What the Harris nomination means for Israel

Following her selection as his running mate by former Vice President Joe Biden, California Senator Kamala Harris has predictably received praise on the left and scorn on the right. While Biden’s stances on Israel is widely known due to his decades of public service, Harris is lesser known for her foreign-policy stances. As such, what can Israelis and its supporters expect from a potential Vice President Harris?

“Of all the 11 female candidates to be vice president, Harris is the best to secure Israeli vital interests in Washington,” predicted Eytan Gilboa, an expert on American politics and foreign policy and a senior research associate at the BESA Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan.

While John Adams, the nation’s first vice president, said his was “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived,” 231 years later, the job has more significance and potential for impact.

The current vice president, Mike Pence, plays a significant role in the Trump administration, boosting President Trump’s pro-Israel agenda.

Similarly, Biden, when he served as vice president in the Obama administration, was heavily involved in foreign-policy issues thanks to his years of governmental experience. Will Biden be as generous as Obama and give Harris the freedom to use the vice presidency as a platform to influence the issues close to her heart?

According to Gilboa, if Biden wins, Harris will be an influential vice president, especially given her background and experience.

Gilboa listed a number of bona fides that play in Harris’s favor with regard to Israel.

First, she belongs to the more moderate branch of the Democratic Party. “There was a concern that Biden would select someone from the progressive, radical wing, and this did not happen,” he said.

Gilboa also noted that Harris is closer to AIPAC than to J Street and has a good record on Israel, though “like all Democrats, she supports a two-state solution, is against expansion of settlements and against annexation.”

However, Harris’s new chief of staff has in the past been critical of AIPAC, praising Democratic candidates who decided to skip the 2019 AIPAC policy conference, saying that AIPAC’s policies and values “are not progressive.”

In June, Harris wrote to President Trump about annexation, saying it poses a risk to Israel’s security and harms peace prospects.

But unlike those who call themselves progressives, “she is against pressure on Israel to make concessions; she is against imposing a solution; she is against any conditions to US military aid; against the BDS movement; against UN discrimination against Israel; and she severely criticized Hamas’s aggression,” said Gilboa. “Not only that, but her statements are also supported by actions.”

Gilboa said it is important to note she was one of the sponsors of a resolution in the Senate to oppose Obama’s initiative to get the UN Security Council to pass Resolution 2334 that labeled Israeli settlements as illegal.

In June 2017, Harris also signed a call to President Donald Trump to implement the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

“So she has a good record of a moderate Democrat,” said Gilboa.

He added that Harris is “married to a Jew, has very good relations with the Jewish community, and former Jewish senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer have strongly supported her.”

In her address to AIPAC in 2016, Harris spoke about donating to the Jewish National Fund as a child and seeing the “fruits” of those efforts when she later visited as an adult. Harris also visited Israel as a senator in 2017 and met with Prime Minister Netanyahu. And in 2019, as a presidential candidate, her communications director said that Harris’“support for Israel is central to who she is. … Israel should not be a partisan issue.”

Gilboa noted that, “unlike the progressives who are hostile to Israel, she has a friendly, perhaps emotional attachment to Israel. This is important,” he said, adding “there is a chance she will be a good ambassador for Israel at the White House.”

According to Gilboa, Harris is “much more experienced than the other candidates because she served in significant positions throughout her career on all the relevant levels.”

She now serves on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Select Committee on Intelligence, the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on the Budget.

“Harris distinguished herself as a very good senator and has the qualifications to serve as president” if she decides to run in 2024 or even later, stated Gilboa.

With regard to Biden’s intention to return to the 2015 Iran deal that Trump withdrew from in May 2018, Gilboa said that, if elected, while “Biden will call the shots on Iran,” this will be “a challenge for Israel.” Although Harris didn’t vote for the deal (she wasn’t in the Senate then), she has said that America should return to negotiations and come up with a revised deal.