Washington, DC – Vice President Kamala Harris says she is going to “not be silent” within the face of Palestinian suffering, as Israel’s warfare in Gaza rages on.
However Palestinian rights advocates wish to know precisely what which means for United States overseas coverage.
The vp — and the Democrats’ doubtless nominee for the presidency — emphasised the plight of Palestinians in Gaza after assembly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday. Nonetheless, she pledged ongoing assist for Israel.
Activists say expressing sympathy for Palestinians with out pursuing a significant shift away from the US’s coverage of unconditional army and diplomatic assist is not going to assist Harris win again voters alienated by President Joe Biden’s strategy to the warfare.
“With out an precise dedication to cease killing the kids of Gaza, I don’t care about her empathy for them,” mentioned Eman Abdelhadi, a sociologist on the College of Chicago. She pressured that the US bears “accountability” for the atrocities dedicated towards Palestinians.
“To be empathetic to somebody that you just’re capturing within the head just isn’t precisely laudable. We don’t want empathy from these individuals. We want them to cease offering the weapons and the cash that’s actively killing the those that they’re supposedly empathising with.”
Furthermore, whereas Harris’s feedback have been characterised as a shift away from Biden’s rhetoric, critics level out the vp didn’t articulate any new coverage positions.
What did Harris say?
After holding talks with Netanyahu on Thursday, Harris delivered a televised assertion on the battle the place she reasserted her “unwavering dedication” to Israel and promised to all the time be sure that the nation can “defend itself”.
The vp then pivoted to describing the horrific circumstances in Gaza with out naming Israel because the celebration chargeable for the humanitarian disaster there.
“I additionally expressed with the prime minister my severe concern in regards to the scale of human struggling in Gaza, together with the demise of far too many harmless civilians,” Harris mentioned, calling the warfare “devastating”.
“The pictures of useless youngsters and determined, hungry individuals fleeing for security — typically displaced for the second, third or fourth time — we can’t look away within the face of those tragedies. We can’t enable ourselves to change into numb to the struggling, and I can’t be silent.”
She additionally voiced assist for Biden’s multi-phased ceasefire proposal to realize an finish to the warfare and launch Israeli captives in Gaza. Israel and Hamas have been negotiating not directly for months to finalise the settlement, however an answer has remained elusive thus far.
At the very least on the floor, Harris’s tone appeared like a departure from Biden’s pro-Israel statements. “Harris created distance from Biden on Gaza by emphasizing Palestinian struggling,” a Washington Submit headline learn after the vp’s feedback.
Nonetheless, Hazami Barmada, an Arab American activist who has been organising protests within the US capital to carry consciousness to the state of affairs in Gaza, mentioned that the vp’s public assertion of sympathy “doesn’t make a distinction”.
Barmada identified that Secretary of State Antony Blinken has mentioned he sees his personal youngsters within the faces of the kids in Gaza. Nonetheless, Blinken’s division has continued to approve billions of {dollars} in weapons for Israel.
“So no, I don’t assume empathy is sufficient,” Barmada instructed Al Jazeera. “We have now had on our tv screens genocide, ethnic cleaning, apartheid, unlawful occupation, violence, all sorts of atrocities occurring towards Palestinians for 76 years. We have to transfer previous empathy into a spot of motion earlier than it’s too late.”
Harris’s rise
Harris seems set to inherit the Democratic nomination from Biden, who stepped out of the presidential race on Sunday and as an alternative endorsed the vp.
With no severe opposition, Biden had received the overwhelming majority of votes within the Democratic primaries. However a whole bunch of hundreds of individuals throughout the nation selected the “uncommitted” choice on Democratic major ballots to specific opposition to the president’s Gaza coverage.
The uncommitted movement has articulated three most important coverage calls for: reaching an everlasting ceasefire, imposing an arms embargo on Israel and lifting the siege on Gaza.
Tariq Habash, a former Biden administration appointee, acknowledged the change of tone from Harris and referred to as it “refreshing”. In January, he resigned from the Division of Schooling in a show of public opposition to US assist for the warfare.
However Habash likewise mentioned that Harris must be ready to comply with her rhetoric with motion.
“What we actually want, 9 and a half months in, is a change in coverage, a change in strategy, in order that we will finish the pointless and indiscriminate violence that has continued each single day underneath President Biden,” Habash instructed Al Jazeera.
“It’s nonetheless early, so we don’t know precisely what her plan or strategy will likely be, however primarily based on what she mentioned yesterday, I don’t assume substantively we heard a shift or any actual departure from what the president has already mentioned or finished.”
In any case, Harris is a key member of the Biden administration, which has been unflinchingly supportive of Israel.
On Thursday, White Home spokesperson John Kirby mentioned the vp has been a “full companion” in overseeing US coverage on the warfare.
Harris’s file
Harris, a former senator, additionally has her personal lengthy pro-Israel file.
Days into her Senate tenure in 2017, Harris co-sponsored a measure to sentence a United Nations Safety Council decision that denounced Israel’s unlawful settlements within the occupied West Financial institution.
She additionally addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) later that yr, at a time when many left-wing politicians have been distancing themselves from the pro-Israel foyer group.
“Having grown up within the [San Francisco] Bay Space, I fondly keep in mind these Jewish Nationwide Fund packing containers that we might use to gather donations to plant bushes for Israel,” Harris instructed an AIPAC convention in 2017.
For years, Palestinian historians and activists have accused the Jewish Nationwide Fund of utilizing tree-planting to cowl ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages in what’s right now Israel.
Harris, nonetheless, was one of many first US officers to make use of the phrase “ceasefire” whereas calling for a truce in Gaza in Might.
With the outbreak of the warfare final yr, she confirmed compassion for Palestinians killed by Israel within the battle.
“It’s completely tragic when there’s ever, wherever, any lack of harmless life, of harmless civilians, of youngsters,” she mentioned in November.
However when requested particularly about an Israeli assault that killed dozens of individuals in Jabalia, she mentioned: “We aren’t telling Israel the way it ought to conduct this warfare. And so, I’m not going to talk to that.”
‘I’m prepared to be received over’
US-manufactured and provided bombs have continued to fall on individuals throughout Gaza since then, with a suffocating Israeli blockade deepening the humanitarian disaster there.
On Thursday, dozens of US medical professionals who labored in Gaza penned a letter to Harris, Biden and his spouse, Jill Biden, describing the deteriorating state of affairs within the territory.
“With solely marginal exceptions, everybody in Gaza is sick, injured or each,” they wrote.
The docs and nurses shared harrowing particulars of the influence of Israel’s warfare, together with widespread malnourishment, illnesses and youngsters shot within the head and chest frequently arriving for therapy.
For a lot of Palestinian rights advocates, ending this nightmare takes priority over different points. They are saying they’re prepared to vote for the vice president if she reconsiders the US’s unconditional assist for Israel.
“Whereas good phrases don’t carry again our useless, actions now can save the residing,” YL Al-Sheikh, a Palestinian American author and organiser lively with the Democratic Socialists of America, instructed Al Jazeera.
“And so it isn’t too late to save lots of the remainder of Gaza, and it’s not too late to show the tide for Palestine as a result of we’re not going to go wherever. They’re going to need to take care of us. So, I feel that there’s actually a level to which we’re going to be receptive to alter, and that we should always demand that.”
Abdelhadi, the sociologist, additionally expressed readiness to vote for Harris if she modifies the US strategy to Israel.
“I’m prepared to be received over. Nonetheless, she hasn’t received me over but, and solely materials adjustments can win me over,” Abdelhadi instructed Al Jazeera.
For his half, Habash referred to as for urgency from Harris to handle the difficulty.
“There are lots of people who wish to discover a option to assist the eventual Democratic nominee, nevertheless it’s the vp’s accountability to earn these votes at this second,” he instructed Al Jazeera.
Condemning protesters
Hours earlier than assembly Netanyahu, Harris launched an announcement condemning demonstrators who had rallied in Washington, DC, to protest towards the Israeli prime minister’s speech to Congress.
Just a few protesters had introduced down the American flag at Union Station, close to the Capitol, and sprayed graffiti within the space. However the overwhelming majority of demonstrators were peaceful.
Harris denounced what she referred to as “despicable acts by unpatriotic protesters and harmful hate-fuelled rhetoric” on the anti-Netanyahu demonstration.
“I assist the best to peacefully protest, however let’s be clear: Anti-Semitism, hate and violence of any type don’t have any place in our nation,” the vp mentioned in an announcement.
Activists accused Harris’s assertion of missing nuance and failing to acknowledge what the demonstrators had gathered to reject: the falsehood-filled speech of a pacesetter accused of warfare crimes.
Prosecutors on the Worldwide Legal Courtroom are presently looking for a warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest over what they describe as “crimes towards humanity”.
The @VP is *clear* in regards to the pro-Hamas protestors:
“I condemn any people associating with the brutal terrorist group Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews.”
“…Antisemitism, hate and violence of any type have no place in our nation.” pic.twitter.com/wl2Ph1ZXjS
— Shelley Greenspan (@ShelleyGspan) July 25, 2024
On condition that context, Barmada, the Washington-based organiser, referred to as Harris’s assertion in regards to the protesters “disturbing”.
She mentioned Harris used the actions of some people to “smear the credibility of official protesters who’ve official issues with our tax {dollars} getting used for issues that violate American constitutional legislation, like funding a genocide”.
Earlier than condemning the protesters and calling them “pro-Hamas”, Harris’s camp hit one other acquainted pro-Israel be aware.
Earlier this week, her husband Doug Emhoff instructed Jewish Democratic teams: “Vice President Harris has been and will likely be a powerful supporter of Israel as a safe democratic and Jewish state, and she is going to all the time be sure that Israel can defend itself — interval. That’s who Kamala Harris is.”
Samra’a Luqman, an Arab American activist in the important thing swing state of Michigan, instructed Al Jazeera that Harris represents the established order.
“She’s going to successfully proceed arming Israel at the same time as they act with impunity whereas paying lip service to attempt to win the election,” Luqman mentioned.
