Donald Trump just urged Israel to finish up the war in Gaza and get the hostages released, because (as he argues) Israel is losing in the publicity battle, as we read in Haaretz:

Former U.S. President and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump called for a quick end to Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza and a return of the hostages, a day before meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
Trump added that Israel has to better manage its “public relations.”

“I want [Netanyahu] to finish up and get it done quickly, he’s got to get it done quickly, because they are getting decimated with this publicity,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News on Thursday.

“For whatever reason you have Jewish people out there wearing Yarmulkes, and they’re, you know, pro-Palestine. You’ve never seen anything like this,” Trump said.

“Israel has to have to handle its public relations, they are not good. They got to get this done fast, because the world is not taking lightly to it, it’s really incredible,” Trump continued.

This hearkens back to what Trump said back in April, when the war was still fresh on the headlines:

“Get it over with and let’s get back to peace and stop killing people. And that’s a very simple statement … They have to get it done. Get it over with and get it over with fast because we have to — you have to get back to normalcy and peace.”

Trump is being very strategic. He knows he has to appeal to pro-Israel voters, which is why he will meet with Netanyahu, call Biden a “bad Palestinian” (albeit “a weak one”), and say that pro-Palestine protestors (who aren’t American citizens) should be deported. But Trump is not going down the route of Lindsey Graham who suggested that Israel nuke Gaza; Trump is not going down the route of saying that Israel should just make Gaza into glass. He is being careful, expressing support for Israel but not going as far as the “Channel 14” zionists in Israel who elate in war crimes. Trump is calling for Israel finish the war quickly, which means end the war, since as Trump argues, the carnage and destruction in Gaza is not looking good for Israel. Trump does not want to repulse any potential and actual support from Arab Americans in states like Michigan and Minnesota. Biden lost Arab American support due to the president’s support for Israel, both in word and in arms deals. According to an article published today by TIME Magazine, for many Arab Americans “Biden has been the single-biggest cheerleader of Israel’s punishing and relentless assault on Gaza”.

The Arab vote has become quite seriously taken due to the fact that the Arab population is heavily concentrated in Michigan, a vital battleground state. Arab Americans were already trending towards the Republican Party due to how Trump handled the economy during the 2020 pandemic. Biden’s support for Israel has pushed off Arab support that was already sliding to the Republican side. According to a John Zogby Strategies/Arab American Institute poll that was done one October 23-27, Trump was beating Biden 40 percent to 17 percent among Arab American voters. After the war broke out in October, for the first time since at least 1996, more Arab Americans saw themselves as Republicans than as Democrats, 32% to 23%. Trump is going to need all the votes he can get in Michigan — remember, he only won by 1 point in that state. So he doesn’t want to risk losing the Arabs.