On a late summer day in 2019, I packed up my life into an old Nissan Altima and drove across the country from San Francisco to Waterloo, Iowa, to work to elect then senator Kamala Harris as president. After four years of a Trump presidency that stripped away the rights of the most marginalized in this country, I was driven by her vision that “justice is on the ballot” and that every individual should have their fundamental rights guaranteed and have the opportunity to thrive.
I would eventually join the Biden administration as a political appointee at the US Department of the Interior, eager to apply the values that so inspired me from the Harris campaign. Those very same values drove me to become the first Jewish American political appointee to resign from the Biden administration in May in protest of the president’s unconditional support for Israel’s assault on Gaza. Now, Harris is poised to be the Democratic nominee to take on Donald Trump in November.
I resigned because of Joe Biden’s disastrous policy on Gaza, providing the financial and diplomatic support for the Israeli military to massacre, starve and forcibly expel countless Palestinians in Gaza. As a staffer in the administration, I heard reports that Harris and her staff pushed the US president to adopt a policy on Gaza that was both more humane and in alignment with international law, but were rebuffed. I saw the Harris I moved to Iowa for in her speech in Selma, becoming the first senior administration official calling for a ceasefire, even as I was disappointed that it was only for six weeks. This was reportedly an effort by Biden’s team to water down her speech. It is shameful that Biden refused to listen to Harris – or the majority of Americans for that matter. Now that Biden has stepped aside, she has the opportunity to chart her own path on Israel and Palestine.
For months, the majority of Democrats and Americans, including American Jews, have supported a lasting ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas. Harris must make clear that she supports using the US government’s leverage to end the bloodshed and reunite families. One clear way that she can do so is by supporting an arms embargo on offensive weapons for the Israeli military – a policy floated by Biden before he ultimately backtracked and greenlit Israel’s devastating ground invasion of Rafah.
Once Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza ends, a President Harris could begin a new era in which the US government uses commonsense diplomatic and financial pressure to bring about a long-term political solution that would end Israel’s system of apartheid over Palestinians and guarantee equality, justice and safety for Palestinians and Israelis alike.
By setting herself apart from Biden’s failed policy, Harris has the opportunity to rebuild a coalition to defeat Trump that would include progressives, young people and Arab Americans among others.
More than 700,000 Democrats voted uncommitted during the primary in protest of Biden’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza. They are a crucial part of the coalition needed for Democrats to win swing states like Michigan, Georgia and Minnesota. The policies these voters are demanding are broadly popular among Democrats and Americans writ large. Even a majority of my own community, American Jews, support conditioning arms shipments to Israel.
Harris must initiate a new era in American policy towards Israel, not just because it is the right thing to do, but because it is both the popular and the politically savvy popular thing to do. What better way to draw attention to the authoritarianism of Trump than for Harris to resoundly reject all authoritarianism abroad?
Harris has at times fallen short of her promise to deliver justice. As a prosecutor, she put nonviolent drug users behind bars and she prosecuted parents for their children’s absence from school. She has also maintained close ties with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), the rightwing lobby primarily funded by Republican donors that has endorsed election-deniers and anti-abortion extremists. If Harris is serious about “putting justice on the ballot”, she must commit to ending mass incarceration and overzealous prosecution in this country and reject Aipac’s rightwing agenda as president. If she does both, she has the opportunity to turn out record numbers of voters to enable her to defeat Trump in November.
On 20 January, I am hopeful we will inaugurate the first female president, one who was successful because she stopped playing to the allegedly movable center, and instead embraced the Democratic party’s full coalition, including progressives, young voters and Arab Americans. To win this fight, Harris must take a clear stance against unconditional support for the Israeli military. She must strive to serve the American people and listen to the majority of Americans who are pleading for an end to the status quo of violence and pave a path forward to genuine equality, justice and freedom for Palestinians and Israelis.
