Trump keeps using ‘Palestinian’ as an insult
At least three times in the span of roughly a month, Trump has used the word “Palestinian” to smear his Democratic opponents.
During a radio interview on Tuesday morning, former President Donald Trump said that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer “has become a Palestinian.”
“Chuck Schumer is officially now a Palestinian,” Trump said, apparently referencing the Jewish Democrat’s critical stance toward Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on “Sid and Friends in the Morning” on 77 WABC.
It’s not the first time the former president has used “Palestinian” — which refers to Arabs who either still live or trace their lineage to Israel and the Palestinian territories — to insult a political opponent.
While it may have been overshadowed by President Joe Biden’s disastrous performance, Trump called Biden a “Palestinian” during an exchange about Israel at their debate on June 27.
“You should let them go, and let them finish the job,” Trump said. “He doesn’t want to do it. He’s become like a Palestinian. But they don’t like him because he’s a very bad Palestinian, he’s a weak one.”
At a rally in Virginia the next day, Trump made a similar remark about Schumer.
“He’s Jewish, but he’s become a Palestinian,” Trump said at that rally. “They have a couple of more votes or something, nobody’s quite figured it out.”
The remark has drawn criticism from human rights organizations.
Amnesty International USA Executive Director Paul O’Brien told Reuters after the debate that “to insinuate that being Palestinian is somehow a bad thing, as former President Trump did when he called President Biden Palestinian, reeks of racism and anti-Arab hatred.”
Reaching by B-17, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung brushed off the criticism.
“What else would they want to be called?” Cheung said. “The only racists are the people who are saying it’s racist.”
Over the course of the nearly 10 months since the October 7 Hamas attacks and the subsequent war in Gaza, Biden and the Democratic Party have contended with a robust pro-Palestinian movement that’s called for the US to reorient its relationship with Israel. That’s included a movement of “Uncommitted” Democrats who had refused to vote for Biden unless he suspended military aid to Israel and helped broke a permanent ceasefire. It remains unclear how Vice President Kamala Harris, or her running mate, will handle the issue.
But Trump’s continued used of “Palestinian” as an epithet underscores that despite the misgivings that many Palestinian and Arab American voters have with the Democratic Party now, the Republican Party is unlikely to be more sympathetic to their demands.
