Israel barely registered as a passing mention in Tuesday night’s high-stakes presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump.
Just over two minutes of the 90-minute debate dealt with Israel and the Israel-Hamas War. Though this should come as no surprise since the US elections are about the US, considering the time and energy American media focuses on Israel, one might have thought the candidates would have spoken at greater length and with more depth about the issue.
That they did not and that their comments on Israel were somewhat predictable – though Trump’s apocalyptic prediction that Israel will cease to exist if Harris is elected was not precisely where one thought he might have taken the issue – should be a reminder to Israelis: not everything is about us.
American voters come November will be casting their votes based on the candidates’ positions on the issues that dominated the fiery debate and are at the top of their minds: the economy, immigration, abortion, and Trump’s character. Israel is a sidelight.
Both Trump and Harris, when they did speak of Israel, wove fantasies.
Demise and two-state solution
Trump’s fantasy was that Harris hates Israel – she does not – and that “if she’s president, I predict that Israel will not exist within two years from now.”
“Israel will be gone,” he said, oddly depriving the Jewish state of any agency or capacity to survive. It was evident that Trump was playing on the fears some Jews have of what a Democratic administration that may pander to the anti-Israel progressive flank of the party may look like, but to say that such an administration will mean the end of Israel is, well, quite a reach.
Debates are won with credible arguments. This particular point was not.
Trump repeated his claim that had he been president on October 7, Hamas would not have attacked and that if elected, he would “get that settled, and fast.” How this would happen, or why it would happen under his watch, he didn’t spell out and just left for everyone’s imagination.
One point he made that will resonate with Israel is that the removal of sanctions on Iran under the Biden administration, sanctions he clamped on Tehran when president, led to an infusion of cash that the Islamic Republic pumped into its terrorist proxies: Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
If Trump wove Mideast fantasies – predicting Israel’s demise if his opponent becomes president – so did Harris, with her renewed pledge of allegiance to a two-state solution.
Harris said that her administration will continue to work around the clock to end the Israel-Hamas War and free the hostages and will also work around the clock charting a course to a two-state solution.
Harris was careful with her words to neither antagonize Jewish voters, whom she will need to win in some of the key battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada, nor chase away progressive and Arab-Americans she will need to win in Michigan and Wisconsin.
So, she gave both sides some of what they wanted to hear. She reiterated her lifelong support for Israel, looking incredulous and in disbelief when Trump said she “hates” the Jewish state, and committed herself to always giving “Israel the ability to defend itself, in particular as it relates to Iran and any threat that Iran and its proxies pose to Israel.”
She also decried the loss of innocent Palestinian lives. She said, “We must have a two-state solution where we can rebuild Gaza, where the Palestinians have security, self-determination, and the dignity they so rightly deserve.”That’s a nice talking point, but it’s as much a fantasy right now as Trump’s prediction about Israel disappearing under her watch.
In the end, Israel’s brief cameo in the Harris-Trump debate was a stark reminder of how the country is often reduced to a political talking point.
Trump’s apocalyptic vision of Israel’s demise and Harris’s commitment to the elusive and unrealistic two-state solution were less about Israel’s future and more about securing votes at home. Both candidates wove fantasies that reveal much about American political theater and little about the complexities of the Middle East. Israel, in this context, was little more than a fleeting prop.