At the Democratic National Convention, Vice President Kamala Harris tried to walk a tightrope on the issue of Israel’s war in Gaza. She sought to comfort supporters of Israel’s conduct by proposing no policy breaks from President Joe Biden’s support for Israel. But she also used subtly emotive language to imply that she might approach the issue in a more dovish manner than Biden. While it would be a stretch to say that Harris was courting the pro-Palestinian vote, she created space for some to see the prospect of a respite for Palestinians under her presidency. “She announced no break with administration policy here, and it felt like a complete break with the administration,” The New York Times’ Ezra Klein said of Harris’ rhetorical approach in a podcast after her DNC speech.
These kinds of messages from Harris could further repel progressives, Arab Americans and Muslim Americans.
But over the past week, Harris’ campaign has sent out campaign surrogates and had communications with the media that place her more firmly on the side of hawkishness. It’s a troubling development, as Israel unleashes new nightmares for civilians in northern Gaza and continues to escalate its war with Hezbollah in its ground incursion into Lebanon. And on a political level, these kinds of messages from Harris could further repel progressives, Arab Americans and Muslim Americans who have expressed an openness to defecting to third parties or staying home over voting for the Democrats’ Gaza policy.
Harris is neck and neck with Trump in Michigan, a state with significant communities of Jewish voters and Arab American voters. Neither of those communities is a monolith, but they do tend to skew in opposite directions on Israel policy, and so Harris has a delicate (if not impossible) task if she were trying to appeal to both simultaneously. That’s why it’s disappointing that her campaign sent Rep. Richie Torres, D-N.Y., to meet with Jewish Michigan voters to convince them, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, that Harris is a “pro-Israel stalwart.” Notably, Torres is not Jewish, nor is he from Michigan. But he is one of the most strident and combative Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives on the issue of defending Israel’s military operation in Gaza, particularly on social media. He’s a fervent critic of people who criticize Israel’s conduct, and has preposterously accused the pro-cease-fire Uncommitted movement of seeking “war.”
Torres was sent to speak at a private event, not a major rally, but campaigns know that their choice of surrogates and what those surrogates say will be reported on and interpreted as symbols of a campaign’s values. That’s the whole point of them. Harris had the option to send a Democrat with a balanced worldview, but chose not to. The message that Torres' Michigan visit sends is that Harris is fine being represented by an activist supporter of a military operation which premier human rights observers and scholars have deemed a genocide.
Harris has also embraced another longtime hawk who will provide no comfort to the pro-Palestinian left: former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney. Harris has not only touted Cheney’s endorsement of her campaign, but this week she toured three battleground states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — with her. Cheney is not just a generic Republican who favors Harris over Trump. She has a surname synonymous with the most virulent wing of a virulent foreign policy ideology: neoconservatism. (Former Vice President Dick Cheney also endorsed Harris earlier in the race, and, disturbingly, Harris praised him for “what he has done to serve our country.”) Liz Cheney is not just an unrepentant Iraq War hawk and torture apologist; she’s also a staunch advocate for unconditional support for Israel. Biden has made one paltry attempt at slowing arms transfers to Israel, and Cheney criticized that.
A recent New York Times report indicates that the Harris campaign’s embrace of war hawks is aligned not just with her electoral strategy but also her policy views. Citing interviews with U.S. officials and campaign advisers, the Times reports that “the empathy she has expressed as vice president should not be confused with willingness to break from American foreign policy toward Israel as a presidential candidate.” The Times’ report notes that Democrats are concerned about voters defecting to Green Party candidate Jill Stein in battleground states, but that some Harris campaign operatives believe the “damage … has been done” with those voters, and that they’re angling to win Michigan by picking off Republicans — including “a slice of the more than 296,000 voters who supported Nikki Haley.”
Due to the unusual nature of her truncated candidacy and her relative inexperience with foreign affairs, Harris’ foreign policy outlook remains unclear. But these are not promising signs. She is signaling that she is not just a supporter of an unacceptable status quo on Israel policy, but also comfortable linking arms with war hawks. Whether the electoral math is right — that more battleground voters may be won over than lost by embracing figures like Torres and Cheney — remains to be seen.
