Jerusalem Post debate: How would Trump, Harris approach Israel, the Middle East?

The 2024 US presidential election is just days away, and the winner will be one of the most powerful and influential people on Earth. 

It is no exaggeration to say Israel heavily depends on its close relationship with the US for support internationally and militarily, which is why whoever ends up in the Oval Office is so crucial.

Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris claim to be pro-Israel and that they act in the best interests of the Jewish state, but just what sort of impact would their administrations have for Israel? How would they work with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? Would they continue policies that sanction certain Israelis? How would they work to end the war with Hamas and rebuild Gaza? What would their approach be to Iran?

To explore these issues, The Jerusalem Post Podcast hosted a debate between two leading experts from both sides of the political aisle: Aryeh Lightstone, a former senior adviser to US ambassador to Israel David Friedman and a key player in the Trump-brokered Abraham Accords; and Joel Rubin, a former US deputy assistant secretary of state and former executive director of the American Jewish Congress.

The following transcript of the debate has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Jerusalem Post: What would a Trump or Harris presidency look like for Israel?

Rubin: First and foremost, Harris has already demonstrated a strong track record from her time now in the White House as well as in the Senate, of supporting Israeli security, of being unflinching in her backing, of protecting Israel from the sense of incoming threats, like we’ve seen with the rocket strikes of the last half year coming from Iran. 

She’s really been a strong defender of that, and she’s also been a strong defender of diplomatic approaches to long-term regional security for Israel, which I know we’ll get into. And so it’s this combination of military and diplomatic leadership that she brings to the table, which is part of her broader overall view of America’s role in the world, that America has an essential power, standing up for democracy, standing up for American values, standing up for our allies. 

That is the kind of vision that she has for our work, be it toward China, Russia, and with our friend and ally Israel. 

Lightstone: Trump has a four-year track record of strengthening the US-Israel relationship. He was the president who recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, opened the US Embassy in Jerusalem, and recognized the sovereignty of the Golan Heights. 

Trump negotiated five treaties in 123 days in the Abraham Accords. He did it not because of a deep care for Israel, which I believe he has, but because he thought that was best for the US. 

Another unique aspect of Trump’s administration is that he believed there should be no daylight in between us and our closest allies, and how we treat Israel. The rest of the world will look at that as well. It wasn’t just a message to the Jewish state, but it was a message to all of our allies, as well as to all of our adversaries.

JP: How would Trump or Harris handle working with Netanyahu?

Lightstone: I would again point to Trump’s accomplishments. In each one, there was a risk that decided what the security and intelligence elements are. And only when you build up that faith and that bond are you able to do that. But where that bond and that faith, I believe, were truly elevated to a new height was when Trump invited Netanyahu and the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to the White House for the signing of the Abraham Accords.

Trump graciously welcomed Netanyahu and his wife to his home in Mar-a-Lago this summer. I believe it was from conversations there that enabled Netanyahu to look at the region in a different and refreshing way. We’ve been able to see some of those outputs from the war and how that pivoted from his visit to Washington and Mar-a-Lago.

Rubin: The way that we see the vice president engaging with the prime minister shows she clearly knows him and has met with him many times. She also has engaged effectively with the broad swath of Israeli political leadership, [including] when Naftali Bennett was prime minister and Yair Lapid was foreign minister and now in the opposition.

That’s the kind of behavior that you would see from Harris – someone comfortable speaking to all sectors of Israeli society. But you’re going to see someone who has a bit of an understanding as well as the broader political dynamics in Israel, which I think is healthy and deepens the relationship between the two countries. 

With Harris, you’ll see someone reinforcing that bond, who gets the nuance, who’s met with the hostage families, who understands America’s role in the region. 

When Netanyahu came to Washington and spoke [to Congress], and then he met with the vice president, there were antisemitic protests against Israel and him, and she immediately called them out. Make no mistake, this is a leader who’s going to call out opponents of Israel with the prime minister right here in Washington.

JP: The Biden administration has weighed sanctions on some Israeli settlers and on some Israeli organizations. Would Trump or Harris continue with sanctions against Israelis?

Rubin: These are sanctions on those committing violence deemed to be against American security interests, and they are tied to behaviors and activities that all Americans should condemn.

We trust our sanctions professionals to go after Iran, to go after Hamas, to go after Hezbollah, to go after rogue regimes. We should trust them to do their due diligence, and that’s what they’re doing in the case of settler violence, which is outside the bounds, not just of American national security goals, but I think also for Israelis; it is a very discomforting dynamic to have rampages in the West Bank that harm civilians and to have organizations or entities tied to that.

It must be grounded in evidence, and it must be impactful. And so I don’t think you’re looking at sanctions overall toward Israel. Harris is extremely strong in her opposition to BDS [the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement]. But when it comes to targeting individuals committing terrorist acts that undermine American security goals, we’re on solid ground there.

Lightstone: You can’t have it both ways. In this particular case, there was enormous pressure from the Biden-Harris White House about judicial reform, which was an internal issue here in Israel, by touting the sanctity of the Israeli judicial system. That same judicial system that cannot be touched is what all of these people who perpetrate these crimes, guilty or not, go through. 

We would not sanction people in any of our allies who have a legitimate judicial system that we appreciate and value. That’s one of the ground rules we have. And to break the ground rule is yet another crack between the US and Israel. 

You can connect the dots in the willingness of the International Criminal Court [ICC] or International Court of Justice [ICJ] to prosecute these cases, where they look at Israel’s number one ally in the region, the US, and say, ‘You don’t trust the Israeli justice system, we also will not trust the Israeli justice system.’ That is where friendship begins to be frayed, and those are strings that cannot be re-tied. So Trump would absolutely reverse that. We would support Israel’s ability to police itself as it does, and root for it to be able to control its own justice.

Rubin: I don’t think it’s a condemnation or a distrust of the Israeli justice system. In fact, when the ICC came out with its junk report about Israeli leaders, Biden and Harris condemned it quickly and are executing policies to try to prevent that from moving forward. 

There’s a sense that the actions in the West Bank, that they’re identifying as dangerous and harmful, are harming our overall security interests. 

We have a relationship with the Palestinian Authority, too. So it’s not to be taken lightly. The concern is that some of these targeted individuals have not been taken to task for the activities that they engage in. That’s when the US kicks in, and we do sanction individuals in other countries around the world that also have judicial systems to manage their own internal judicial dynamics.

Lightstone: We don’t go into other countries and sanction their citizens who have their own judicial system. Additionally, we don’t believe it’s our place to think that our judicial wherewithal is greater than a country we have an alliance with. With the ICC and ICJ, while I appreciate comments after the fact, I was in the room and had numerous conversations with members of the Trump administration who prevented this from happening. 

Rubin: What we’re seeing now is tied to the Gaza war, which was not happening during the Trump administration.

Lightstone: Respectfully, the ICC and the ICJ don’t need an excuse to prosecute anything against Israel.

JP: Would Trump or Harris restrict arms sales to Israel? 

Lightstone: The attack of Oct. 7 was devastating for the history of Israel and the Jewish people. We can talk in greater depth about how we got here, but once the war broke out, any response other than ‘We stand firmly with Israel until they defeat their enemy’ is nothing short of a non-leadership response.

Not having the armament and support to defeat an enemy that trafficked in some of the worst things that humanity has ever seen is one of the greatest signs of distrust and disrespect. This isn’t coming from Aryeh Lightstone, living in Israel. This is Aryeh Lightstone, who met with leaders across the Middle East who are befuddled and perplexed in terms of why the current administration has not been fully on Israel’s side as it wages a moral and critical war for its survival.

Trump would not, under any circumstances, withhold arms from Israel, especially arms that were passed by Congress for Israel’s use.

Rubin: If that were the case, Aryeh would have a point. But that isn’t the case. Military aid to Israel has been robust. Nearly $20 billion has been provided by the Biden administration. Tactical intelligence support to find the hostages and the terrorists across Gaza has been provided. American military power has been provided with two aircraft carrier groups to threaten Hezbollah and Iran, including shooting down Iranian ballistic missiles not once, but twice. 

The only people to hold up military aid to Israel have been the Republicans in Congress who delayed it for seven months and did undue harm to Israel’s ability to resupply.

Biden and Harris have been very robust in their defense of Israel. And I think the region is seeing a smarter US right now, which is not fighting wars on behalf of any one country, not invading a country like Iraq and dealing with a massive insurgency for over a decade, which exposed us all to Iran’s regional influence. They’re looking at an American engagement based upon military and diplomatic support, and close partnership across the board.

JP: How would Trump or Harris work to end the war with Hamas and rebuild Gaza? Would it include Palestinian statehood?

Rubin: The number one thing military planners do is they plan, and they plan for days after military engagements. The challenge the Biden-Harris administration has is to ensure this planning happens. We don’t want Gaza to be prone to insurgency that continues to have devastating humanitarian impacts, that could see the rebirth of a new, violent terrorist organization. 

The idea of a day-after plan is not charity. It’s about security. It is the idea that Palestinian autonomy or statehood is about stabilization. 

The Palestinian Authority is a partner with the Israeli security establishment. Flawed as it is, it is better to have it there holding down the fort than to have a total collapse. That’s the vision for where we’re heading. And I think Harris and Biden are trying to make that point about how crucial it is. 

It would build on the work of Aryeh and the Abraham Accords to bring in Saudi Arabia and other regional players, who will then see the commitment to the Palestinians as part of their ability to normalize as well. That may have very well been the trigger for Hamas on Oct. 7. But that’s how you get to regional stability over time,

Lightstone: I think the war is absolutely critical, and for everything that the current administration has done positively, they deserve credit; but for other things, they deserve appropriate recrimination because I think it’s been damaging in meaningful ways. 

Harris said, ‘Don’t go into Rafah.’ That’s where hostages were found. That’s where Sinwar was. That’s where the key resupply has been for Hamas via the tunnels under Egypt. 

When your top priority is making sure that humanitarian aid goes to Gaza, not bringing hostages back, and winning the war against the terrorists who began it, you won’t be able to prosecute the war correctly. 

It is impossible to imagine a situation where this same war would have happened under Trump’s watch. Iran would not have had hundreds of billions of additional dollars to fund their proxies. When the war breaks out, and the US calls for a ceasefire and says, ‘Whatever we do, we need to provide humanitarian aid’ instead of ‘We need to get the hostages back, including the Americans who are there,’ I don’t know where American leadership is. I know it is absent, and I know it would absolutely be there with Trump and his team. 

Rubin: Israel was in Rafah with American intelligence support. If you were to ask the Israeli government if they have gotten everything they need, they would likely say ‘Yes.’ In fact, Biden’s numbers are very high. He polls very well in Israel. 

But I agree with Aryeh on the essential overall point: The terrorists do need to be defeated. The hostages need to come back. That’s why Israelis have been calling for a ceasefire deal. That’s been the only time-tested way to get a significant chunk of people back. That’s the one way we know where we’ve seen hostages have been released, and that is the undergirding of the calls for the ceasefire-for-hostages deal.

Lightstone: The documents found on Yahya Sinwar were very clear to his people that the Americans would negotiate on their behalf. I don’t know if anybody here saw the film Taken, but in it Liam Neeson spent the entire movie doing anything possible to bring back his daughter. 

There’s not a single person who’s ever seen that movie who said he was in the wrong; and when the Israelis have gone to bring back their people, it has not been possible for the vice president to say clearly that they should do what they must. They absolutely have our support to do everything possible to bring back their hostages, including the Americans.

JP: How would Trump or Harris deal with Iran and its nuclear program?

Lightstone: Trump had Iran on the ropes. He reinstated sanctions and got out of the JCPOA. 

Do you think the Iran deal was good, or do you think it was the worst deal in the history of deals ever negotiated? The proof is in the pudding. Iran was given a list of things to do to reenter the community of nations. They thumbed their nose at it and funded Hamas and the Houthis.

I don’t see radical medical or technological innovations coming out of Iran. I see ballistic missiles. I see enhanced trade with Russia and China. 

This is a no-brainer decision. Iran has an evil regime that is trying to have Trump killed. They are absolutely rooting for a Harris win. Under Harris, they will have more of the same: money, success, and essentially immunity in the international field.

Rubin: Iran is a vile regime, one of the worst human rights violators that we have seen. It’s a threat to the region. It supports terrorist proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and it also had a nuclear program that was incredibly threatening. That program was in a box, and verifiably so, by all the world’s leading nuclear experts. And now it’s not because of Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the deal.

Recently, Trump said he would like to do a deal again, and he basically described exactly what he threw in the trash when he was president. 

On Biden’s watch, we’ve seen Iran’s air defenses now decimated, missiles shot down with American military undergirding. I wouldn’t say that this is something that Biden sought, but he certainly responded. Harris understands very clearly that Iran cannot get a nuclear weapon, and that the deal that we had was the single best attempt to prevent that. 

The idea that the US leads global coalitions and engages in diplomatic efforts is valuable. It’s not a gift, it’s for our security, and that’s something that Trump did not value, and he pushed our allies away from a nuclear deal that was working, preventing Iran’s nuclear program. And so that is now where we are, where Iran is very close to having weapons capacity. 

JP: How would Trump or Harris continue to expand Israeli normalization efforts in the Middle East?

Rubin: First of all – Aryeh, congrats on the Abraham Accords, a diplomatic achievement with individual countries that, unfortunately, were not conflict countries, right? So we have to look at the value of those accords as far as bringing Israel into the Middle East. But they’re not necessarily a course to prevent or stop direct conflict and confrontation. 

I do think that going forward, we’re going to see a continuation of the vision, which is to try to bring more countries into alignment, normalization, and peace with Israel, and that means Saudi Arabia. 

The countries that were brought in had different asks from the US. Look, we gave to Morocco, we gave to Bahrain, we gave to the UAE a variety of security packages and guarantees and recognitions of territory. I’m sure we would do the same to the Saudis if we need to. But they have that one big ask, which is on the Palestinian file, which is very distinct from the other countries.

Lightstone: I wrote a book called Let My People Know It Happened because the State Department spokesperson refused to use the term ‘Abraham Accords’ when interviewed because, if Trump did it, obviously it’s not good. The first time that the Biden administration used the term ‘Abraham Accords’ was the day after the Afghanistan debacle, probably the lowest day since Jimmy Carter was president. 

Since then, one deal has been conducted in the Middle East, brokered by China, to bring peace between Iran and Saudi Arabia. 

What wound up happening was an absence of knowledge. Where did the US stand against Iran? Where does the US stand against the Houthis? One of the administration’s first acts was to take them off the terror sanction list. This is just demonstrating weakness to our allies, and for some reason, friendliness to our foes. And the way to accomplish peace is exactly the opposite. 

We stood ironclad with Israel, and five countries created new relationships with Israel. The goal is not to undermine our ally at every single turn that they take. The goal is to stand firmly and strong with them. And here the proof is in the pudding: five peace treaties, 123 days. There’s no doubt in my mind, under Trump it will get up to 10 or 12 within the first year of that happening. The region is thirsting for his leadership. 

JP: Do you have any final thoughts?

Rubin: People need to think through this election about not just Israel but also broader values.

One thing that’s been very concerning and troubling for me, an American Jew, is to hear the purported admiration of Hitler’s generals that Trump expressed to his then-chief of staff [John Kelly]. That’s the kind of question that has to resonate, which is: Can someone who admires Hitler’s generals really be there for Israel in a pinch? 

But overall, I do think Republicans and Democrats alike support strong relations between the US and Israel, a deep partnership and alliance, and where we do have debates and differences, they’re a minor part of the story.

Lightstone: Joel and I disagree on a great many things, but as an American, he’s my friend, although he’s terribly wrong to attack the character of Trump based on hearsay. The facts are with Trump and Israel. 

But the final piece: I don’t know how many of you live in Israel, but it matters to me when your kids are not safe on college campuses. The president, the vice president, and the candidate that she chose as her VP nominee said the people on the other side ‘have a point.’ They may as well be the university president who says genocide ‘depends on context.’ That is not the America I know. That is not the America I love.

Trump has been extremely clear: Any university that does not prosecute [antisemitic] students to the highest extent of the law will not receive funding. The vehicle is there. It’s a question of enforcement, one president has chosen not to do that, and another president has been very clear about where they stand. 

Rubin: [Laughs audibly] Aryeh, I love you. Thank you. Except that only one administration has put together a national strategy to combat antisemitism, and that was the Biden-Harris administration. 

Listen to the full interview on the latest episode of ‘The Jerusalem Post Podcast.’