Harris’s Vibes Are Great, but Vibes Won’t Cut It on Israel Policy

Since taking over the top of the ticket from President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris seems to have altered the trajectory of the race for the White House from a slow-motion train wreck for Democrats to an energetic campaign primed to compete and win. But unless Harris takes some steps to break from Biden’s Israel policy, the same issue that helped tank an already vulnerable Joe Biden with his base could put major obstacles in her path to victory.

Part of the energy around Harris’s campaign right now is a reflection of just how relieved voters were to not have to see Biden at the top of the ticket. Old, out of touch, and lacking a vision for the future is how many saw the octogenarian president. Harris is benefiting from a honeymoon period as the not-Biden candidate many voters were hoping would appear. This will likely be ephemeral, however, and the race, with a few months left to go, will likely remain tight as more voters focus on the issues.

Vibes alone won’t cut it. Harris will have to demonstrate that she truly is a not-Biden candidate and willing to embrace future-facing policies the president himself refused to budge on. No issue typifies this more than the blank-check support for Israel 10 months into a genocidal war. Every time Harris echoes Biden on Israel support, she signals she isn’t really the change candidate voters who care deeply about that issue were hoping for.

Trying to ignore this issue also is not going to work. As the election approaches, and starting very soon, there will be numerous moments where Harris will have to take a stance again on Palestine. The Democratic National Convention is taking place in a matter of days in Chicago, which also happens to be the home of the largest Palestinian American population in the United States and where 6-year-old Palestinian American Wadea al-Fayoume was stabbed to death last October.

Protests outside the convention will likely be massive, and uncommitted delegates, who received hundreds of thousands of votes during the primaries because of Biden’s support for Israel, will have a voice inside the convention space as well. Protesters will almost certainly be smeared as antisemites and radicals, and pro-Israel groups will demand Harris distance herself from and condemn them.

Just as the convention comes to a close, students head back to college campuses. We all remember the scene when they were last on campus in the spring. The massacres in Gaza they were protesting have only escalated since. It shouldn’t surprise anyone if campus activism on Palestine picks up right where it left off and continues to be a political story line in the weeks leading to the election. Harris’s political opponents and their associated media outlets will salivate at the opportunity to repeatedly force the campaign to condemn activists and create division on the left.

So Harris’s campaign has a choice to make. They could either play the game the right wants them to play and sow division on the left in an effort to placate opponents who were never going to vote for them anyway. Or they could announce genuine and meaningful shifts in policy in support of Palestinian rights and international law, grounded in the very values they routinely speak of, and in doing so strengthen and expand their own coalition ahead of a must-win election.

Harris should make clear that her administration will review the entire policy of weapons sales to Israel and be willing to end them until Israeli policy is in line with international law and respects the human rights of Palestinians. In doing so, she should also demonstrate that she will not stand for the bad-faith attacks and smears that will inevitably come from right-wing Israel backers who will paint her as a radical antisemite for suggesting U.S. weapons should only be used in accordance with U.S. law and to further U.S. interests.

The way Harris has begun to handle this issue, shushing and demeaning protesters who interrupted a campaign speech last week and saying, “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking,” does not bode well. Protesters have been speaking too, for months, only to be derided, silenced, or ignored as U.S.-funded bombs continue to blow starving Palestinian children to pieces. The day after that campaign speech, an Israeli strike on a school killed dozens of Palestinian civilians with an American-made bomb. Relatives of victims, hoping to bury them, gathered their mutilated remains in plastic bags. If Harris is truly a change candidate, what could be more important to change than that?