Palestinians in Gaza are living through historic suffering. Expertssay they are enduring the most destructive military campaign of the 21st century and one of the most devastating offensives in modern history. The U.S.-backed Israeli operation in their region has killed upwards of 37,000 people, left more than 2 million with desperately low quantities of food, spurred deadly shortages of medical supplies and other essentials like fuel and destroyed more homes than World War II.
But at Thursday night’s debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, neither offered either sympathy or a path forward for Palestinians, whose cause has animated huge protests domestically and fueled outrage the world over. Instead, the two rivals for the U.S. presidency, which has major influence over Palestinians’ fate, offered answers casting them as an afterthought at best and villainous at worst.
Strikingly, given widespread criticism of U.S. mediacoverage of Palestinians, the clearest concern for Palestinians came from debate moderator and CNN anchor Dana Bash — signaling how low the bar was for the night.
Bash opened the debate segment on the Gaza war by referencing the attack on Israel by the Palestinian faction Hamas on Oct. 7, which killed nearly 1,200 Israelis and initiated the latest round of all-out fighting. She then accurately noted Israeli retaliation has “killed thousands of Palestinians and created a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” Noting that Biden’s month-long effort to secure a ceasefire has not borne fruit, she posed her question to the president: “What additional leverage will you use to get Hamas and Israel to end the war?”
The phrasing there mattered. The Biden administration has largely refused to deploy American leverage over Israel by, for instance, threatening to cut off weapons transfers, despite calls to do so from many Democratic lawmakers. Meanwhile, the White House has blamed the continued fighting on stubbornness by Hamas, though the group had agreed to a version of a ceasefire deal in May, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has openly challenged the proposal Biden has presented.
In his answer, Biden focused on Hamas — with talking points so clearly designed to avoid the impression of a split with Israel that he almost seemed to be responding to an entirely different question, one in the vein of suggestions from Republicans and foreign policy hawks that Democrats are abandoning the chief U.S. ally in the Middle East.
Citing support from the United Nations Security Council and the group of wealthy nations known as the G7 for his ceasefire proposal, Biden asserted Netanyahu has endorsed it — a dubious claim, given the Israeli leader’s flip-flopping. (The Israeli government currently says he does support it, but Netanyahu as recently as Sunday suggested that is not the case.)
“The only one who wants the war to continue is Hamas. … We’re still pushing hard to get them to accept,” Biden said.
Many Democrats, administration officials and national security experts believe prolonging the war is also a goal of Netanyahu’s, to avoid facing elections in Israel and his legal troubles.
Biden emphasized his support for arming Israel — despite assessments from his own administration and from human rights groups that the country has likely committed war crimes with American weapons. “The only thing I’ve denied Israel was 2,000-pound bombs,” he said.
“They don’t work very well in populated areas, they kill a lot of innocent people. We’re providing Israel with all the weapons they need and when they need them,” he continued.
Hours earlier, Axios reported Biden has now greenlit part of the arms shipment to Israel he halted that included the 2,000-pound munitions.
And the president noted that he rallied other nations to help shield Israel in April when Iran launched a barrage of missiles at it, following an Israeli strike on an Iranian consulate.
“We saved Israel. We are the biggest producer of support for Israel of anyone in the world,” Biden concluded.
The president made no reference to the humanitarian concerns Bash had mentioned, not even to promote U.S. efforts to bring aid to Gaza.
He also did not once use the word Palestinian.
Despite Biden’s claim to champion diversity and human rights globally, many Palestinians and those sympathetic to them — including Muslim American activists and officials within Biden’s own administration — have argued for months that his rhetoric and overwhelming support for Israel’s assault shows he has little regard for them.
Trump, however, made the term “Palestinian” central to his answer — as a slur.
First, he made clear that in keeping with his record of encouraging violence internationally and impunity for breaking the laws of war, he would encourage a continued and perhaps expanded Israeli offensive.
Biden “said the only one that wants to keep going is Hamas. Actually, Israel is the one, and you should let them go and let them finish the job,” Trump said. “He doesn’t want to do it.”
Why? “He’s become like a Palestinian,” Trump claimed.
Biden immediately suggested he saw the statement as derogatory, going from watching his opponent to closing his eyes and then dropping and shaking his head.
“But they don’t like him,” Trump continued, “because he’s a very bad Palestinian: He’s a weak one.”
The candidates then turned to squabbling over their differences on the NATO alliance.
When Bash tried to refocus the discussion, asking Trump if he would support the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state to promote regional peace, the near-certain GOP presidential nominee responded: “I’d have to see” — then resumed complaining about America’s European allies.
Gaza didn’t come up again. Caught amid a war of epochal scale that directly implicates U.S. foreign policy, Palestinians got minimal mention or clarity about what the November vote could mean for their future. Still, given what the crumbs on offer suggested, that may have been for the best.
