2 billion loan from the United States, joined the accords.
While the Abraham Accords constituted a step forward in reducing tensions between the Arab world and Israel, there was a noticeable absence of any reference to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state as stipulated by the United Nations which it approved the partition of Palestine into two states - one Arab and one Jewish - with Resolution 181 of November 1947. Clearly the accords were an effort to consolidate ties between Israel and the Arab Gulf at the expense of the Palestinians.
Trump's return to office would see an intensification of his support for the Israeli settlement movement, if not the expulsion of Palestinian from the West Bank. It could possibly entail support for Israel
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