Trump calls for Israel to ‘finish up’ Gaza war

WASHINGTON: Two Israeli journalists travelled to Palm Beach, Florida, a little over a week ago, hoping to elicit from Donald Trump a powerful expression of support for their country’s war in the Gaza Strip.
Instead, one of them wrote that what they heard from Trump at Mar-a-Lago ‘‘shocked us to the core’’. ‘‘Both US presidential candidates, Biden and Trump, are turning their rhetorical backs on Israel,’’ concluded Ariel Kahana, a right-wing settler who is the senior diplomatic correspondent for Israel Hayom. The newspaper is owned by billionaire Republican donor Miriam Adelson, who personally arranged the interview with Trump, according to a person with direct knowledge of the planning.
Trump told the interviewers Israel was losing public support for its Gaza assault, that the images of devastation were bad for Israel’s global image and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should end his war soon – statements that sounded far more like something President Joe Biden might say than the kind of cheerleading Netanyahu has come to expect from Washington Republicans.
‘‘You have to finish up your war,’’ Trump said. ‘‘You have to get it done. We have to get to peace. We can’t have this going on.’’
That statement apparently troubled Kahana even more than Biden’s warnings to Israel. Biden has called for a six-week ceasefire in exchange for Hamas releasing Israeli hostages. In the interview excerpts released by Israel Hayom, Trump did not qualify his call for Israel to finish the war by insisting on the release of hostages.
‘‘Trump effectively bypassed Biden from the left, when he expressed willingness to stop this war and get back to being the great country you once were,’’ Kahana wrote. ‘‘There’s no way to beautify, minimise or cover up that problematic message.’’
Trump aides insisted this was a misinterpretation. A campaign spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, said that Trump ‘‘fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself and eliminate the terrorist threat,’’ but that Israel’s interests would be ‘‘best served by completing this mission as quickly, decisively and humanely as possible so that the region can return to peace and stability’’.
While in office, Trump acted so lopsidedly in favour of Israel that a two-state solution that would be acceptable to the Palestinians was never realistic. The New York Times