As protests took place nearby, neither candidate mentioned the suffering of the Palestinians or the damage caused by Israel's war on Gaza.
Republican Donald Trump has called US President Joe Biden a “very bad Palestinian” who doesn't want to help Israel “get the job done” against Hamas in the Gaza war.
“He doesn't want to do that. He's become like the Palestinians. But they hate him because he's a very bad Palestinian, a weak Palestinian,” former President Trump said during his first presidential debate with Biden in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday.
Aya Ziyadeh, president of the American Muslim Association for Palestine, told Al Jazeera that the “bad Palestinians” comments were “very blatant racism.”
“Using it as an insult to Palestinians shows the deep roots of racism that exists here,” Ziyadeh said.
Foreign policy and the Middle East were mentioned frequently during the debate, but due to pro-Palestinian protests taking place nearby, there was little mention of Palestinian suffering or the toll of Israel's invasion of Gaza, which has killed more than 37,700 people since October.
Ziyadeh said neither Biden, who has faced pressure from Democrats over his strong support for ally Israel, nor Trump was “fit to represent” the Palestinian and Arab communities in the United States.
“It's not just that Muslim and Arab Americans have decided they don't want to support or re-elect Biden because of Biden's continued stance and incitement to Israeli genocide in Gaza; the minds of the broader American public are also shifting, and this is one of the biggest issues affecting the upcoming election,” she said.
“Lack of vision” to end war
Tamar Khalmout, a professor at the Doha Graduate University, said the debate highlighted a lack of willingness on the part of both Democrats and Republicans to end the war and support the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“The discussion was not about a Palestinian state per se, it was about a state that supports Israel and the best way to support Israel,” he told Al Jazeera.
“Both candidates lack a realistic vision for ending this conflict. It's a very shallow debate that doesn't have ending the conflict at its center.”
Trump said Israel wants to continue the war, and rightly so. Asked whether he would support a Palestinian state to ensure peace in the region, he hesitated, saying “we'll have to wait and see.”
One candidate “is blatantly racist. He wants to deport us all. And President Biden is essentially saying we haven't committed enough genocide and we should let Israel end the Gaza war. And the current president has consciously and knowingly, politically and financially supported the clear genocide in Gaza,” Ziyadeh told Al Jazeera.
“There are at least two evils here,” she added. “The card that's been handed to us as voters and as American citizens is, frankly, unfair.”
Truce proposal
Meanwhile, Biden falsely claimed that all parties except Hamas had agreed to a ceasefire proposal and that he had secured full agreement from all countries, including Israel, to a three-phase plan to end the war.
“From the UN Security Council to the G7, Israel, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] “Prime Minister Netanyahu supported the plan that I put forward,” Biden said.
“The only one who wants the war to continue is Hamas.”
He reiterated his view that Hamas had been “greatly weakened” by Israel, adding that the group “should be eliminated.”
Biden also noted that he is the first recent president to not put troops at risk overseas.
Meanwhile, Trump described Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan as “the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country” and said it empowered Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
