In this Aug. 15, 2016 file photo, Marc Zell, co-chairman of Republicans Overseas Israel, speaks as the Republican Party launches its first election campaign in Israel, in Modiin. Supporters of Republican candidate Donald Trump have set up a campaign office in a Jewish settlement in the northern West Bank, hoping to tap into the large numbers of American immigrants in the area for support. The operation, launched in the Karnei Shomron settlement, is one of several Republican outposts set up across Israel to get American expatriates to register to vote. Palestinian American Sam Bahour writes in the below op-ed that this is a break with U.S. policy tradition regarding Israeli settlements.
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton debated Monday night before an international audience of tens of millions. I didn't watch. Trump already has made crystal clear his opposition to my freedom and the rights of other Palestinians.
Trump ruined my summer vacation in Ohio. Arriving with my family from the occupied West Bank to my hometown of Youngstown in early June, I was overwhelmed with Trump news every day.
The city where we live, Al-Bireh/Ramallah, is under Israeli military occupation and the tensions between fanatic settlers who reside on the hilltops above our cities and the native Palestinian population is at an all-time high. Consequently, I was looking forward to taking a break from the blatant racism and discriminatory Israeli laws that surround us in Palestine.
Yet Ohio is on the front lines of this year's presidential race and the candidates are making their rounds to every locale, big and small, including Youngstown. So much for finding tranquility.
First came the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Making a tragic mockery of the U.S. political system, Trump hijacked the convention and the Republican Party to serve his overflowing ego and public relations efforts. The entire four days, covered by obedient media at CNN and Fox, offered no more than venomous threats and relentless fear-mongering.
Donald Trump and Republican leaders' "Islamophobia" message came to a head when Avon police officers armed with assault rifles wrestled an Emirati businessman to the ground because a hotel clerk thought he was a terrorist, local Muslim leaders said.
We hoped that the close of the convention would witness Ohio being put on the backburner for a few weeks. Trump, however, promised to work Ohio like no other candidate.
Fed up with the coverage of Trump, I was happy to head back home to occupied Palestine, where life is difficult, but at least our political discussions confront fundamental issues of freedom and rights.
Trump, however, remains in my life, this time very close to home. Israeli supporters of the Republican presidential nominee have opened an office in the occupied West Bank. The first office was placed in Karnei Shomron in the north West Bank. This settlement and the more than 140 other Israeli settlements are rejected by nearly all, if not all, countries around the world.
A nonprofit group, Republican Overseas Israel, was established for the purpose of getting out the Republican vote in Israel - and now in the occupied West Bank. Marc Zell serves as its co-chairman and proudly claims that they are serving all of Israel from this "logistical jumping-off point."
As if having Trump in the presidential race is not enough, we now have "close coordination" of the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee with Israeli settlers who not only violate international law, but are also in direct contradiction with U.S. foreign policy.
The issue of illegal Israeli settlements, until today, has not been a partisan issue. Administrations from both parties have repeatedly called these settlements "obstacles to peace" and more recently "corrosive to the cause of peace." Just last year, settlers attacked American consular officials during a visit the officials made to the West Bank to investigate claims of damage to Palestinian agricultural property by settlers.
Israeli settlements are one clear reason why the most long-standing Middle East conflict has to date been unresolvable. The Republican National Committee and their candidate can now boast that these "obstacles to peace" have joined their camp.
Trump's platform ignores Israeli settlements and rejects "the false notion that Israel is an occupier."
U.S. policy for a two-state solution to the conflict has been discarded by Trump and his fellow scofflaws for a settler-inspired policy that claims there is no Israeli occupation. Every country in the world outside of Israel is simply wrong according to this view.
I ask Trump the same question I ask Israelis: If it's not a military occupation, what is it? If it's an occupation, then it is past time we start holding Israel accountable as an occupying power and speak of when the occupation will end. If it's not an occupation, then should I tell my neighbors, who are originally from Haifa, to prepare to go home? If Israel is imposing upon us one state, then we Palestinians insist that it be one state with equal rights for all and not a continuation of the apartheid policies we now endure.
. Sam was born and raised in Youngstown, Ohio and studied at Youngstown State University.