Trump gives mixed messages on how he’d handle Israel-Hamas war

Former President Trump often made support for Israel a cornerstone of his foreign policy during his first term in office, but in recent weeks he has offered mixed messages about how he would handle Israel’s battle with Hamas if he were chief executive.

Trump initially criticized Israeli leadership over the Hamas terrorist attacks on Oct. 7 but has since reiterated his support for the country. He has insisted he would take a much harder line against Iran, which has long backed the military wing of Gaza’s governing body, but has suggested the Israel-Hamas conflict will have to play out.

Trump’s comments and policy stances have offered clues about how he would handle the situation, providing a glimpse into how he and President Biden — the two men most likely to be on the ballot next November — differ on a major foreign policy issue.

Hostage efforts

Trump has joined a chorus of Republicans critical of the Biden White House for its dealings on hostages, which include Israelis, Americans and other foreign nationals, taken by Hamas.

Over the weekend, in a deal brokered by the U.S., Israel and Hamas agreed to a pause in fighting to allow more humanitarian aid into the enclave and Palestinian prisoners to be released in exchange for a wave of hostages being freed. The first two waves, however, included no Americans.

“Has anybody noticed that Hamas has returned people from other Countries but, so far, has not returned one American Hostage? There is only one reason for that, NO RESPECT FOR OUR COUNTRY OR OUR LEADERSHIP,” Trump wrote Saturday on Truth Social.

That soon changed, however, when 4-year-old Abigail Idan, an American Israeli citizen, was among the 13 hostages released as part of the pause Sunday.

Former advisers said if Trump were president, he would likely have deployed Robert O’Brien, his former national security adviser and one-time chief hostage negotiator, to the Middle East to work on securing the release of Americans taken by Hamas.

Trump also would likely reach out directly to Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani of Qatar to push for the release of Americans, former advisers said. Biden has been in regular contact with al-Thani throughout the course of the fighting and brokered the latest deal with Israel, Egypt and Qatar officials.

Humanitarian situation in Gaza

One key component of the Biden administration’s approach to the war has been its growing support for humanitarian aid pauses that in part also allow for civilians to leave Gaza for safer places.

Trump has said he would reject refugees from Gaza from entering the United States, and he has called for ideological screenings for those entering the country.

The former president had a thorny relationship with Palestinian leaders while he was in office. In 2018, the Trump administration said it would not spend roughly $200 million in funding set aside for aid to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. And the Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan released in 2018 infuriated Palestinian leaders, as it aligned largely with what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had laid out.

But it’s unclear how Trump would have handled getting humanitarian aid into Gaza during the ongoing conflict, in which tens of thousands of Palestinians have died in Israeli airstrikes as well as a ground offensive. Trump has not spoken about that part publicly, and his campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Gen. Keith Kellogg, who served on the National Security Council during the Trump administration, said in an interview that he would have advised for a “much harder approach” than the Biden administration is taking in terms of aid into Gaza.

“I think you have to look at it across the board holistically, and then the president would have looked at it holistically,” Kellogg said.

Calls to limit civilian casualties

Trump has not publicly called for Israel to show restraint or try to limit civilian casualties, and doing so would be at odds with his often bellicose rhetoric while in office, when he would frequently antagonize the likes of Iran and North Korea.

Instead, Trump has suggested prolonged fighting between Israel and Hamas may be unavoidable because of long-standing animosity between the two sides.

“So you have a war that’s going on, and you’re probably going to have to let this play out,” Trump told Univision. “You’re probably going to have to let it play out because a lot of people are dying.”

“There is no hatred like the Palestinian hatred of Israel and Jewish people. And probably the other way around also, I don’t know. You know, it’s not as obvious, but probably that’s it too. So sometimes you have to let things play out and you have to see where it ends,” he added, calling what was taking place in Gaza “unbelievable.”

Trump did suggest in the Univision interview that Israel had to “do a better job of public relations, frankly, because the other side is beating them at the public relations front. That’s a very important front worldwide. That’s a very important front. So they do have to do a better job.”

Protests domestically

One area where Trump himself has been outspoken is in response to a wave of pro-Palestinian protests that have taken place across the United States in the weeks since the war began. 

“When you look at the demonstrations going on in the United States, people are very surprised when they see, you know, 50 and 100,000 people demonstrating, and they say, ‘Palestinians, we’re for — we’re on the side of the Palestinians,’” Trump told Univision. “I would say, ‘Wait a minute, what’s going on here?’”

There has also been a rise of both antisemitic and Islamophobic fears that has sometimes resulted in violence on college campuses across the U.S. 

Trump has pledged at recent campaign events that his administration would “revoke the student visas of radical anti-American and antisemitic foreigners at our colleges and universities, and we will send them straight back home.” 

Trump has in the past lashed out at protesters he believes are opposing him. One of the most notable events during his presidency was when protesters demanding justice for George Floyd were tear-gassed outside the White House by military personnel.

It is likely Trump would have weighed in on a major pro-Palestinian protest in Washington, D.C., earlier this month in which demonstrators shook the White House gates and slapped red handprints on the concrete outside the complex.

The Biden administration has routinely defended peaceful protests but has condemned antisemitic demonstrations on college campuses in recent weeks.