Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz teamed up against Donald Trump, hitting the Republican presidential front-runner from all sides in a fiery debate Thursday night just four days before the all-important Super Tuesday contests.
Despite the unrelenting attacks by his two biggest rivals both on policy and personal issues, Trump stood his ground, responding to many of the attacks with his trademark volley of insults.
One of the biggest fireworks erupted when the three candidates clashed on the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Trump asserted that, as president, he cannot automatically side with Israel in the conflict because doing so would "demean" the Palestinians, WND reported.
"I think it serves no purpose to say you have a good guy and a bad guy ... It doesn't help if I start saying I'm very pro-Israel, very pro-Israel, more than anybody on this stage. But it doesn't do any good to start demeaning the neighbors. Because I would love to do something with regard to negotiating peace, finally, for Israel and for their neighbours," Trump said.
This drew fiery rebuttals from Cruz and Rubio, both of whom vowed to stand by Israel.
Cruz said, "This is another area on which Donald agrees with Hillary Clinton. And on which I disagree with them both strongly. Both Donald and Hillary Clinton want to be 'neutral,' to use Donald's word, between Israel and the Palestinians.
"Let me be clear, if I'm president, America will stand unapologetically with the nation of Israel. The notion of neutrality is based upon the left buying into this moral relativism that is often pitched in the media. Listen, it is not equivalent. When you have terrorists strapping dynamite around their chests, exploding and murdering innocent women and children, they are not equivalent to the IDF officers protecting Israel. And I will not pretend that they are."
For his part, Rubio accused Trump of actually taking on an anti-Israel position.
"You cannot be an honest broker in a dispute between two sides in which one of the sides is constantly acting in bad faith. The Palestinian Authority has walked away from multiple efforts to make peace, very generous offers from the Israelis.
"Instead, here's what the Palestinians do: They teach their four-year-old children that killing Jews is a glorious thing. Here's what Hamas does: They launch rockets and terrorist attacks against Israel on an ongoing basis.
"The bottom line is, a deal between Israel and the Palestinians, given the current makeup of the Palestinians, is not possible. And, so the next president of the United States needs to be someone like me, who will stand firmly on the side of Israel.
"I'm not going to sit here and say I'm not on either side. I will be on Israel's side every single day because they are the only pro-American, free-enterprise democracy in the entire Middle East," said Rubio, drawing wild cheers from the audience.
Asked to respond, Trump said, "I'm a negotiator," adding, "and in all fairness, Marco is not a negotiator."
Rubio lashed back: "He thinks [negotiating with] the Palestinians is a real-estate deal."
Trump replied: "A deal is a deal."
Rubio countered: "A deal is not a deal when you're dealing with terrorists. Have you ever negotiated with terrorists?"
Trump answered: "You are not a negotiator, and with your thinking, you will never bring peace."
On other issues, Rubio claimed that if Trump hadn't inherited money he'd be "selling watches in Manhattan," Fox News reported.
Rubio and Cruz both accused Trump of hiring illegal immigrants from Poland for a project in New York.
"I'm the only one on the stage that's hired people. You haven't hired anybody," Trump told Rubio, calling his allegation on illegal immigrant hiring "wrong."
"This guy's a choke artist. And this guy's a liar," Trump said, pointing to Rubio and then Cruz.
The verbal fireworks between the Cruz-Rubio tandem and Trump often sidelined the other two Republican candidates, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
At one point, Carson even pleaded, "Could somebody attack me, please?"
Thursday night's GOP presidential debate in Houston, Texas was the last before more than a dozen states hold contests on Tuesday, when nearly half of the delegates needed to win the nomination are at stake. Polls show Trump leading in nearly all of the state races. Anything resembling a sweep by Trump would be devastating for the other remaining candidates, analysts say.
March 1 marks Super Tuesday, a group of 12 Democrat and Republican primaries and caucuses that includes the following states: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Virginia.
The 12 Super Tuesday states offer 595 Republican delegates. Currently, Trump has 82 delegates. Cruz and Rubio have 17 and 16, respectively. Kasich and Carson have 6 and 4, respectively.
