Looking at Kamala Harris’s record on Israel

Vice President Kamala Harris has emerged as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination after Joe Biden dropped out of the race this past weekend and immediately endorsed her.

Harris has been a staunch supporter of Israel for years. In 2017 she addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) annual conference and reminded attendees that the first resolution she co-sponsored as a senator was aimed at combating “anti-Israel bias” at the United Nations.

“Let me be clear about what I believe. I stand with Israel because of our shared values, which are so fundamental to the founding of both our nations,” she told the crowd.

In 2018 she gave an off-the-record speech to the organization, but eventually released her comments.

In that speech she claimed that she raised money for the Jewish National Fund as a Girl Scout.

“Having grown up in the Bay area, I fondly remember those Jewish National Fund boxes that we would use to collect donations to plant trees for Israel,” she told the audience. “Years later, when I visited Israel for the first time, I saw the fruits of that effort and the Israeli ingenuity that has truly made a desert bloom.”

“The vast majority of people understand the importance of the State of Israel,” she added later. “Both in terms of its history and its present in terms of being a source of inspiration on so many issues, which I hope we will talk about, and also what it means in terms of the values of the United States and those values that are shared values with Israel, and the importance of fighting to make sure that we protect and respect a friend, one of the best friends we could possibly have.”

While running for President in 2019, Harris was praised by the lobbying group Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) for running to the right of Obama on the Iran deal.

On the campaign trail Harris told Kat Wellman, a voter affiliated with DMFI, that she would reenter the agreement but “strengthen it” by “extending the sunset provisions, including ballistic missile testing, and also increasing oversight.”

“I was very impressed with her. I thought she gave an excellent speech, she gave a very detailed, responsive answer to my question,” Wellman told a local paper after the exchange. “I’m pro-Israel, so I was I was very concerned and all about making sure we limit nuclear missiles in any country that could possibly destroy us all. I thought her answer was very good.”

Harris has condemned the BDS movement and claimed that is “based on the mistaken assumption that Israel is solely to blame for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” However, she voted against an anti-BDS bill in 2019 citing First Amendment concerns.

After the October 7th Hamas attack, Harris publicly declared that Israel had the right to defend itself.

“Let me be also very clear, as I’ve said before: We cannot conflate Hamas with the Palestinian people,” she told reporters. “Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization.  Hamas has vowed to repeat October 7 until Israel is annihilated. No nation could possibly live with such danger, which is why we support Israel’s legitimate military objectives to eliminate the threat of Hamas.”

In June she hosted a screening of Sheryl Sandberg’s documentary Screams Before Silence, which is was promoted as “a documentary film on the sexual violence committed by Hamas” on October 7th, a film that’s been criticized for relying on information from the Israeli group ZAKA.

“We cannot look away and we will not be silent,” Harris said at the event. “My heart breaks for all these survivors and their families and for all the pain and suffering from the past eight months in Israel and in Gaza.”

Many expect Harris to continue largely continue Biden’s foreign policy. “In practice, we can expect the Republicans’ public agenda to be a blunt statement of their racism, while Democrats will be less forthright,” wrote Mitchell Plitnick shortly before the Biden announcement. “On the ground, there is good reason to believe that Democrats will want to continue the two-state delusion, while Republicans will encourage Israel to kill it once and for all with annexation.” 

Insofar as policy differences might exist, some have pointed to recent comments Harris has made about the assault.

In a March speech Harris called for a six-week “temporary ceasefire,” the first member of the administration to mention such a move. She’s also repeatedly called on the Israeli government to do more to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid.

In a recent interview with The Nation, Harris expressed sympathy for campus Gaza protesters saying that, while she didn’t “wholesale endorse their points,” she thought they were, “showing exactly what the human emotion should be, as a response to Gaza,” though she was quick to note she does not “wholesale endorse their points.”

The foreign policy team around Harris is also viewed as more progressive on foreign policy than Biden’s. Her National Security Advisor is Phil Gordon, who helped push for the Iran Deal when he worked for the Obama administration.

“I think he’s very much on the progressive wing of the national security continuum,” Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies told Jewish Insider in 2023. “He’s Obama redux.”

Uncommitted National Movement Leader Layla Elabed, and other progressive organizers, have already put out statements calling on Harris to embrace a shift in policy.

“For months, we’ve warned that Biden’s support for Israel’s assault on Gaza would hurt his electability,” said Elabed. “Now, it’s crucial for Vice President Harris to take a clear stance against weapons for Israel’s war and occupation against Palestinians. Supplying weapons to Netanyahu’s regime makes a mockery of Democrats’ claims to fight against MAGA authoritarianism…”

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