By Josh Paul
Former Director, U.S. Department of State.
Senior Advisor at DAWN, (DAWN; Founded by Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, DAWN promotes democracy & human rights in the Middle East and North Africa).
https://dawnmena.org/
When asked by media and allies I have expressed a belief that a Harris presidency would be “slightly better” than the Biden Presidency has been for Gaza, in part because she is not a hard-cast ideologue on this issue as Biden is, and in part because her team are more moderate and reasonable (and frankly also more thoughtful and self-aware) than Biden’s team are.
But the devil is in the details. When it comes to those details, it is hard to point to a specific area where we can be sure a Harris presidency would be better. Would they be more likely to condition or suspend arms transfers? They have been explicit that they would not. Would they enforce the U.S. laws already on the books, such as 620I or Leahy? They have not said they would. Would they stand up for the rights of peaceful protestors on campuses across America? They have given no sign of doing so, and indeed, Harris’ responses both to the protests at the time of Netanyahu’s visit to Washington DC, and to protests at her own campaign events, have been deeply disappointing – and their unwillingness to even give a Palestinian-American a voice at the Democratic Convention was a very worrying sign.
I also believe that no individual, not even at the level of the President of the United States, can bring transformative change to U.S. policy on this issue in the next four years given how firmly entrenched the current approach is across American politics – this is something that will take many years to fix, and in the coming weeks I will be unveiling a new effort to address this strategically, holistically, and effectively.
In the meantime, I, and others I have spoken to, would like to believe that Harris would be slightly better than where we are. But there is only so long we can wave our hands at generalities and presumptions – we need clear words from the Harris campaign that give a basis for these hopes. Without those, it is becoming increasingly difficult to hold to such hopes, and the polls demonstrate that the Harris campaign should be increasingly concerned about the implications of this gap between hopes and words – let alone actions – for outcomes of the election in key states.
The ball is in their, and her, court.
