Israel First: Trump and Harris lock horns over who loves Zionist occupation more

By Wesam Bahrani

In a heated US presidential debate on Wednesday, the two candidates vying for the top office Kamala Harris and Donald Trump clashed over who loves the Zionist occupation more.

Trump accused his opponent of having anti-Israel sentiments, and claimed that “she hates Israel.” He added that if Harris wins the election, Israel “will not exist” within two years.

“At the same time in her own way, she hates the Arab population," Trump stated. "The whole place is going to get blown up: Arabs, Jewish people, Israel. Israel will be gone."

During his first term in office from 2017 to 2021, the Republican president was extremely generous to Tel Aviv, illegally relocating the US embassy to occupied al-Quds, and recognizing the illegally-occupied Syrian Golan Heights as belonging to the Israeli regime.

Among the many evil measures that the Trump administration took against Palestinians was no longer recognizing the Palestinian right to return. A legal right that is enshrined in international law and a right that is sacred for Palestinians for many reasons. 

The Democratic candidate running for the November election in America’s two-party political system, Kamala Harris, also expressed her no-holds-barred support for the Israeli occupation.

In her defense, Harris said Trump was trying to “divide and distract” from reality while reaffirming her support for the Israeli occupation in order to win the favor of the pro-Israel lobbies in Washington.

“I have, my entire career and life, supported Israel and the Israeli people,” she said, trying to checkmate her Republican rival on his ironclad support for the apartheid regime in the US.

She also tried to portray herself as a peacenik saying the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza must end and repeated the ‘’two-state salutation’’ myth that many US administrations have regurgitated over the past decades without any real action.  

We are now approaching the first anniversary of the Gaza genocide that the Biden administration, with Harris serving as his deputy, has enabled with unchecked arms shipments to the Israeli regime. 

Among these shipments have been 2,000-pound bombs, which should never be dropped from warplanes in urban warfare, especially in a densely populated area such as Gaza. 

Trump as a Republican and Harris as a Democrat are following their party lines on how to support the Israeli occupation with the only difference being on the best method to ensure the illegal occupation's survival.

Throughout the past decades, US solidarity and ties with the Israeli occupation have been well known in the global public eye and also well documented by human rights groups.

The difference isn't who is with the Israeli occupation and who is against it. There is none. 

The difference between the Zionists that govern occupied Palestine and the global Zionist movement, with its headquarters in Washington DC, tilts on the best way forward to serve Israeli interests and the survival of the occupation. 

There is a narrow line between a US-Israeli camp and a US-Zionist camp. The Democratic Party has come to represent the global (mainly US-based) Zionist movement. The Republican Party is more aligned with the Israelis governing in Tel Aviv. 

Benjamin Netanyahu's relationship with the US, post-October 7, and his recent trip to Washington underlined these margins and the relationships between the US and the Israeli occupation. 

Following the success of the Zionist movement to establish the Israeli occupation entity in 1948, foreigners from around the world answered the call to migrate to Palestine. 

A financial system was set up allow these foreigners to settle in occupied Palestine and thrive at the expense of the indigenous people of the land. 

These settlers went on to take up positions of authority in the occupied lands, establishing firms, institutions and positions of authority, etc. that resulted in what can be coined as "Israeli interests". 

This is highlighted inside the occupied lands, with elections that have allowed Zionist ideology to flourish with sharpening ambitions, determination as well as extremism amid rhetoric of killings and displacement of Palestinians. An election process that generates an Israeli political system, which oversees Israeli interests and opinions that serve the occupation. 

This is not necessarily always linked to the global Zionist movement that represents the ideals of the founders of Zionism, their views and those who protect, support and fund it or its guardians for that matter that view Zionism as a tool for imperialism. 

Naturally, the international Zionist movement also must supervise the status of the Israeli occupation, which at times clashes with the viewpoints of Israelis inside the occupied lands who have risen to power and are in a position to draw up Israeli policies. 

When it comes to Tel Aviv waging wars, both US parties consider the interests of America first.  

The Democrats may go a little further if the Zionist movement fills its pockets enough. 

Republicans will not send US troops to defend the Israeli occupation unless American national security is at risk and it must enhance US hegemony in West Asia not weaken it. 

That's the formula but both parties will continue supporting the Israeli occupation, with weapons, American taxpayers’ money, and other means to the hilt in its crimes against humanity, no matter who sits in the Oval Office on January 20, 2025. 

What is also emerging, post-October 7, is a rising American-Palestine movement. Mostly among the younger generation, which poses a threat to both camps, but not at the moment as they are not part of the political process. But one day they could be. 

Nevertheless, the Democratic Party, their senior leaders and the US-based Zionist movement are seeking a stronger grip on Netanyahu. 

They believe his cabinet is pushing the region to war and the US is incapable of dispatching an army to defend the Israeli occupation, knowing fully well that Tel Aviv can't defend itself alone and needs America. 

Yet, this will weaken America's hegemony in the region, and is not in the interest of the US to get caught up in West Asia, again, after the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan. 

For this reason, the American Zionists believe Washington should seek to push for an end to the genocidal war on Gaza, but not because tens of thousands of children have been killed and injured there, the majority of them little children and women.

Weapons, funds, political and diplomatic cover in addition to the applause and standing ovations at Congress (for genocide) is all Netanyahu will continue to receive. 

Wesam Bahrani is an Iraqi journalist and commentator.

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)

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