(RNS) — Vice President Kamala Harris missed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on Wednesday (July 24), however as befits a presidential candidate now staking out her personal relationships with international leaders, Harris met privately with the Israeli premier on Thursday.
As Harris continues to assemble pledges from delegates forward of subsequent month’s Democratic Nationwide Conference, she may even start forming her personal insurance policies separate and aside from these of President Joe Biden, together with towards Israel. (Netanyahu is flying to Florida on Friday to fulfill with the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump.)
In some methods, Harris has already established a unique tone on Israel. In March, she turned the primary within the Biden administration official to name for an instantaneous cease-fire in Israel’s devastating warfare on Gaza, which she has repeated since turning into the Democratic front-runner. She has expressed empathy for the plight of Palestinians, almost 40,000 of whom are estimated to have been killed by Israel over the course of its nine-month offensive.
For some younger Jewish activists, Harris’ ascendancy to the highest of the Democratic ticket offers them hope there may be some shifts in Israel coverage if she wins the presidency in November.
“I believe it means there’s a chance for some change,” stated Lily Greenberg Name, a former Inside Division staffer who in Might turned the primary Jewish appointee of the Biden administration to resign in protest over the warfare in Gaza.
Greenberg Name, who’s now devoting her time to activism with younger Jews on Palestinian liberation, was amongst 1000’s of protesters who demonstrated outdoors the U.S. Capitol towards Netanyahu’s speech on Wednesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to a joint assembly of Congress on the Capitol in Washington, July 24, 2024. (AP Picture/J. Scott Applewhite)
“Younger voters are feeling very betrayed by the president,” stated Greenberg Name, who’s 26. “Over 700,000 Democrats voted uncommitted within the primaries, which is a direct protest of Biden’s Gaza coverage. If Harris and her crew are sensible, they are going to notice that they want younger folks and so they want progressives and so they want Arab People and Muslim People.”
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But when some younger individuals are hopeful {that a} Harris administration would finish its unconditional sale of arms to Israel or take a extra evenhanded method to Palestinians in Gaza, political analysts will not be so certain. They are saying Harris heard the chants of “Genocide Joe” and expenses of complicity in a human rights calamity however could not basically change course.
“She’s clearly been aligned with that majority of Biden’s advisers who felt he was being too tender on Israel for too lengthy and never trustworthy sufficient,” stated Ian Lustick, a retired political scientist on the College of Pennsylvania and a Center East knowledgeable. However, Lustick added, “I don’t suppose her coverage might be very totally different in substance.”
Debra Shushan, coverage director on the center-left Jewish foyer group J Avenue, stated she expects to see continuity on issues associated to Israel, together with personnel. “Vice President Harris and her key nationwide safety advisers, significantly those that give attention to the Center East, are actually top-notch consultants who’ve been engaged in international coverage beneath the Biden administration at a excessive degree,” Shushan stated.
Harris, stated a number of sources, would nearly actually proceed to advocate for a two-state resolution, at the same time as opposition by Netanyahu and his Cupboard makes that unlikely.
Whereas Biden was pissed off with Netanyahu’s execution of the warfare, Israel’s obstruction of humanitarian support and its refusal to craft a postwar plan for Gaza, Biden largely stored these considerations personal, stated Dov Waxman, director of the UCLA’s Nazarian Middle for Israel Research.
“Biden’s intuition, which has been honed over a few years, has been to attempt to resolve his disagreements with Netanyahu behind the scenes,” stated Waxman. “I’m undecided if Kamala Harris shares that very same intuition or whether or not she may be extra keen to go public.”
Over the course of her life and profession, Harris has had shut relationships with American Jews. She has a deep and simple familiarity with American Jewish traditions and methods even earlier than she married Los Angeles leisure lawyer Doug Emhoff, who’s Jewish, in 2014.
It was Harris who sensed that Emhoff wanted a yarmulke or kippah on his head after they approached Jerusalem’s Western Wall on a 2017 journey, and pulled one out of her pocket and stuck it on his head, because the JTA reported.
Like many American Jews, Emhoff, who’s initially from New Jersey and grew up attending a Reform synagogue, had a powerful Jewish id however was not significantly observant. His first spouse, Kerstin Mackin Emhoff, was not Jewish and his daughter, Ella, doesn’t think about herself Jewish.
When Harris turned vp, nevertheless, he took on the function of an off-the-cuff liaison to the Jewish neighborhood, chairing a process power that developed the Biden administration’s technique to counter antisemitism.
It’s a task Emhoff embraced wholeheartedly, stated some Jewish American activists in Washington, talking on situation of anonymity. They stated he educated himself on the problems and confirmed a honest and deeply felt ardour for the function.
Emhoff hasn’t spoken a lot about Israel or the U.S. function, however on a Wednesday Zoom name organized by the Jewish Democratic Council of America and Jewish Ladies for Kamala he vowed that Harris would all the time help Israel.
American Jews sometimes vote Democratic by a 3-1 margin in presidential elections, and its doubtless Harris will do equally nicely. J Avenue endorsed Harris inside a day after Biden bowed out of his reelection bid. Its PAC helped her increase $81 million towards her election bid within the following days.
The GOP has already moved to color Harris’ help for Israel as weak: The Republican Jewish Coalition had referred to as her out earlier this 12 months in its vilification of scholars and college directors over campus protests towards the Gaza warfare. In a brand new advert, the coalition mocked her for excusing herself from Netanyahu’s speech to Congress for what she stated was a previous dedication.
However her backers within the organized, mainstream Jewish neighborhood are projecting confidence in Harris. Mentioned Shushan: “It is vitally thrilling to think about these people as, as those that might be actually hopefully managing the employees degree side of international coverage beneath a President Harris and I believe there’s quite a bit to be longing for and quite a bit to work for.”
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