Donald J. Trump’s son-in-law and his former ambassador to Israel have amplified policy proposals embraced by Israel’s far-right wing, but U.S. activists say their anger still rests with the current administration.
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David M. Friedman, the former ambassador to Israel, and Donald J. Trump last month. Mr. Trump said that he would meet with Mr. Friedman to discuss his plan for Israeli annexation of the West Bank.
Even as Palestinian-rights organizers focus their ire on President Biden, the advisers who shaped Donald J. Trump’s Middle East policies when he was president have amplified calls for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and the annexation of the West Bank by Israel.
Those policy prescriptions, voiced by Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his former ambassador to Israel, David M. Friedman, suggest a right-wing approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict exceeding even the Trump administration’s lopsidedly pro-Israeli proposals for a two-state solution. Mr. Trump, in an interview with a conservative Israeli publication, was contradictory on the policies he would pursue, but he did say he would be meeting with Mr. Friedman to discuss the former ambassador’s plan for Israeli annexation of the West Bank, which has been under military occupation since 1967.
Yet rather than raising alarm bells, some Palestinian organizers still maintain that Mr. Biden is the true threat, and that rhetoric from his Republican challenger cannot compare to policies that they say have already led to the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians.
“The fear of a second Trump term no longer resonates,” said Abed Ayoub, the national executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, who has been organizing Arab American and progressive voters in Michigan.
Mr. Ayoub suggested that if Mr. Trump was re-elected because activists shun Mr. Biden, the Democratic Party could be forced to reconsider its position on Israel.
ImagePalestinian-rights organizers have focused their ire on the Biden administration, even as people close to Mr. Trump have called for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.Credit…Nic Antaya for The New York Times
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Source: nytimes.com
