How Kamala Harris and Donald Trump compare on Israel-Hamas war, two-state solution

As former President Donald Trump courts Jewish voters, he has claimed that "Israel is gone" under a Kamala Harris presidency and that her Jewish supporters need their heads "examined."

As vice president, Harris condemned Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed more than 1,000 Israelis, with hundreds more taken hostage. She has also lamented the war’s toll on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, an agency of the region’s Hamas-controlled government. 

After the Israeli Defense Forces said Aug. 31 it had recovered the bodies of six hostages held by Hamas, including American citizen 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin, both candidates expressed condolences. 

"The threat Hamas poses to the people of Israel — and American citizens in Israel — must be eliminated and Hamas cannot control Gaza," Harris said in an Aug. 31 statement. "The Palestinian people too have suffered under Hamas’ rule for nearly two decades."

Trump blamed the "senseless death" of the hostages on Harris and President Joe Biden, saying on X that they’re the ones who "have blood on their hands!"

Goldberg-Polin’s parents spoke at the Democratic National Convention in August, urging for the release of their son and other hostages.

Trump and Harris’ statements serve as a window to their positions on the Israel-Hamas war. Both candidates have expressed support for Israel and highlighted a need for the war to end. Harris has supported Biden’s policies and pushed for a cease-fire, but she has been more vocal than Biden about Palestinian suffering. Trump hasn’t discussed the need for a cease-fire and has criticized the Biden-Harris administration’s response. 

Since Biden dropped out of the presidential race late July, some Pro-Palestinian activists have expressed disappointment about the similarities between Harris’ position on the war and Biden’s. 

Like Biden, Harris condemned Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and said Israel has a right to defend itself. But she said how it does so matters.

Middle East policy experts noted that, as a sitting vice president, it is unlikely that Harris would express major policy differences from the administration’s.

"Harris has been more vocal in expressing her concern for the suffering of Palestinian civilians," said Dov Waxman, director of the Nazarian Center for Israeli Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. "Her tone is different than Biden's, but her position is fundamentally the same." 

Since March, Harris has called for a cease-fire and hostage deal. 

Under Biden, the U.S. sent billions of dollars worth of weapons to Israel. It briefly withheld certain weapons to reduce the chances they would be used to attack densely populated areas. 

Biden temporarily suspended the shipment of about 3,500 bombs to Israel in May when Israel threatened to launch a full-scale attack on Rafah, a city in southern Gaza. But Biden didn’t cut off all U.S. aid. 

In an Aug. 29 CNN interview, anchor Dana Bash asked Harris whether she would do anything differently from Biden to appease more people in the progressive left. Bash offered withholding weapons shipments as an example.

"No," Harris said, before reiterating, "We have to get a (hostage) deal done."

After meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in July, Harris said she would "always ensure that Israel is able to defend itself" but she had "serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians."

Experts see Harris as likelier to pressure Israeli leaders as president than Biden. But they also said that her policy positions probably wouldn’t change from Biden’s unless there is a genuine opportunity for the U.S. to effect lasting change.   

Trump has supported Israel absolutely while saying the nation is "losing" the public relations war. 

Trump also met with Netanyahu in July during the prime minister’s visit to the U.S. 

"I did encourage him to get this over with," Trump said about the meeting in an August press conference. "Have victory, get your victory and get it over with. It has to stop. The killing has to stop."

Trump said he did not discourage Netanyahu from taking a cease-fire deal, after Axios reported he had. At a different event the day of Trump’s press conference, Trump criticized Harris' calls for a cease-fire, Reuters reported.

"From the start, Harris has worked to tie Israel's hand behind its back, demanding an immediate cease-fire, always demanding cease-fire," Trump said, adding it "would only give Hamas time to regroup and launch a new Oct. 7 style attack."

Harris has supported a two-state solution, but her campaign has not given details.

It’s "the only path that ensures Israel remains a secure, Jewish, and democratic state and one that ensures Palestinians can finally realize the freedom, security, and prosperity that they rightly deserve," Harris said in July after meeting with Netanyahu. 

In 2020, Trump released a plan that would have limited a Palestinian state’s sovereign powers and allowed Israel to control security over the Palestinian state, which would be demilitarized. Israel would also have sovereignty over certain parts of the occupied West Bank. 

In June, Waxman told PolitiFact that a Biden-Harris plan would likely differ from Trump’s by including more of the West Bank as part of a Palestinian state, for example. 

In an April interview with Time magazine, Trump said a peaceful two-state solution seemed unlikely after Hamas attacked  Israel on Oct. 7. 

"There was a time when I thought two-state could work," Trump said. "Now I think two-state is going to be very, very tough."

PolitiFact Staff Writer Samantha Putterman contributed to this report.

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