NORTH CAROLINA, USA (Nettavisen): Presidential candidate Donald Trump recently conducted an interview with two journalists from the Israeli newspaper israelhayom.co.il.
The interview sheds light on what the former president thinks about the war in the Middle East now. The answers shocked us, writes commentator Ariel Kahana in the newspaper.
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Shocked the journalists
The former president said in the interview that Israel is losing the support it has in the conflict, and that the images and videos from the destruction in Gaza affect Israel’s reputation. Trump himself claimed that at one point he watched videos of the destruction in Gaza every night.
“You don’t have the support you had before. 15 years ago, Israel had the strongest lobby. If you were a politician, you couldn’t say anything negative about Israel. That would be the end of your political career. Today it is almost the opposite”.
While Trump emphasized that he supports Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas, he urged the country to end the war soon.
“You must finish your war. You guys have to get it done. We must have peace. This cannot go on,” Trump said during the interview.
The commentator believes Trump went even further than Biden, who he points out is positioned on the left in politics.
“There is no way to beautify, minimize or cover up the problematic message,” writes the Israeli commentator. The newspaper had also expected Trump to condemn Hamas, saying that Israel is going to destroy the organization.
Kahana interprets the statements – and the lack of statements – as meaning that both presidential candidates in the United States, both Biden and Trump, are now turning their “rhetorical backs” on Israel.
Last week, the UN Security Council agreed to demand a ceasefire. The US did not veto the resolution, something President Biden has been criticized for.
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– Donald Trump is the only person I have seen do this
– Totally unpredictable
Trump’s spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt has emphasized after the interview that Trump supports Israel’s right to defend itself and eliminate the terrorist threat. But Israel’s interests are best served if they do this quickly and in a humane way, says Leavitt, according to the New York Times.
It is still unknown what Trump thinks Israel should do to stop the war. The presidential candidate did not propose a solution. Trump blames Biden for the conflict, and has claimed that neither the Ukraine war nor the war in the Middle East would have taken place if he had been president. But it is uncertain what the presidential candidate will do if he wins the presidential election in November.
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Where does Trump actually stand?
– Trump’s foreign policy is totally unpredictable. Foreign policy is based on what serves his own political interests and whether he likes or dislikes heads of state in other countries purely personally, US expert and professor at the Norwegian University of Applied Sciences Hilmar Mjelde told Nettavisen.
– With the exception of the perception that other countries take advantage of the United States, Trump has no real opinions or fixed policies, he adds.
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– Reading the political mood
In public, Trump therefore adjusts what he thinks and where he stands according to what he thinks the majority of voters think, the US expert points out.
– Trump has an incredible flair and is extremely smart when it comes to reading the political mood in the country. He now manages to appear both moderate and reasonable on divisive issues such as abortion and the Gaza war.
But it is not necessarily negative for Israel.
– Trump understands that Israel has strong bipartisan support in the United States. So if Trump wins, he will pursue a very pro-Israel foreign policy. Just like in his first term, predicts Mjelde.
