Mother Jones; Hassan Jedi/Anadolu/Getty; Saul Martinez/Washington Post/Getty; Bill Pugliano/Getty
Salma Hamamy wasn’t even watching the presidential debate when former President Donald Trump attempted a familiar verbal jab against Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I’m talking now if you don’t mind,” said Trump, as Harris grinned. “Does that sound familiar?”
The line hearkens back to a moment in the 2020 vice presidential debate, when Harris responded to an interruption from Mike Pence with the curt retort “I’m speaking.” The catchphrase, since then, has become a calling card for Harris; an indication of her toughness as the first female vice president.
But it has not always been completely effective. Earlier this summer, when Harris had just become the de facto Democratic nominee, she gave one of her first addresses on the trail in Detroit. Moments into her speech, she was heckled by Hamamy—a recent graduate from the University of Michigan—and other protesters clamoring for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and end to weapon shipments to Israel.
The vice president responded to the demonstrators with a version of the same catchphrase she once used against Pence: “If you want Donald Trump to win, say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”
The July exchange instantly became another viral moment. Many ardent Harris fans cheered on social media while others, more sympathetic to the protesters, objected to Harris’ dismissal of not only the demonstrators but the topic that they were there to address—US support of Israeli military operations in Gaza.
Shortly after Trump landed his attack Tuesday night, curious what Hamamy thought, we texted her to ask whether she had seen the moment. She had not. “I’m watching a debate amongst our central student government right now regarding divestment,” Hamamy replied. She was referring to her alma matter’s student government debate over withholding more than half a million dollars for campus groups until the school would divest from all business with ties to Israel and weapons manufacturers. (Once Hamamy got a chance to watch the debate clip, she said it sounded familiar.)
Other than this tiny moment, in the 90-plus-minute debate, the topic of Gaza, Palestine, and Israel was the subject of only two questions—one directed to each candidate. When asked how she’d push Netanyahu to “break through the stalemate” and sign onto a ceasefire deal, Harris’s response didn’t stray far from what she said at the Democratic National Convention.
“On October 7, Hamas, a terrorist organization, slaughtered 1,200 Israelis, many of them young people who were simply attending a concert,” Harris said.
“Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters because it is also true far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed: children, mothers,” she added. “What we know is that this war must end.”
But in contrast to Harris’ enumeration of Israeli deaths, she made little effort to explain the scale of the death and carnage in Gaza beyond the vague qualifier “too many.”
According to the official numbers from Gaza’s Ministry of Health, more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7. A July letter published in the Lancet, one of the most famous medical journals in the world, estimated the total death toll may be closer to 186,000. (The study factored in the difficulty of accurately collecting data under crumbling infrastructure, and the indirect deaths caused by lack of access to health care, food, and aid.) Another letter published by international medics later that same month estimated that 92,000 Palestinians have been killed.
The Israeli military, which has received more than $6 billion in US funding since October 7, has also killed Americans in both the West Bank and Gaza: US peace activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, was shot and killed by an IDF soldier at a demonstration in the West Bank village of Beita last Friday. President Joe Biden initially called the death an accident.
“She was fatally shot in the head by a bullet that came from an Israeli sniper positioned 200 meters away,” wrote Hamid Ali, Eygi’s partner. “This was no accident, and her killers must be held accountable.”
Harris issued a statement a day after the debate, saying “No one should be killed for participating in a peaceful protest. The shooting that led to her death is unacceptable and raises legitimate questions about the conduct of IDF personnel in the West Bank. Israel must do more to ensure that incidents like this never happen again.”
Trump was asked on the debate stage how he would negotiate with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas on a hostage deal and prevent more civilians from being killed.
“If I were president, it would have never started,” said Trump, before attacking Harris for skipping Netanyahu’s address to Congress and falsely claiming that she didn’t meet with the Israeli prime minister on his July visit to the US.
“She hates Israel,” Trump said. “At the same time, in her own way, she hates the Arab population because the whole place is going to get blown up: Arabs, Jewish people, Israel. Israel will be gone. It would have never happened.”
Harris replied, “That’s absolutely not true. I have my entire career and life supported Israel and the Israeli people.”
The short back-and-forth on Gaza probably didn’t do too much to move the political needle as far as activists for Palestinian human rights are concerned.
“Harris’s comments on Gaza continue to offend voters appalled by Netanyahu’s US-funded killing campaign,” wrote Abbas Alawieh, an organizer of the Uncommitted movement, after the debate. Alawieh had personally spoken with Harris in Detroit at a VIP greeting line. “They offer nothing new & perpetuate the murderous status quo. It’s simple: to stop the war, our government must stop sending the weapons fueling the war.”
According to a CBS/YouGov poll in April, nearly 70 percent of Democratic voters want the US to stop sending weapons to Israel. Neither candidate acknowledged an arms embargo as an option Tuesday night. Polls released the day before the debate show Harris leading Trump by only one point in the critical swing state of Michigan, which has been a center of anti-war organizing since October 2023.
The debate moved on, and shortly after it ended, Taylor Swift shared a post on Instagram endorsing Kamala Harris. On the same day, the Israeli military hit a crowded tent camp that it had designated as a humanitarian zone with an airstrike that left deep craters in the ground, killed at least 19 Palestinians, and wounded many more.
