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Former US president Donald Trump’s use of the term “Palestinian” sparked outrage after Thursday's debate with President Joe Biden, with human rights groups calling the remarks racist and offensive.
During the much-anticipated debate for the presidential post, Trump criticised Mr Biden for not taking a firmer stance against Palestinian militant group Hamas, which attacked Israel on October 7 and sparked an Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.
Trump said the President has “become like a Palestinian, but they don’t like him because he’s a very bad Palestinian. He’s a weak one.”
In response, Mr Biden defended his support for Israel. “The only one who wants the war to continue is Hamas,” he said.
Human rights groups and social media users have said Trump's comments came across as a slur.
Following the debate Trump, during a rally on Friday, again used the term “Palestinian” in a similar way, this time saying that Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, who is Jewish, was “Palestinian”.
“He's become a Palestinian because they have a couple more votes or something,” he said.
The repeated remarks have drawn the attention of several human rights groups in the US.
The Council on American Islamic Relations, CAIR, an advocacy group, said Mr Biden was wrong to claim that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants the war to end, while adding it viewed Trump's Palestinian comment in the debate as a racist insult.
“Former President Trump's use of 'Palestinian' as an insult was racist. President Biden's touting of his military support for the Israeli government's genocide in Gaza was callous,” Corey Saylor, research and advocacy director at CAIR, said.
The group said both presidential candidates “showed support for Israel's genocide in Gaza”.
American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) called for an end to the use of racist and dehumanising language during political debates and discourse.
“This rhetoric is a reprehensible attempt to demean an entire people struggling to end a genocide committed by the very administration he is referencing,” the group said in a statement, referring to Trump's remarks.
AMP reiterated its “commitment to supporting the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice, and self-determination”.
It demanded that US foreign policy must prioritise “human rights and justice over their political allegiances that support ongoing atrocities in Gaza”.
The exchange between the two men running for office in the White House did not touch upon how to end the conflict, which has killed nearly 38,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The war has also caused a catastrophic humanitarian crisis with famine, hunger and widespread disease, and is one that international aid groups have been calling for an end to for months.
