Published: 22 July 2024
Last updated: 23 July 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris has been widely viewed as the Biden administration's "bad cop" on Israel in recent months.
As Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government resisted the White House's pleas for improved attention to civilian harm in Gaza and dramatically bolstered humanitarian aid for the Palestinians, Biden let Harris deliver the administration’s deepest concerns.
Now that Biden has resigned from the presidential race, endorsing his Vice President as the Democrat’s presidential nominee, Harris’s underlying attitude to Israel matters more.
On the positive side for Israel, Harris has strong Jewish ties. Her husband Doug Emhoff is Jewish, and the couple have hosted Jewish holiday celebrations at the Vice Presidential residence.
She has made some strong statements in support of Israel, notably helping profile October 7 victims of sexual violence, hosting Sheryl Sandberg's documentary at the White House while meeting with rescued Israeli hostages.
Comments2
Steve23 July at 10:47 am
Kamala Harris has been critical of elements of the Netanyahu campaign in Gaza.
To be fair, so have many past and current Israeli leaders, including ex -Prime Ministers, even from Netanyahu’s own Likud party. Netanyahu’s campaign has brought criticism from Israel’s current opposition leader, Labor Party leaders and current and past military leaders, including from his own Likud party.
The criticisms generally are along the lines that the campaign has been far more brutal than necessary and executed more as a Netanyahu election and survival strategy than a strategy focused on Israel’s security interests.
The strategy has been criticised by leading voices in Israel as having endangered the lives of Israeli soldiers, hostages and of course, Gazan civilians. In their words, not those of Vice President Kamala Harris, the strategy has been an impediment to creating a viable opposition to Hamas in Gaza, and has therefore served to strengthen Hamas’ influence
The importance of the US Israel alliance is vital to US interests, has bipartisan support in the US and will continue to underpin US Middle East policy under Kamala Harris.
Unfortunately, there are too many occasions when it appears to have been considered an expendable element of the political strategies of Netanyahu and his ultra nationalist allies.
Wesley Parish23 July at 08:07 am
Kamala Harris has the great advantage that she doesn’t radiate the “American as applehood and mother pie” menace that Donald Trump does.