Harris’s Views on Israel Are in the Spotlight as Netanyahu Visits Washington

 

Harris’s Views on Israel Are in the Spotlight as Netanyahu Visits Washington

 

The vice president will be closely watched this week for signs of her approach to the war in Gaza should she win the White House in November.

 

Erica L. Green Michael Crowley

By Erica L. Green and Michael Crowley

Reporting from Washington

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/23/us/politics/harris-netanyahu-israel-gaza.html

Published July 23, 2024

Updated July 24, 2024, 12:40 a.m. ET

 

In her first week as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris will confront the most politically divisive issue in U.S. foreign policy as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel pays an official visit to Washington.

 

Mr. Netanyahu’s trip throws a spotlight on the views of Ms. Harris, who has emerged as a forceful voice on the Israel-Hamas war, particularly in discussing the plight of innocent Palestinians. In a civil rights speech in Selma, Ala., this year, Ms. Harris garnered widespread attention for calling for an “immediate cease-fire” and assailing Israel for creating a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza.

 

Ms. Harris will meet privately with the Israeli leader at the White House. But her remarks before and after their conversation will be closely watched for signals about her approach to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza should she win the White House in November.

 

President Biden, who will meet with Mr. Netanyahu on Thursday, has seen his popularity dive among progressive Democratic voters, as he has resisted their pleas to halt the flow of American arms to Israel. The damage has been acute in key battleground states such as Michigan. Democrats hope that Ms. Harris will be largely free of that stigma and can win back those liberals who have said they could never vote for Mr. Biden because of his Israel policies.

 

Ms. Harris plans to skip Mr. Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, White House officials say, which surely will not hurt that effort. She will instead keep a longstanding commitment to speak at an event in Indiana hosted by one of the country’s largest historically Black sororities.

 

Although Ms. Harris has been seen as more sharply critical of the war in Gaza than Mr. Biden has been, she is not expected to express views to Mr. Netanyahu in their meeting that differ from current policy.

 

It is unclear how much her views do differ. Even her call for a cease-fire, which generated headlines suggesting new U.S. pressure on Israel, was consistent with Mr. Biden’s position — a demand that Hamas accept an Israeli proposal to stop the fighting in exchange for the release of hostages held in Gaza. But her tone and emphasis on human suffering marked a drastic rhetorical turning point for how the administration discussed the cost of the war.

 

Still, how Ms. Harris navigates the week will be closely watched, experts and voters say, particularly for signs of a shift on the intensely debated question of whether the United States should condition military aid to Israel to limit Palestinian civilian casualties.

 

Josh Paul, who resigned from the State Department last fall in protest over Mr. Biden’s continued arms deliveries to Israel, cautioned that political dynamics would limit Ms. Harris’s ability to make dramatic changes. But he said Ms. Harris “would certainly show more pragmatism and flexibility than Biden has, and in her public commentary has also demonstrated a far more humanizing approach to the Palestinians in the past year.”

 

During the sit-down with Mr. Netanyahu, Ms. Harris is expected to reiterate U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza, launched after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks that killed more than 1,200 people. She will also convey her deep concerns about the Palestinian death toll, which has surpassed 38,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and make the administration’s case that Mr. Netanyahu should try to clinch a cease-fire deal with Hamas as soon as possible.

 

There is no evidence that Ms. Harris has mounted internal challenges against Mr. Biden’s policy toward Israel. But she had pressed administration officials, including the president, to express more sympathy for Palestinians as the death toll soared in Gaza. And analysts say she played a notable public role by expressing sharper criticism of Mr. Netanyahu’s government than Mr. Biden was able to muster, for either personal or diplomatic reasons.

 

Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said Ms. Harris had demonstrated a “capacity for public empathy” toward the Palestinians.

 

“That’s something the president himself has clearly struggled with,” he said. “And empathy is not something you can fake. I think people see through it. And I think that’s been the biggest difference.”

 

Mr. Elgindy said it was hard to know whether Ms. Harris might intend to shift U.S. policy on Israel if she is elected. But he and other analysts said she does not seem to share the same emotional connection to Israel as does Mr. Biden, who has called himself a Zionist.

 

Ms. Harris has also impressed some war critics and irritated Israel hawks with expressions of sympathy for campus activists protesting the war. “They are showing exactly what the human emotion should be, as a response to Gaza,” Ms. Harris told The Nation magazine. While noting that the protesters have said some things “that I absolutely reject,” she added, “I understand the emotion behind it.”

 

In an interview with the Israeli news site Ynet on Tuesday, Michael Herzog, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, said of Ms. Harris: “Overall her record is positive, and she has often expressed support for the State of Israel, and support for American aid to Israel.” But he added that in recent months, Ms. Harris had “made quite a few problematic statements in the context of the war in Gaza,” something he suggested was influenced by “the more progressive camp in the Democratic Party.”

 

“Is this something that will continue to follow us in the future as well?” he said. “We will have to see and of course have a dialogue with her about these things.”

 

Some analysts note that Ms. Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, is Jewish, and has taken an active stand against the rise of antisemitism on college campuses and elsewhere. But Jewish Americans themselves are sharply divided on U.S. policy toward Israel, and his personal views are unclear.

 

Ms. Harris has been largely spared the protests and vitriol that have hounded Mr. Biden, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and other U.S. officials, who have been shouted down for abetting “genocide.”

 

A national group created in protest of the war to urge voters in several states to cast “uncommitted” votes has expressed cautious optimism in Ms. Harris.

 

“While the vice presidency is limited, many feel that she would be an improvement from Biden’s severe lack of empathy for Palestinians and his ties to the AIPAC old guard in the party,” said Waleed Shahid, co-founder of the Uncommitted National Movement. AIPAC, or the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, advocates in Washington for the group’s hawkish definition of Israeli security.

 

“However, challenging AIPAC’s power within the Democratic Party establishment remains a formidable task regardless of who the nominee is,” he added.

 

Aides to Ms. Harris said she remained unwavering in her support of Israel. She has been equally forceful in her condemnation of the Oct. 7 Hamas assault, and just last month held a forum highlighting the sexual violence perpetuated against Israeli victims during the attacks. She has also met with families of American hostages.

 

Aides say she has been engaged with Israeli officials, having spoken regularly with President Isaac Herzog as well as Benny Gantz, a former member of Israel’s war cabinet. She has participated in more than 20 calls between Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu.

 

Ms. Harris has also played a key role in critical diplomatic talks with Arab leaders after relations became strained over the war.

 

In December, Ms. Harris used a whirlwind trip to Dubai, where she stood in for Mr. Biden to represent the United States at the United Nations global climate summit, to convene the first in-person meetings by either the vice president or president with Arab leaders since the Oct. 7 attacks. Several Arab allies had been reluctant to engage with the United States on postwar planning.

 

After the meetings, Ms. Harris announced U.S. opposition to the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza and outlined a three-pronged plan to reconstruct, secure and govern Gaza when the war ended.

 

Speaking to reporters at the State Department on Tuesday, Mr. Blinken said Ms. Harris had been “deeply engaged in the Middle East, in trying to find a peaceful path forward.”

 

And before Oct. 7, Ms. Harris had established a largely uncritical posture toward Israel. Three months after becoming a senator in 2017, Ms. Harris spoke at AIPAC’s annual convention, a role she called “an honor.”

 

During her address, she boasted that her first act as a senator was to co-sponsor a resolution condemning a United Nations Security Council call for Israel to “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory.” Ms. Harris called the U.N. measure, which President Barack Obama declined to veto, an obstacle to an eventual Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

 

“As Hamas maintains its control of Gaza and fires rockets across Israel’s southern border, we must stand with Israel,” she said later in the speech.

 

Joel Rubin, a national security expert who has worked with the pro-Israel organizations, said that Ms. Harris’s actions this week were unlikely to upset the status quo.

 

“People on the left might be mad at her for meeting with the prime minister, people on the right might be mad at her for not sitting behind him” during his address to Congress, said Mr. Rubin, who also served as a deputy assistant secretary of state in the Obama administration. “But she’s taking the position of an American leader who is balancing her responsibilities.”

 

Edward Wong contributed reporting.

 

Erica L. Green is a White House correspondent, covering President Biden and his administration. More about Erica L. Green

 

Michael Crowley covers the State Department and U.S. foreign policy for The Times. He has reported from nearly three dozen countries and often travels with the secretary of state. More about Michael Crowley