Former President Donald Trump repeated his charge that U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris hates Israel and that if she is elected president, Israel won’t exist in two years, speaking during the debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, hosted by ABC News on Tuesday.
The topic of Israel came up about one hour into the 90-minute debate when the candidates were asked how they would reach a ceasefire deal between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas.
Harris opened by pointing out that Israel was attacked on Oct. 7 by Hamas, which “slaughtered 1,200 Israelis, many of them young people, who were simply attending a concert. Women were horribly raped. And so, absolutely, I said then, I say now, Israel has a right to defend itself. We would,” she said.
However, she said that how Israel defends itself “matters because it is also true, far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed; children, mothers. What we know is that this war must end. It must end immediately.
“We must chart a course for a two-state solution, and in that solution, there must be security for the Israeli people and Israel, and an equal measure for the Palestinians,” she said.
Harris said that she would always allow Israel the ability to defend itself, but Gaza must be rebuilt “where the Palestinians have security, self-determination and the dignity they so rightly deserve.”
Trump said of Harris, “When she mentions Israel, all of a sudden, she hates Israel. She wouldn’t even meet with [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu when he went to Congress to make a very important speech. She refused to be there because she was at a sorority party of hers. She went to go to the sorority party.”
Trump referred to the fact that Harris chose not to attend Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on July 25.
She did meet with the prime minister following the speech, after which she made remarks nearly identical to those at the debate, saying, “Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters,” while expressing serious concerns about the “scale of human suffering in Gaza.”
Trump said during the debate, “If she’s president, I believe that Israel will not exist within two years from now. And I’ve been pretty good at predictions.”
The former president added that he hoped he was wrong. He also said that “in her own way, she hates the Arab population because the whole place is going to get blown up: Arabs, Jewish people, Israel. Israel will be gone.”
He chastised the Biden administration for enriching Iran. “Now, Iran has $300 billion because they took off all the sanctions that I had.
“Iran had no money for Hamas or Hezbollah or any of the 28 different spheres of terror,” he said, alluding to his earlier assertion that Oct. 7 would never have taken place under his presidency.
“Look at what’s happening with the Houthis and Yemen. Look at what’s going on in the Middle East. This would have never happened,” he said.
“I will get that settled and fast, and I’ll get the war with Ukraine and Russia ended. If I’m president-elect, I’ll get it done before even becoming president,” Trump said.