Republican presidential nominee, former US President Donald Trump addresses the Economic Club of New York on 5 September 2024, in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP )
- Donald Trump, if elected, plans to revoke accreditation
and federal support for US universities that he claims promote
“antisemitic propaganda. - He also intends to ban refugee resettlement from areas
like Gaza and arrest “pro-Hamas thugs.” - Trump criticised Vice President Kamala Harris, claiming
without evidence that her presidency would be detrimental to Israel.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told Jewish
donors on Thursday that US universities would lose accreditation and federal
support over what he described as “antisemitic propaganda” if he is
elected to the White House.
“Colleges will and must end the antisemitic propaganda
or they will lose their accreditation and federal support,” Trump said,
speaking remotely to a crowd of more than 1 000 Republican Jewish Coalition
donors in Las Vegas.
Protests roiled college campuses in spring, with students
opposing Israel’s military offensive in Gaza and demanding institutions stop
doing business with companies backing Israel.
Republicans have said the protests show some Democrats are
antisemites who support chaos. Protest groups say authorities have unfairly labelled
their criticism of Israel’s policies as antisemitic.
The Association of American Universities, which says it
represents some 69 leading US universities, did not immediately respond to a
request for comment.
READ | Blinken says incumbent on Hamas, Israel to remove gaps in Gaza ceasefire deal
In the United States, the federal government does not
directly accredit universities but has a role in overseeing the mostly private organisations
that give colleges accreditation.
In his speech, Trump also said he would ban refugee
resettlement from “terror infested” areas like Gaza and arrest
“pro-Hamas thugs” who engage in vandalism, an apparent reference to
the college student protesters.
Under both Trump and Biden, similar numbers of Palestinians
were admitted to the US as refugees. From fiscal year 2017-2020, the US
accepted 114 Palestinian refugees, according to US State Department data,
compared with 124 Palestinian refugees from fiscal year 2021 to 31 July of this
year.
While Trump sketched out few concrete Middle Eastern policy
proposals for a second term, he painted a potential Harris presidency in
cataclysmic terms for Israel.
“You’re going to be abandoned if she becomes president.
And I think you need to explain that to your people … You’re not going to
have an Israel if she becomes president,” Trump said without providing
evidence for such a claim.
A campaign spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris,
Morgan Finkelstein, said Harris was a lifelong supporter of Israel and stood
against antisemitism. Finkelstein highlighted that Trump in 2022 dined with
white supremacist Nick Fuentes at his Mar-A-Lago resort and that in 2017 he
said there were “very fine people” on both sides of a deadly rally by
white nationalists in Virginia.
Harris has hewed closely to President Joe Biden’s strong
support of Israel and rejected calls from some in the Democratic Party that
Washington should rethink sending weapons to Israel because of the heavy
Palestinian death toll in Gaza.
She has, however, called for a ceasefire in Gaza, calling
the situation there “devastating.”
Health authorities in Gaza say more than 40 000 Palestinians
have been killed in the Israeli assault on the enclave since the 7 October 2023,
attacks led by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.
Some 1 200 Israelis were killed in the surprise attack and
about 250 were taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
The subsequent assault on Gaza has displaced nearly its
entire 2.3 million population, caused a hunger crisis and led to genocide
allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.
Wish list for Trump
The Republican Jewish Coalition Victory Fund says it is
spending some $15 million to support Trump by helping bring out Jewish voters
in battleground states.
The network has been financially supported by Sheldon
Adelson, the late American casino mogul, and his Israeli-born widow Miriam
Adelson. RJC members gathered this week for their annual conference at The
Venetian Resort, which was developed by Sheldon Adelson’s company, the Las
Vegas Sands Corp. Miriam Adelson is also the lead financier of a super PAC
spending group that has said it is looking to raise over $100 million to
support Trump.
In a half-dozen Reuters interviews at the conference,
attendees broadly voiced three priorities for a potential second Trump term:
Expanding the Abraham Accords, pursuing a tougher line on Iran, and either
reforming or defunding the United Nations.
The Trump administration in 2020 helped broker the Abraham
Accords, a series of normalisation agreements between Israel and Arab nations.
But US-backed plans to normalise ties between Saudi Arabia
and Israel were put on ice last year as war escalated between Israel and Hamas.
RJC chairman Norm Coleman, who is also a lobbyist for Saudi
Arabia in Washington, told Reuters he was still hopeful the Abraham Accords
could be expanded under Biden. “But if it’s not done, I would hope that
President Trump would do what he did before and play a role in bringing the
region together,” Coleman said.
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