Kamala Harris and Israel policy

Sometimes trying to figure out what politicians mean as opposed to what they are saying makes you wonder if reading tea leaves or casting the I Ching might be at least as good a guide to what’s going on.

But public signaling in both diplomacy and politics is always part of the story that we have to try to translate. Sometimes that’s easy. When convicted felon Donald Trump mispronounces Kamala Harris first name as Ka-MAL-ah instead of the correct KA-mal-ah, he’s reminding his cult followers that she has what they would consider a “foreign” name, i.e., she not of white Anglo-Saxon ancestry. Aside from the fact she’s not even a man.

But soon-to-be-Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris met this week with active war criminal and current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:

Striking a tougher tone than President Joe Biden, Ms Harris said she made clear her "serious concerns" about casualties in Gaza, telling Mr Netanyahu how Israel defended itself mattered.

"It is time for this war to end," she said after their face-to-face talks at the White House.

Ms Harris also stressed the need for a path to a two-state solution, while calling on Americans to be aware of "nuance" on the conflict.

Earlier on Thursday, Mr Netanyahu met Mr Biden, who stepped down from his re-election campaign on Sunday.

Mr Netanyahu's meetings at the White House came a day after he gave a fiery speech to Congress, vowing “total victory” against Hamas, as thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated outside. (1)

As long as Biden remains President, Harris will have to walk a careful diplomatic line of distinguishing her own preferred perspective from that of the Biden Administration. The hope that a President Harris will not be so completely deferential to the Israeli government (with or without Netanyahu) as Biden has been is obviously one thing a majority of the Democratic base finds attractive. So she presumably will want to sustain that hope through Election Day in November.

The position quoted above isn’t different from that of the Administration of which she is currently part. But in the stress on an immediate end to the war and the two-state solution (to which Netanyahu’s government is unwilling to even formally consider), she allows Democratic voters to hope for better on Israel policy.

Declining to be present at Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress, over which she as President of the Senate would normally preside, was also a visible signal that she wants voters to see her as at least a restraining influence on Israel.

But Israel remains a big and immediate problem for the US, especially but by no means exclusively, as long as Netanyahu heads the government. Netanyahu opened and closed his address to Congress hyping the Iranian threat. And the risk that his government will turn the war into a much bigger conflict in pursuit of Netanyahu’s decades-old goal of getting the US into a war with Iran will continue.

And Netanyahu is clearly a Trump partisan in the Presidential election. Even though Netanyahu hasn’t explicitly endorsed Trump the way his Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir – who was convicted in 2007 of supporting a terror group (2) – has done (3):

Alon Pinkas observes:

According to polls, over 70 percent of Israelis want Netanyahu to resign. Over 70 percent of Republicans cheered him enthusiastically. That's a perfectly compatible set of data. The Netanyahu who showed up in Congress was not the prime minister of Israel but the Republican senator from Jerusalem. Once you realize that, you understand his actions and how detached he is. [my emphasis] (3)

Notes:

(1) Debusmann Jr., Bernd (2024): Harris tells Netanyahu 'it is time' to end war in Gaza. BBC News 7/26/2024. <https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg3eppp0n57o> (Accessed: 2024-26-07).

(2) Ben Gvir endorses Trump in highly irregular move, day before PM meets Biden, Harris. Times of Israel 07/24/2024.<https://www.timesofisrael.com/ben-gvir-endorses-trump-in-highly-irregular-move-day-before-pm-meets-biden-harris/> (Accessed: 2024-26-07).

(3) Weiss, Efrat (2007): Extreme rightist convicted of supporting terror group. Ynet News 06/25/2007. <https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3417226,00.html> (Accessed: 2024-26-07).

(4) Pinkas, Alon: Biden and Netanyahu's Speeches Showed the Starkest and Darkest of Contrasts. Haaretz <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-07-25/ty-article/.premium/biden-and-netanyahus-speeches-showed-up-the-starkest-and-darkest-of-contrasts/00000190-e9c8-d541-adbc-f9f8fd9e0000> (Accessed: 2024-26-07).