Former President Donald Trump has claimed that Israel will cease to exist if United States Vice President Kamala is elected to the White House in November.
On Thursday, addressing Jewish donors in Las Vegas, Nevada, the Republican nominee claimed that Harris would “completely abandon” Israel as president and that a “terrorist army” would wage war to “drive the Jews from the Holy Land.”
“If he becomes president, you’re going to be abandoned, and I think you’re going to have to explain that to your people. Because they don’t know it. They have no idea what they’re doing,” Trump said in a remote address to the Republican Jewish Coalition.
“You don’t have Israel … if he becomes president. Israel will no longer exist.
Trump said he would ban refugees from “terror-affected areas” including Gaza, arrest “pro-Hamas thugs” who vandalize government property and revoke funding and accreditation for universities that spread “anti-Semitic propaganda” if elected to a second term.
The US University campuses were rocked earlier this year by protests over Israel’s war in Gaza, with counterclaims or accusations of bigotry being used to silence legitimate criticism of Israeli policy.
Trump, who claimed that Hamas would not have attacked Israel on October 7 if he had been president, also targeted Jewish people who voted for Democratic candidates, claiming that he had done more for Israel than any other US president. .
“Who are the fifty percent of the Jewish people who are voting for these people who hate Israel and don’t like the Jewish people?” he said. “Why are they, why are they voting? How do they exist?”
In response to Trump’s comments, Harris campaign spokeswoman Morgan Finkelstein said the vice president “stands firmly against anti-Semitism” and has been a “lifelong supporter of the State of Israel as a safe, democratic homeland for the Jewish people.”
Finkelstein also said Trump has a history of denigrating Jewish people and associating with far-right figures, including holding a private dinner with white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.
“He has said that the only people he wants to count his money are ‘short people in yarmulkes’, and hailed neo-Nazis who ‘Jews can’t change us’ as ‘very good people’, Finkelstein said.
Harris has largely echoed President Joe Biden’s staunch support of Israel, resisting pressure from the progressive wing of his party to stop shipments of weapons used by Israeli forces in Gaza.
The Democratic candidate, however, has put more emphasis on the plight of the Palestinians in public statements, Said he would not remain “silent” about Gaza’s suffering and that “too many” innocent civilians had been killed in the war..
Post If Harris becomes president, Israel will cease to exist, Trump has claimed appeared first Al Jazeera.