The presidential election “battle” in the United States is set to take place tomorrow, November 5, 2024. The entire known world is watching these elections closely. Some analysts believe that Donald Trump’s lies, character flaws, and biases regarding Gaza and Palestine will lead to his defeat. Meanwhile, his opponent, Kamala Harris, with her consistent smiles and open character, is poised to reach the White House and earn the honor of being the first elected female president in U.S. history.
However, the real results will only be known by tomorrow evening. Former U.S. President Donald Trump is an unusual figure in American politics and elections. He is a capitalist and an investor, primarily a developer — in simpler terms, a property dealer. He maintains close ties with American and Israeli Jews. This closeness is evidenced by the fact that one of his daughters, Ivanka Trump, is married to a staunch American Jewish businessman, Jared Kushner.
During his election campaigns, Trump would often take his grandchildren — the children of his Jewish son-in-law — in his arms and proudly tell his audiences that these are the children of his Jewish son-in-law. In this way, he aimed to please Israel, gain attention from pro-Israel American media, and win over influential and wealthy American Jews.
It is often said that there are many similarities between the founder of PTI and Donald Trump. For instance, both of them dislike critical media voices. While in power, the PTI leader rarely invited media persons with opposing views. He preferred journalists, analysts, anchors, and social media workers who aligned with his own opinions.
Trump shares the same habit. During his presidency, he repeatedly insulted and belittled renowned but opposing journalists at the White House. He continues to do the same now. If a journalist dares to ask Trump a difficult or unfavorable question, he would make a sour face and say, “Who invited you here?” or he would use his famous line: “It’s questions like these that are driving down your ratings and those of your media outlet.” In belittling unfavorable journalists, Trump rarely differentiates between male and female reporters.
Like our Khan, Donald Trump also refuses to apologize for any untruth that slips from his tongue. Both men stubbornly stand by their words. In this sense, they embody a verse by our distinguished poet, Zafar Iqbal: “If you’ve lied, then stand by it, O Zafar / A person should be resolute in their character.” During his presidential campaigns, Trump uttered a new lie, but it is costing him dearly in political and electoral terms.
There are countless voters in America who raise their voices against the atrocities committed by Israel in Gaza, Lebanon, and other Palestinian territories. Despite being anti-Gaza and anti-Palestinian, Trump cannot ignore the voices of these American voters. Thus, he fabricated a new lie regarding Gaza, its people, its land, its skies, and its sea.
In the second week of October 2024, during an interview with a well-known American radio host, Hugh Hewitt, when asked, “Can Gaza, which Israel has devastated with heavy bombing over the past year, be rebuilt to become a new Monaco?” (Monaco, a very small but wealthy country on the Mediterranean, considered a paradise for tourists with a population of only 40,000), Trump responded: “Yes. I’ve personally been to Gaza. Gaza is located in one of the best spots in the Middle East. It has the best water. It borders a beautiful sea. Its air and skies are wonderful. Unfortunately, the people (of Gaza and the Palestinian populace) haven’t paid enough attention to it. If it’s rebuilt properly, it could be even more splendid than Monaco. I say this as an internationally renowned developer.”
When American electronic and print media confronted him, asking, “Sir, don’t lie. Tell us when and in what year you visited Gaza,” Trump’s campaign spokesperson responded only to *The New York Times*, saying, “Gaza is in Israel. Trump has been to Gaza.” This was another lie by Trump’s spokesperson. Gaza has never been a part of Israel. It is true that Trump visited Israel in 2017 as the President of the United States. From there, he also toured the Palestinian region of the West Bank and met with West Bank President Mahmoud Abbas.
In light of this background, after four days, Trump’s spokesperson stated in an interview with American TV *CBS*: “It’s the same thing, right? The West Bank is part of Israel. Going to the West Bank means Trump visited Gaza.” Trump told a lie, and to substantiate it, his spokesperson went even further. Sadly, the host at *CBS* did not challenge him. In contrast, the American newspaper *The New York Post* wrote in an editorial: “Are Trump and his spokesperson deliberately lying about Gaza, or do they not know the geography of Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel? Gaza and the West Bank have separate identities. To reach Gaza from the West Bank, one must pass through Israeli-occupied territory, and not every resident of the West Bank can freely travel to Gaza at any time.”
Despite these corrections, Trump and his spokespersons refused to admit to the lie. As Zafar Iqbal’s verse suggests, they practically demonstrated being “resolute in their character.” This deliberate lie about Gaza was not only spoken by Trump. Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also recently made a false statement at a conference in Germany, claiming, “The number of deaths and casualties in Gaza is not as high as the ‘propaganda’ suggests.” The world, however, is laughing at Trump’s lies.
For instance, when Trump and Kamala Harris both gave sixty-minute interviews to an American private TV channel yesterday, the prominent American magazine *The New York Post* wrote: “In sixty minutes, Trump lied 64 times, while Kamala Harris lied four times.” Both candidates for the U.S. presidency are lying about Gaza, Palestine, and Lebanon to show support for Israel, as they both seek to please Israel and global Zionism. Both candidates deny that Israel has martyred over 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza. Arab-American Muslims are in a dilemma about whom to vote for.