Fred Zeidman, a Houston businessman and Republican, usually likes what he hears from Donald Trump about Israel. It’s one reason he has raised money for the former president and current candidate.
But he had a different experience on Tuesday night, when during Trump’s first debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent, Trump said Israel’s demise could be imminent.
“If she’s president, I believe that Israel will not exist within two years from now,” Trump said. “I’ve been pretty good at predictions, and I hope I’m wrong about that one.”
It was hardly the first time this election season that Trump has said electing Harris would bring disaster upon the Jews. Last month, he said a second Holocaust is all but nigh. And days before the debate, at a Republican Jewish convention, he said “Israel will no longer exist” if Harris wins.
But Tuesday was the first time he set a deadline, and the first time he made the prediction to such a large audience. Zeidman and others who have seen him as an ally to Israel were shaken.
“If there’s anything that he said last night that I hope doesn’t come to fruition, it’s that Israel will be gone in two years if she wins,” said Zeidman, who is 78, Trump’s age. “I was 2 when Israel was created, so I must have been 5 or 6 when I started fighting for the State of Israel. Now, I hear that it’s going to be gone in two years. I hope that’s not true, and I don’t believe it.”
Saying that Israel’s existence is contingent on a single person or event is a third rail for many in Israel and the pro-Israel community, who see the country as the culmination of the lives and hard work of generations of Jews — and a military powerhouse highly capable of defending itself in a region rife with enemies.
“Trump is very wrong when he says Israel won’t exist for 2 years under Kamala,” said “The Mossad,” a satirical pro-Israel account on X, taking on a rare earnest tone and attaching a photo of Israeli troops watching a combat jet take off.
“Yes, I cringed when he said that,” the account added. “Does he think we’re so delicate that we’d cease to exist because of one person? Give us some credit.”
Michael Makovsky, CEO of the conservative Jewish Institute for the National Security of America, also found himself wincing at Trump — even though he had tuned in to focus closely on Harris, whose Middle East policies have concerned him.
“He’s got a more pro-Israel record,” Makovsky said of Trump. “I didn’t find her convincing on Israel at all, or on Iran or antisemitism, but he went too far.”
Predicting Israel’s demise does no favors to an ally that takes pride in being able to deter and repel its many enemies, Makovsky said.
“I don’t think what Trump says about Harris is going to have a big impact, but it’s not helpful,” he said. “It’s not a constructive thing to say, and it’s bombastic and it’s inaccurate, and it’s a very serious issue, and he shouldn’t have said it.”
Makovsky and others said that what they heard in Trump’s pronouncement was an inelegant articulation of a very real concern for Israel’s security: the threat posed by Iran.
Matt Brooks, the Republican Jewish Coalition CEO, said that Trump was going into detail on something that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said — that Iran poses an existential threat to Israel.
“He doesn’t say it in those terms, but he says that a nuclear Iran is an existential threat,” Brooks said.
If one accepts Trump’s premise that the Biden administration has emboldened Iran by urging Israeli restraint and lifting some of the sanctions Trump imposed when he was president, Trump’s formulation makes sense, Brooks said.
“There is no question that the Iranians feel that they would be much better off under a Harris administration than they will under a Trump administration,” Brooks said.
Danny Orbach, a military historian at Hebrew University, said Trump’s prediction was not a serious one. But he said it tapped into serious concerns about an erosion of support among Democrats and internationally for Israel while it is at war.
“As with many of the things that Trump says, these remarks are a widely exaggerated version of real fears,” he said, noting the concern — which has gained increasing purchase within parts of the Democratic Party — that the United States under a President Harris might limit weapons sales to Israel at a time when it faces a “tightening Iranian siege.” (Harris has said repeatedly that she has no plans to change U.S. policy on arming Israel.)
“There is a fear that, because the Democratic Party is strongly committed to this, there will be a gradual erosion in U.S. support for Israel,” Orbach said. “Nobody thinks that Israel will be destroyed. But one should say the Iranian plan is to destroy Israel.”
Makovsky, too, said he was frustrated that Trump had failed to highlight what he believes are the real risks Harris’ policies pose to Israel should its current war with Hamas expand to an escalated fight with Iran and its other proxies.
Makovsky said he was concerned that President Joe Biden and Harris, if she is elected, would not come to Israel’s assistance if it launched preemptive strikes.
“They’re not going to support Israel if Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities, they’re not going to support Israel if they initiate a military campaign against Hezbollah,” he said. By fabulating Israel’s imminent destruction, Makovsky said, Trump missed an opportunity to corner Harris into specifying under which circumstances she would make good on her repeated pledges to back Israel.
“He missed a number of opportunities to even critique her and Biden in a more factually based way, on Israel and Iran,” he said. “I was disappointed.”
Harris did not refer directly to Trump’s prediction in her response, which was prompted by the debate moderators asking her to comment on Trump’s claims that she “hates” Israel.
Harris denied the accusation.
“That’s absolutely not true. I have my entire career and life supported Israel and the Israeli people,” she said. “He knows that he’s trying to, again, divide and distract from the reality, which is that it is very well known that Donald Trump is weak and wrong on national security and foreign policy.”
But at least a few people watching the debate proposed taking Trump at his word. On social media, pro-Palestinian Harris supporters said they heard his warning not as he intended but as a reason not to vote for him.
“Trump saying if Kamala was president, ‘Israel’ would cease to exist,” tweeted one user. “I promise we all wish that was the case lmao.”
Wrote another, “Trump saying if Kamala is elected Israel will cease to exist in 2 years. She’s got my vote.”