LAS VEGAS: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told Jewish donors on Thursday that American universities would lose accreditation and federal support over what he described as “anti-Semitic propaganda” if he is elected to the White House.
“Universities will have to stop anti-Semitic propaganda or lose their federal accreditation and support,” Trump said, speaking remotely to a crowd of more than 1,000 Republican Jewish Coalition donors in Las Vegas.
Protests rocked university campuses in the spring, with students opposing Israel's military offensive in Gaza and demanding that institutions stop doing business with companies that support Israel.
Republicans have said the protests show that some Democrats are anti-Semitic and support chaos. Protest groups say officials have unfairly labeled their criticism of Israel's policies as anti-Semitic.
The Association of American Universities, which says it represents some 69 leading U.S. universities, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the United States, the federal government does not directly accredit universities, but it does have a role in overseeing the mostly private organizations that grant accreditation to universities.
In his speech, Trump also said he would ban the resettlement of refugees from “terror-infested” areas like Gaza and arrest “pro-Hamas thugs” who commit acts of vandalism, an apparent reference to the college protesters.
Under both the Trump and Biden administrations, a similar number of Palestinians were admitted to the United States as refugees. According to State Department data, between fiscal year 2017 and 2020, the United States accepted 114 Palestinian refugees, compared to 124 Palestinian refugees in fiscal year 2021 as of July 31 of this year.
While Trump outlined few concrete Middle East policy proposals for a second term, he painted a potential Harris presidency in catastrophic terms for Israel.
“If she becomes president, they will abandon them. And I think they need to explain that to their people… They will not have an Israel if she becomes president,” Trump said without providing evidence for his claim.
Morgan Finkelstein, a spokeswoman for Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign, said Harris had always supported Israel and opposed anti-Semitism. Finkelstein noted that Trump dined in 2022 with white supremacist Nick Fuentes at his Mar-A-Lago resort and that in 2017 he said there were “very fine people” on both sides of a deadly white nationalist rally in Virginia.
Harris has stuck to President Joe Biden's steadfast support for Israel and rejected calls from some Democrats that Washington should reconsider sending arms to Israel because of the high Palestinian death toll in Gaza.
However, he has called for a ceasefire in Gaza, calling the situation there “devastating”.
Gaza health authorities say more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli assault on the enclave since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks led by the Palestinian group Hamas.
Some 1,200 Israelis were killed in the surprise attack and about 250 were taken hostage, according to Israeli counts.
The subsequent assault on Gaza displaced almost all of its 2.3 million people, sparked a hunger crisis and led to accusations of genocide before the World Court, which Israel denies.
Trump's wish list
The Republican Jewish Coalition Victory Fund says it is spending about $15 million to support Trump, helping him mobilize Jewish voters in battleground states.
The network has received financial support from Sheldon Adelson, the late American casino magnate, and his widow, Israeli-born Miriam Adelson. RJC members gathered this week for their annual conference at The Venetian Resort, which was developed by Sheldon Adelson’s company, Las Vegas Sands Corp. Miriam Adelson is also the chief financier of a super PAC spending group that has said it is seeking to raise more than $100 million to support Trump.
In half a dozen Reuters interviews at the conference, attendees broadly expressed three priorities for a possible second Trump term: expanding the Abraham Accords, taking a tougher line on Iran and reforming or defunding the United Nations.
In 2020, the Trump administration helped negotiate the Abraham Accords, a series of normalization agreements between Israel and Arab nations.
But US-backed plans to normalise ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel were put on hold last year as the war between Israel and Hamas escalated.
RJC Chairman Norm Coleman, who is also a lobbyist for Saudi Arabia in Washington, told Reuters he was still hopeful the Abraham Accords could be expanded under a Biden administration.
“But if it doesn't happen, I hope President Trump will do what he did before and play a role in bringing the region together,” Coleman said.
