Presidential Preview: Israel-Hamas war

Editor’s note: In advance of the 2024 presidential election, The Chronicle is breaking down each candidate’s stance on priority issues, examining their platform and political history to keep voters in the Duke and Durham community informed. This week, we take a look at the Israel-Hamas war:

After Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7 of last year, killing an estimated 1,200 people, President Joe Biden was quick to announce his staunch support of Israel and its right to defense.

Since then, Israel has launched multiple invasions into the Gaza Strip in order to “destroy Hamas,” according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In these invasions, an estimated 37,084 Palestinians have been killed and 70% of all Palestinian infrastructure has been significantly damaged — marking one of the worst humanitarian crises in decades, per the United Nations.

In the early days of the war, Israeli officials pointed to a long history of antisemitism and tensions in the region to justify their response. Another key motivation for Israel’s supporters has been the return of hostages taken by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attack. Over 240 hostages were originally taken by Hamas forces — 116 have since been released. Israel estimates that 43 died in captivity and over 120 remain unaccounted for. A senior Hamas official shared that “no one has an idea” of how many of the hostages are still alive.

Biden’s support for Israel during the war has led to protests and calls for immediate divestment  from holdings in the country at more than 130 universities, including a joint research triangle encampment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill which resulted in the arrest of eight Duke community members. At Duke, there have been at least four organized protests on campus, with pro-Palestinian supporters designating the president “Genocide Joe” due to Biden’s decisions to supply U.S. arms to Israel.

The Israel-Hamas war will likely have a significant impact on the outcome of the November presidential election. Here’s what the major candidates would do — and have done — in response to the conflict.

North Carolinian views on the war

While official polling data around the Israel-Hamas war is not yet available for North Carolina, an analysis of recent legislative action and community organizing suggests that N.C. voters have remained largely polarized on the Israel-Hamas war.

The Israel-Hamas war showed up on the ballot during North Carolina’s primary election, which took place March 5 on Super Tuesday. Many Democratic voters rallied around a movement to vote “no preference” in place of supporting Biden, out of protest of his continued support for Israel. “No preference” received 12.7% of the votes in N.C.’s Democratic primary.

In addition to pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses around the state, many North Carolinians have staged demonstrations denouncing Biden’s stance on the war. In Durham, dozens gathered downtown in March to accuse Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris of “committing genocide” and call for an end to “Israeli occupation and apartheid” the same day Harris visited town to discuss economic growth and small business investment.

Kamala Harris

As acting vice president during the outbreak of the war, Harris’ decisions over the past year should provide insight into how she would approach the conflict moving forward should she secure the presidency. However, the Biden-Harris administration’s policy towards the conflict in Gaza has been characterized as confusing and contradictory.

The Biden-Harris legacy

Throughout his presidency, Biden described U.S.-Israel relations as an “ironclad commitment” and “unshakable.” He was quick to ally the U.S. with Israel in the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7 and has remained a strong, albeit increasingly lonely, supporter of the Israeli government’s actions.

Since the outbreak of the war, the Biden-Harris administration has twice bypassed Congress to provide “emergency” weapons sales to Israel worth $253.5 million in total. The administration also approved over 100 military sales, most of which went unreported to Congress because the amount did not meet a certain financial minimum.

A February Politico report claimed “the Biden administration is weighing selling Israel up to 50 new F-15 fighter jets, 30 AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles and a number of Joint Direct Attack Munition kits, which turn dumb bombs into precision-guided weapons,” though the weapons wouldn’t arrive for several years.

The administration is rumored to have sent even more aid behind the scenes, though the records are not public information. A State Department representative maintained that the Biden-Harris administration has followed standard procedures regarding aid to Israel and “regularly briefs members [of Congress] even when formal notification is not a legal requirement.”

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S. had provided about $12.5 billion in aid to Israel as of May since the start of the war. The U.S. also typically sends $3.3 billion in military aid and financing to Israel every year.

However, U.S. arms deals have slowed as the Israeli Defense Forces continue their campaign into the southern border city of Rafah. Biden and Harris have faced mounting international pressure, including from members of their own party, to stop dealing aid and arms to Israel as the IDF continues to decimate Palestinian territories.

Although the Biden administration’s material support for Israel thus far is undeniable, Biden and Harris have also worked to secure cease-fires between Hamas and Israeli forces at multiple points in the conflict, albeit to limited success.

In November, Biden helped negotiate a temporary, six-day cease-fire that resulted in the release of 50 Israeli hostages, 150 Palestinian prisoners and a flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

In early 2024, though, the U.S. repeatedly vetoed U.N. resolutions calling for a permanent cease-fire. Harris herself did not call for an immediate cease-fire until early March, though she was the first high-profile member of the Biden administration to do so.

Around the same time, Biden urged the Israeli government and Hamas to agree to another temporary cease-fire.

In May, Biden leveraged U.S. aid to Israel for the first time in an attempt to deter the country from invading Rafah — where more than 1 million Palestinian civilians were sheltering from the war.

Prior to the eventual May invasion, Biden warned Netanyahu not to launch such a large campaign along the southern border. In his March State of the Union address, the president said that humanitarian aid cannot be a “bargaining chip” and urged “Israeli leadership” not to leverage the influx of humanitarian assistance in Gaza.

The U.S. has sent significant amounts of humanitarian aid to Gaza over the course of the war, beginning soon after Oct. 7 and continuing throughout the conflict. As of June, the Department of Defense reported over $674 million in aid had been sent to the region. The U.S. constructed a temporary pier off the Gaza coast to facilitate aid shipments, though a series of challenges led to its closure in June after only 20 days of operation.

In perhaps the most drastic shift of the Biden-Harris administration’s policy stance on the war, Biden announced a U.S.-drafted, Israeli-backed cease-fire resolution May 31. Biden said that the plan, which includes three phases, is “not just … a cease-fire that would inevitably be fragile and temporary,” but would instead be a “durable end to the war.”

The plan was introduced to the U.N. following the U.S.’s rejection of three previously proposed cease-fire resolutions.

Its first phase calls for an immediate cease-fire and the release of some hostages held by Hamas, including those who are older or wounded, women and the remains of some who died in captivity. In exchange, Palestinian prisoners would be released from Israeli jails, Israeli forces would withdraw from populated areas of Gaza and additional aid would be allowed to enter the region.

Phase two would see a permanent end to “hostilities” and the release of all remaining hostages and prisoners held on both sides. The final phase would entail a multi-year reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, as well as the return of any deceased hostage’s remains to their family.

The U.N. passed the resolution June 10 and Hamas claimed to accept the deal the next day. However, Israeli officials claimed that Hamas rejected multiple provisions of the agreement, throwing a wrench in negotiations. Although Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken previously said that Israel had already accepted the deal when the draft of the resolution was released, Netanyahu expressed skepticism about ending the war in a June 1 statement issued by the Israeli government.

The resolution included a statement attesting to the U.N. Security Council’s “unwavering commitment to achieving the vision of a negotiated two-state solution where two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders.” The resolution also emphasized “the importance of unifying the Gaza Strip with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority,” which has been a sticking point for Israel in negotiations thus far.

Neither Hamas nor Israel have publicly committed to the agreement.

A new look for Harris

While Harris has largely agreed with Biden’s approach over the past year, she has been characterized as both more empathetic to the Palestinian cause and more willing to criticize Netanyahu’s actions.

Harris has been a stronger voice than Biden in acknowledging the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, pushing the administration to be “tougher” on Netanyahu and show more concern for suffering Palestinians as early as December 2023. 

The vice president was also among the first in the administration to advocate for an immediate temporary cease-fire in March, labeling the war in Gaza a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

“The Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid,” Harris said at a March 3 speech in Alabama. “No excuses.”

Harris might be more inclined to openly criticize Netanyahu from the Oval Office, should she secure the presidency in November. Such a position would represent a shift from Biden, whose defense of Israel throughout most of the conflict and once self-described “Zionist” stance has often clashed with the views of progressive Democrats.

The Democratic nominee was noticeably absent from Netanyahu’s July 24 address to Congress, instead on the campaign trail in Indianapolis. She met with the Israeli prime minister the next day, after which she reaffirmed U.S. support for Israel’s right to self-defense in public remarks but emphasized that "we cannot allow ourselves to be numb to the suffering” in Gaza and that she “will not be silent.”

Harris has also called Hamas a “brutal terrorist organization” and has condemned its actions, alongside those of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

“It is important for the American people to remember the war in Gaza is not a binary issue.  However, too often the conversation is binary, when the reality is anything but,” Harris said in her July 25 address. “So, I ask my fellow Americans to help encourage efforts to acknowledge the complexity, the nuance and the history of the region.”

Although it remains unclear if Harris would pressure Israel to accept a two-state solution if elected, such a stance is not out of the realm of consideration given her previous remarks. Experts predict that U.S. policy towards Israel under a potential Harris administration would be substantially more progressive and critical of Israel than Biden’s.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who was close with Harris when they worked together in the Senate and is familiar with her foreign policy views, believes the Democratic nominee could direct a welcome shift in the White House’s approach to the conflict.

“President Biden brought to the White House a lifelong relationship with Bibi Netanyahu and a very mature history on the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Murphy said. He speculated that Harris could provide “a moment for a reconsideration of the relationship and for some fresh thinking on how to approach an Israeli political landscape that is lurching further to the right than we could have ever imagined.”

Murphy added that he thinks “we would all benefit from getting a fresh set of eyes on this conflict and the way that the United States could try to create a viable Palestinian state.”

For now, a definitive stance from Harris regarding the outcome of the war and a potential long-term solution remains relatively uncertain.

Donald Trump

Trump, too, claims to be a strong ally of Israel, and he has a four-year tenure as president during a time of strong U.S.-Israel relations to prove it. As the self-proclaimed “best friend that Israel has ever had,” Trump also had a close relationship with Netanyahu — he once referred to the alliance between the two states as “absolutely, totally unbreakable.”

In December 2017, Trump relocated the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in accordance with the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act, which had been waived by every president before him. The move effectively meant the U.S. recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and stood in solidarity with Israeli interests in Palestinian territories. The decision was highly controversial, sparking protests in Arab countries, but Trump argued it would ultimately “advance the peace process and … work towards a lasting agreement” between “Israel and the Palestianians.”

Additionally, Trump recognized the Golan Heights as Israeli territory in March 2019, which marked a significant departure from long-standing U.S. policy and international consensus that viewed the Golan Heights as occupied Syrian territory under international law. The move was welcomed by Israel but condemned by Syria and much of the international community, who saw it as undermining international legal norms.

While the Golan Heights is geographically separate from the areas involved in the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Trump's recognition of the region as Israeli territory sets a precedent for the U.S. supporting unilateral Israeli claims to disputed territories.

But the most eminent example of Trump’s foreign policy toward Israel during his presidency was the Abraham Accords, in which four Arab countries — originally Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, with Morocco and Sudan signing on later — agreed to formally recognize Israel.

The deal, facilitated by the Trump administration, marked a shift in U.S. policy in the Middle East from suspicion to normalization, as well as from prioritizing peace with Palestinians to supporting Israeli dominance. In fact, a member of the Central Committee of Fatah, the political faction that controls the Palestinian Authority, stated that he believed the Abraham Accords was “one of the reasons” that Hamas attacked Oct. 7.

In a Feb. 10 analysis, The Washington Post cited the Abraham Accords as an insightful predictor of Trump’s policy regarding the Israel-Hamas war, arguing that Trump’s approach to foreign policy in the Middle East if re-elected might again reflect “strong ties to Israeli interests but, in place of President Biden’s ideological commitment to the Jewish state, a transactional approach to foreign affairs that opens the way for unpredictable alliances and accommodations.”

Under Trump’s leadership, the White House unveiled a Peace to Prosperity plan in 2020 that outlined a strategy to “improve the lives of the Palestinian and Israeli people.” According to the former Trump administration, the plan is “the most realistic solution to a problem that has plagued the region for far too long.”

The plan firmly supports Israel. Split into political and economic frameworks, it offers a two-state solution and promises to create a U.S. Embassy in the new Palestinian State. It also divides currently disputed territory in the West Bank between Israel and the new Palestinian State.

Israel would annex all Israeli settlements in the West Bank — which are considered illegal under international law but disputed by Israel — and the Jordan Valley, which makes up about 30% of the West Bank. The Palestinian State would consist of disjointed territories in the West Bank connected by roads, tunnels and bridges, with additional land swaps to compensate for territory lost to Israel. The plan also states that Gaza and parts of the Sinai Peninsula could be incorporated into the new Palestinian State.

Trump described the plan as “a win-win opportunity,” but President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority rejected the plan and called it a “conspiracy deal.”

While the Peace Plan outlines Trump’s plans for resolving border disputes in the Middle East, he has also made remarks concerning U.S. aid to the region. In 2018, Trump cut nearly $200 million worth of aid to Palestinians. If re-elected, he has signaled that he would ban refugees from Gaza from entering the U.S., rescind visas of international students who are deemed “anti-American” and create a “strong ideological screening” to prevent immigrants who “want to abolish the state of Israel” or who “support Hamas or the ideology behind Hamas” from entering the country.

Other candidates

Third-party candidates were in the limelight after many Democrats pledged not to vote for Biden due to his handling of the Israel-Hamas war, which has been largely sympathetic to Israel. However, the switch to a Harris-Walz ticket late in the race may have reunified the party around its new standard-bearer.

When asked in a January interview with Reuters if he would support a temporary cease-fire in Gaza, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. responded, “I don't even know what that means right now.” He later added that each previous cease-fire “has been used by Hamas to rearm, to rebuild and then launch another surprise attack.”

Independent candidate Cornel West has been outspokenly pro-Palestinian, recently refusing to condemn Hamas for the Oct. 7 attacks  — which he labeled a “counterterrorist response” — alongside his running mate Melina Abdullah in an April interview with CNN.

“I don’t believe in killing an innocent anybody,” West told CNN’s Abby Phillip. “But you don’t start with those voices without coming to terms with the vicious killings and occupations that [have] been going on for 75 years.”

West’s platform also advocates for “ceas[ing] military funding to the State of Israel,” “end[ing] Israeli apartheid of Palestinian people and press[ing] the U.N. to establish a program for Palestinian dignity and liberation” and “ceas[ing] all military support to nations committing war crimes.”

Prospective Green Party candidate Jill Stein, an anti-Zionist Jew, has repeatedly advocated for “anti-war” and “anti-genocide” policies. Stein has characterized the Israel-Hamas war as “ethnic cleansing” in her platform and has vowed to “free Palestine” if elected.

Stein published a tweet in December including a snippet from a speech she gave at a pro-Palestinian rally.

“As a Jew, I grew up dedicated to the proposition that genocide would never happen again,” she said. “That means never again for anyone.”

In late April, Stein was arrested at Washington University for protesting the university’s investment in Boeing, “which manufactures munitions used in the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza at their nearby St. Charles facility,” according to a statement she wrote on X.

Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver is anti-war and pro-Palestinian. He has previously voiced his support for a cease-fire in Gaza, and he campaigns on “end[ing] aid being directed to nation-states currently at war,” including Israel and Ukraine.

In his platform, Oliver maintains that “while [the U.S.] offer[s] moral support to our friends currently engaged with the enemy, we should not be contributing to extending the fight.”

Oliver, along with Stein and West, has also described Israel’s actions in Gaza as a “genocide.”

“There's definitely a legal definition, which I believe the actions of the government of Israel, important to say the government of Israel, not the people of Israel, are undergoing,” he said in a June interview with Newsweek. “And so I don't use that term lightly. I have to use that term because that's how I see it.”

While these third-party candidates face serious ballot-restriction laws and disenfranchisement, many voters discontent with both Trump and Biden’s policies regarding the Israel-Hamas war have sought out alternative voices in advance of November’s election.

Editor’s note: Following the announcement that Kamala Harris would replace Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee, this article was updated Aug. 7 with information regarding her stance on the Israel-Hamas war.

The original entry for Biden is below.

Joe Biden

As acting president during the outbreak of the war, Biden’s decisions over the past year should provide insight into how he would approach the conflict moving forward should he secure a second term. However, the Democratic nominee’s policy towards the conflict in Gaza has been characterized as confusing and contradictory.

Throughout his career, Biden has repeatedly emphasized his support for Jewish statehood and Israel’s presence in the Middle East. During a 1999 hearing in Russia on antisemitism, Biden described himself as a “Zionist in [his] heart” — a position he has held from his early days as a senator to his time as president. In the past three months, Biden’s outward stance towards the current conflict has shifted to be more critical of Netanyahu’s decisions.

Biden has described U.S.-Israel relations as an “ironclad commitment” and “unshakable.” He was quick to ally the U.S. with Israel in the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7 and has remained a strong, albeit increasingly lonely, supporter of the Israeli government’s actions.

The Biden administration has twice bypassed Congress to provide “emergency” weapons sales to Israel worth $253.5 million in total since the outbreak of the war and has also approved over 100 military sales, most of which went unreported to Congress because the amount did not meet a certain financial minimum. A February Politico report claimed that “the Biden administration is weighing selling Israel up to 50 new F-15 fighter jets, 30 AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles and a number of Joint Direct Attack Munition kits, which turn dumb bombs into precision-guided weapons,” though the weapons wouldn’t arrive for several years.

The administration is rumored to have sent even more aid behind the scenes, though the records are not public information. A State Department representative maintained that the Biden administration has followed standard procedures regarding aid to Israel and “regularly briefs members [of Congress] even when formal notification is not a legal requirement.”

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S. has provided about $12.5 billion in aid to Israel since the start of the war. The U.S. also typically sends $3.3 billion in military aid and financing to Israel every year.

Additionally, the U.S. has repeatedly vetoed U.N. resolutions calling for a permanent cease-fire, and Biden had refused to personally call for a permanent end to the war until late May. 

But U.S. arms deals have slowed as the Israeli Defense Forces continue their campaign into the southern border city of Rafah. Biden has faced mounting international pressure, including from members of his own party, to stop dealing aid and arms to Israel as the Israeli Defense Forces continue to decimate Palestinian territories. In May, Biden leveraged U.S. aid to Israel for the first time in an attempt to deter the country from invading Rafah — where more than 1 million Palestinian civilians are sheltering from the war.

As the war continues and civilian casualties continue to rise, Biden has become more critical of Netanyahu’s approach and the sheer scale of the invasion. Aside from threatening to discontinue aid to Israel if the IDF invaded Rafah, Biden has taken a few other initiatives in the interest of preventing a prolonged war.

In November, Biden helped negotiate a temporary, six-day cease-fire that resulted in the release of 50 Israeli hostages, 150 Palestinian prisoners and a flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Prior to Israel’s invasion of Rafah, Biden warned Netanyahu not to launch such a large campaign along the southern border — in his March State of the Union address, the president said that humanitarian aid cannot be a “bargaining chip,” urging “Israeli leadership” not to leverage the influx of humanitarian assistance in Gaza.

Biden has acknowledged the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and previously urged the Israeli government and Hamas to agree to a temporary cease-fire.

Biden told Time Magazine May 28 that people had “every reason” to believe that Netanyahu was intentionally prolonging the war for political reasons. In the same interview, Biden said that “there needs to be a two-state solution, a transition to a two-state solution,” noting the belief constituted his “biggest disagreement” with Netanyahu.

“I think there is a clear path for a transition where the Arab states would provide security and reconstruction in Gaza in return for a longer-term commitment [by Israel] to a transition to a two-state solution,” Biden said.

Perhaps the most drastic shift of Biden’s policy stance on the war came May 31, when a U.S.-drafted, Israeli-backed cease-fire resolution was announced. Biden said that the plan, which includes three phases, is “not just … a cease-fire that would inevitably be fragile and temporary,” but would instead be a “durable end to the war.” The plan was introduced to the U.N. following the U.S.’s rejection of three previously proposed cease-fire resolutions.

The first phase of the plan calls for an immediate cease-fire and the release of some hostages held by Hamas, including those who are older or wounded, women and the remains of some who died in captivity. In exchange, Palestinian prisoners would be released from Israeli jails, Israeli forces would withdraw from populated areas of Gaza and additional aid would be allowed to enter the region.

Phase two would see a permanent end to “hostilities” and the release of all remaining hostages and prisoners held on both sides. The final phase would entail a multi-year reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, as well as the return of any deceased hostage’s remains to their family.

The U.N. passed the resolution June 10 and Hamas claimed to accept the deal the next day. However, Israeli officials claim that Hamas rejected multiple provisions of the agreement, throwing a wrench in negotiations. Although Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken had said that Israel had already accepted the deal when the draft of the resolution was released, Netanyahu expressed skepticism about ending the war in a June 1 statement issued by the Israeli government. Neither Hamas nor Israel have publicly committed to the agreement.

The resolution included a statement attesting to the U.N. Security Council’s “unwavering commitment to achieving the vision of a negotiated two-state solution where two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders.” The resolution also emphasized “the importance of unifying the Gaza Strip with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority,” which has been a sticking point for Israel in negotiations thus far.

Despite being longtime allies — their first meeting being in the 1980s — Biden and Netanyahu disagree over the outcome of the war. Biden would like to see a two-state solution — he has been somewhat vocal about his support for progress towards Palestinian independence. In 1973, he urged then-Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir to relinquish some Palestinian territories and reportedly made similar comments in the 1980s to then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

Although it remains unclear if Biden would pressure Israel to accept a two-state solution if re-elected, it would not be out of the realm of consideration given his previous remarks. That said, Biden has contradicted himself before when it comes to Israel-Palestinian relations, and the resolution of the Israel-Hamas war may be no exception.

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