The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has long been one of the world’s thorniest problems — a bloody, intractable dispute over land and statehood that has riven the region and vexed American presidents ever since the Jewish state was established in 1948.
But Hamas’s brutal Oct. 7 attacks — and Israel’s brutal response in Gaza — have taken things to a whole new level. In September, Iran fired a salvo of ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation for Israeli strikes against Tehran's Hezbollah allies in Lebanon, who had been launching rockets and drones deep into the Jewish state. On Sunday, the Pentagon announced that it was sending an advanced missile defense system to Israel, along with about 100 American troops to operate it — the first deployment of U.S. forces to Israel since the Oct. 7 attacks.
The chances of a wider Middle East war now hinge on Israel’s next move. Whatever happens, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is likely to weigh on the U.S. ballot like never before.
So how could the differences between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump — on Israel, Gaza and Iran — reshape U.S. policy going forward?
The 2024 election will be the first in U.S. history to feature a former president competing against the current vice president. As a result, this year’s candidates already have extensive White House records to compare and contrast.
Here’s what Harris and Trump have done so far about the Israel-Palestinian conflict — and what they plan to do next.
Where they're coming from
Where Trump is coming from: As a first-time presidential candidate, Trump’s initial forays into the Israeli-Palestinian thicket were … vague, to say the least.
He mentioned his daughter Ivanka’s conversion to Judaism. In 2016, he boasted about his ceremonial role — 12 years earlier — as grand marshal of New York’s Salute to Israel Parade. And when Trump finally did try to flesh out his views, he angered Republican hawks by pitching himself as “sort of a neutral guy” and predicting that future peace talks would hinge on Israel being “willing to sacrifice certain things.”
But soon enough, Trump started toeing the party line. During an uncharacteristically sober and scripted speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in March 2016, he accused then-President Barack Obama of “treating Israel like a second-class citizen” — and pledged to “send a clear signal that there is no daylight between America and our most reliable ally, the state of Israel.”
The Palestinians must come to the table knowing that the bond between the United States and Israel is absolutely, totally unbreakable,” Trump said.
Yet one thing remained consistent throughout. Trump kept describing himself as a master negotiator — and portraying a possible Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement as “the ultimate deal.”
Where Harris is coming from: Harris launched her 2016 U.S. Senate campaign in early 2015, a few months after marrying Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish. It was her national debut. In the years that followed, Harris positioned herself as a staunch supporter of Israel.
“I believe the bonds between the United States and Israel are unbreakable,” she told New York’s Salute to Israel Parade at AIPAC's annual conference shortly after taking office as senator in 2017. (AIPAC is a powerful — and particularly hawkish — pro-Israel lobbying group.)
According to Harris, her commitment to Israel started as a child. “It is just something that has always been a part of me,” Harris said at a private AIPAC conference the following year. “It’s almost like saying, ‘When did you first realize you loved your family or love your country?”
In the same speech, Harris recalled raising money for the Jewish National Fund as a Girl Scout. “We would … collect donations to plant trees for Israel,” she told the audience. “Years later, when I visited Israel for the first time, I saw the fruits of that effort and the Israeli ingenuity that has truly made a desert bloom.”
One of Harris’s first acts as a U.S. senator was to break — over Israel — with outgoing Democratic President Barack Obama, whose administration pointedly abstained in late 2016 from vetoing a United Nations Security Council resolution that condemned the Jewish state for annexing land via settlements. Harris co-sponsored a Senate resolution that declared Obama’s position “inconsistent with long-standing United States policy.” Likewise, one of Harris’s first international trips as a senator was to Israel, where she met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2017.
As a Democratic presidential primary candidate in 2019, Harris signaled that she would govern to Obama’s right on the Iran nuclear deal as well. “We will reenter the agreement,” Harris told a pro-Israel voter in Ames, Iowa, “but also I will want to strengthen it. And that will mean extending the sunset provisions, including ballistic missile testing, and also increasing oversight.”
What they've done in office
What Trump did in office: Today, Trump frequently describes himself as the most pro-Israel president ever. That’s debatable — but what’s clear is that once in the White House, he ditched his earlier emphasis on neutrality and consistently ignored Palestinian interests in pursuit of something he could sell as a “peace deal.”
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