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KAMALA HARRIS WILL SHIFT ON GAZA ONLY IF WE MAKE HER  
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Y.L. Al-Sheikh, Nickan Fayyazi
July 26, 2024
The Nation
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_ The vice president’s ascension provides an opening for a new
approach to the horror in Palestine. But it won’t happen without
sustained political pressure. _

Benjamin Netanyahu and Kamala Harris shake hands during a meeting in
the Vice President’s Ceremonial Office in Washington, DC, on
Thursday, July 25, 2024., Kenny Holston / The New York Times /
Bloomberg via Getty Images

 

Vice President Kamala Harris’s sudden ascension to the top of the
Democratic presidential ticket has not only transformed the 2024
election. It has also provided the biggest opportunity in months to
get Democrats to change their cruel and discredited approach to the
war in Gaza.

In light of such an unprecedented moment, with the war still raging
and the prospects of regional escalation in the Middle East as high as
they’ve ever been, the need for a comprehensive reset on the
Democratic Party’s policy toward the Palestinian struggle for
self-determination and freedom is paramount. It is clear what anyone
who cares about this issue must demand right now: that Harris tells
the American public and the world that Israel can no longer occupy
Palestinian land and impose apartheid on millions while enjoying US
support and protection from accountability. But we must be equally
clear that Harris will not do any of these things without sustained,
relentless political pressure from the movement for Palestine.

The last 10 months of destruction and carnage, in which the Israelis
have killed more than 40,000 civilians and displaced 2 million more,
have been a humanitarian catastrophe. They have also been a political
disaster for the Democrats. Poll after poll shows that the demand for
a ceasefire is mainstream, with voters more likely
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cast a ballot for a Democrat who expresses clear support for one than
a Democrat who mirrors the Republican on the issue. More than 45
percent of voters
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expressed support for the Biden-Harris ticket say that military
assistance to Israel should be decreased. The campaign for the
“uncommitted
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ballot option in states like Michigan, New Jersey, Minnesota, Rhode
Island, and Washington enabled Democratic voters in the hundreds of
thousands, alongside professional organizers and activists, to express
opposition to Biden’s unconditional
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of Israel’s occupation and apartheid system.

The Biden administration’s approach to Palestine, from his first day
in office to the beginning of this war, has sadly been quite similar
to that of Trump’s. Taken in by the ridiculous belief that the
Palestinians and their national aspirations could be indefinitely
brushed to the side, Biden chose to affirm the bad logic of Trump’s
Abraham Accords and pursued a normalization deal between Israel and
Saudi Arabia. Instead of restoring policy that adhered to
international standards, Biden instead backed Trump’s decision to
recognize all of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights as Israeli territory.
As of this writing, Biden still has not overturned
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Trump administration’s policy of labeling products from Israeli
settlements in the occupied West Bank as “made in Israel.” While
the State Department routinely offered rhetorical support for a
two-state solution, the president has used his veto power at the UN
to block
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bids for representation. These are conservative positions that have
been upheld by a Democratic president, and it is imperative that
whoever succeeds Biden takes up a different approach.

The few key areas where we’ve seen some substantive change have all
primarily come about because of our efforts as organizers and
activists. Without the vital Ceasefire Now Resolution
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Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush, and the No Money For
Massacres campaign
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by the Democratic Socialists of America to support it, how many
members of Congress would have come out in favor of a ceasefire early
on? Without the comprehensive efforts of Arab Americans in the state
of Michigan to express their anger, would a single sanction
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been imposed on Israeli settlers in occupied Palestine? And without
the Uncommitted campaign and subsequent international developments
surrounding the recognition of Palestine by various European powers,
would the administration be seriously contemplating sanctions on
Israeli ministers
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It is because of these organizing efforts and the tireless work of
Palestinian Americans and their allies that progress has been made at
all.

In a post-Biden Democratic Party, those who organize for Palestinian
liberation must take up a cautiously optimistic but nonetheless
realistic view of the terrain ahead of us. Harris does not appear to
be nearly as ideologically committed to Zionism and defending Israel
as her boss
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who is 22 years older than her and was raised in an environment where
Palestinians were hardly perceived, let alone viewed as having
legitimate grievances or demands. It has been reported
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Harris was one of the leading figures in the White House urging the
president to give a higher priority to Palestinian concerns.

At the same time, her team has been quick to tamp down any suggestion
that she meaningfully disagrees with Biden’s approach. (“The
difference is not in substance but probably in tone,” a Harris
adviser told
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Nation_’s Joan Walsh in a recent profile.) Therefore, while Harris
could be less resistant to pressure on Gaza than Biden, she will
still, as she might put it, be operating in the context of what came
before her. It is up to us, the organizers and activists, to make it
so that the future Harris administration not only can but must hold
Israel to account—not just with words but with real action.

The Uncommitted National Movement has indicated that it will back any
candidate at the convention and mobilize voters on their behalf in
November so long as that candidate backs a permanent ceasefire and an
arms embargo. In its statement
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movement wrote:

Supplying weapons to Netanyahu’s regime makes a mockery of
Democrats’ claims to fight against MAGA authoritarianism. By funding
a government committing human rights abuses, we undermine our
party’s stance against far-right extremism and contradict our
commitment to democracy.

It’s time to align our actions with our values. Vice President
Harris can start the process to earn back trust by turning the page
from Biden’s horrific policies in Gaza.

We should also make clear that we demand much more. In 2020, the
Democratic Party for the first time adopted a clearer line of
opposition to settlement expansion in occupied Palestine in its party
platform, but failed to lay out that it was a project backed by the
Israeli state. Biden, who was then the presumptive nominee and thus
had effective veto power over key parts of the platform, also vetoed
language declaring that Palestinians had the right to live “free of
occupation.” A series of additional amendments
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to demonstrate support for the Palestinian aspirations for freedom and
equality were also shot down by the Biden campaign. This time around,
Representative Tlaib and the Uncommitted movement have made it clear
they intend to have an up or down vote at the Democratic National
Convention on an arms embargo
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In our view, a future Harris administration should not just impose an
arms embargo on the Israeli government but also declare that the
United States agrees with the International Court of
Justice’s finding
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the occupation of Palestine itself is illegal. In line with this, she
should move to expand the sanctions regime to include sanctions and
travel restrictions on Itamar Ben-Gvir, Belazel Smotrich, and other
senior members of the Israeli government who actively perpetuate the
conditions of apartheid on Palestinians. And if she’s serious about
her belief that settlements violate international law, then she should
impose a comprehensive trade embargo on settlements and the consumer
products made within them. Finally, the Harris administration should
unilaterally recognize the State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as
its capital, and support its ascension
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the United Nations so as to bolster its position in future
negotiations.

These are mainstream positions, in line with the standards of
international law and consensus, and they should be adopted and
enacted by any Democratic administration that purports to believe in a
just peace settlement. So long as the United States, whether a
Democratic or Republican administration governs it, is primarily
focused on protecting the State of Israel and its agenda at the
expense of the Palestinians, it will never be able to help resolve the
conflict.

In remarks
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shortly after meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu on Thursday,
Harris said, “We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies [in
Gaza]. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and I
will not be silent.” These are welcome words, and they demonstrate
that she is able to rhetorically project empathy for Palestinians
where Biden has not, but they are still just words. Stirring speeches
are hollow and meaningless so long as the United States remains one of
the facilitators of Palestinian suffering. It is time for the
Democratic Party to face the one-state reality
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Harris has the chance to enact real change for the better if she wins
in November, but we cannot rely on her to do it out of the goodness of
her heart. History has shown us that it will take pressure,
coordination, and a principled movement for Palestinian liberation to
move her closer to our position.

_Y.L. AL-SHEIKH is a Palestinian American writer and organizer active
in the Democratic Socialists of America and in international
solidarity work between Israel/Palestine and the United States._

_NICKAN FAYYAZI is an Iranian-American organizer and political analyst
based in California._

_Copyright c 2024 THE NATION. Reprinted with permission. May not be
reprinted without permission
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Distributed by PARS International Corp
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* Kamala Harris
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* Palestine
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* Israel
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* Democratic Party
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* organizing
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* settler colonialism
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