With Harris on the ticket, there's hope for a new Middle East policy

There’s massive excitement in the United States over Kamala Harris saving America. From the sound of Beyonce’s song Freedom heralding the campaign to the fiercely avenging cat-lady comments made by Donald Trump's running mate JD Vance, to amazonian Wonder Woman memes on TikTok. In a few weeks, Ms Harris has reinvented herself from a timid Vice President to the woman in charge of saving – not just America – but the world from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

But some issues must be prioritised. In the next three months before the US presidential election, there need to be urgent considerations when it comes to her foreign policy agenda.

Russia, Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon and Iran will need to be on top of the list. Ms Harris is likely to continue to support Ukraine and Congress will most likely fall in line.

Ms Harris, like most of the Washington ecosystem, apart from former President Donald Trump and his followers, see Ukrainians as freedom fighters on the front-line defending democracy.

The Middle East is more complicated. Ms Harris’s knowledge of it is limited and Israel-Gaza will be a crucial test of her abilities. As a first step, it is essential that she recalibrates US President Joe Biden’s policies on Israel.

Mr Trump is already exploiting the fact that Ms Harris mildly chastised Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after his address in Congress. In my view, Ms Harris didn’t chastise him enough. She put pressure on him for a ceasefire and to improve the conditions for Palestinians in Gaza.

It wasn’t much. But it was more than Mr Biden – who seems to have had little compassion for Palestinians suffering – has done since the beginning of the war. In contrast, Ms Harris said: “We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent.”

On the back of this, Mr Trump, an old friend of Mr Netanyahu, is sowing the seeds of discord, saying: “Kamala doesn’t like Jewish people”. This is his usual way to rile up his crowds. It is both unfair and untrue.

Ms Harris’s husband, Douglas Emhoff, a former entertainment lawyer, is the first Jewish person to live in the Vice President’s mansion. He is proud of his faith. On Thanksgiving Day, 2021, he affixed mezuzahs – the tubes containing the text of the Shema prayer that Jews traditionally attach to their doorposts – on the doorframe of the mansion. Mr Emhoff has said: “I am going to live openly and proudly as a Jew and that will never change,” adding, “I’m going to fight anti-Semitism and that’s never going to change.”

Ms Harris herself gave an off-the-record speech to AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobbying force in 2018, at their annual conference. In the past, she aligned herself with Mr Biden’s outdated Israel policies – basically, letting Mr Netanyahu do as he pleases.

As a Democrat, a woman and someone who respects Ms Harris, I would advise her to break with Mr Biden’s full-scale support to the Netanyahu government and re-evaluate Israel’s relationship to America.

Mr Biden’s vision of Israel no longer exists. It is no longer the democratic state that he remembers from 1973. Israel now has the most right-wing government in its history, seemingly with no respect for human rights, multilateralism or international law.

Last week, Mr Netanyahu spoke on the hallowed floors of the US Congress to a standing ovation. Outside, hundreds of ordinary Americans protested against Israel’s killings in Gaza.

This does not mean Israel does not deserve to defend itself. Nor does it mean the US should cut off all funding to Israel.

But both the US (and Germany, the second largest supplier of weapons to Israel) should consider where the bombs are going and who they kill (largely civilians). And Israel must be brought in line to operate again as a democratic state and should not be allowed to go rogue.

The Biden-Blinken policy was to provide unconditional military and diplomatic support to Israel following the October 7 Hamas attacks. This allowed Mr Netanyahu to override the UN; to dismiss a decision by the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice (the World Court). It allowed him, after the killing of nearly 40,000 people in less than nine months, to stand before US Congress and chastise them for not giving Israel enough aid. And It has allowed him to lead his country to the brink. According to a poll conducted earlier in July, a staggering 72 per cent of Israelis believe he should step down.

“To put it bluntly, Benjamin Netanyahu is an enemy of the Israeli people,” wrote Tamar Glezerman, an Israeli peace activist in The Guardian this week. “And of every other person on this earth who values human life. He is personally responsible for October 7.”

Ms Harris must recalibrate the Israel policy to be seen as a modern leader. She must prioritise human rights and banish the hypocrisy that it is okay to support Ukrainian civilians but not Gazan civilians. She must also retrieve the voters that Mr Biden has lost since October 7. That’s not just Arab-American votes – but the students, the progressives, and those who refuse to vote Democrat because of Mr Biden’s full support of Mr Netanyahu.

Ms Harris must start by surrounding herself with advisors who are Middle East experts and know the region and the policies.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has his strengths but the war in Gaza was not one of them. He said he sees his own kids in the faces of the children in Gaza. Still, Mr Blinken’s department has continued to approve billions of dollars in weapons for Israel.

Mr Biden’s long-standing views on Israel stretch back to his early senator days in 1973 when he met Golda Meir. His views are outdated. Ms Harris is strong on press freedom, and women’s and minority rights. Polls show that Americans want a tough-on-China policy, and she can deliver that. She’s going to be strong on Ukraine.

But she must be strong on Israel as well. Right now, her priority must be Gaza. There must be a meaningful shift. Before Gaza disappears before our eyes, she needs to stand firm and stand up to Mr Netanyahu. There is now danger of an Israel-Hezbollah war blowing up that no one wants. Mr Blinken said the best way to avoid an all-out Israel-Lebanon war is a ceasefire in Gaza.

Beyond Gaza, Ms Harris has to begin the roadmap to peace. I was in Israel back in 1995 when When Yitzhak Rabin, former prime minister of Israel, was shot dead by a fanatic. The two-state solution died with him, opening the door for more extreme politicians such as Mr Netanyahu. The potential for peace was then killed when Mr Netanyahu replaced another former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres a year later. But it is time we brought back the vision of peace.

Tamar Glezerman added in his Guardian article that “Palestinian self-determination is not only a moral imperative, but also the only way to stop this blood cycle.”

Ms Harris is inheriting an enormous task. But she can do it. It’s time for Wonder Woman to take control.

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