By N. IRAZU
A month ago, a shakeup took place in the Democratic Party, which has resulted in the current president, Joe Biden, stepping away from the presidential race. At the Democratic National Convention (DNC) this week, Kamala Harris will be crowned as the new Democratic Party nominee. This new situation opens up important questions for the Palestine solidarity movement in the United States: Is Harris an ally of the Palestinian struggle?
The short answer is, no—not by a long shot. Harris is already the vice president, part of the administration that has been funding and arming the Israeli army as it carries out its genocide in Gaza. This in of itself should be enough to dispel any illusions about her position on the matter. As her campaign has taken off, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are dead, millions displaced, and the people of Gaza are ravaged by hunger and disease—all at the hands of the Israeli Defense Force, with full support of the Biden-Harris administration.
Not once has Kamala Harris come out with a forthright statement opposing the genocide; she is complicit with it. She is as loyal a servant to the U.S. ruling capitalist class as Joe Biden. But if that is the case, why are there still illusions?
Why did Biden step down?
There are those in the Palestine solidarity movement who view Biden’s stepping down as a victory for the “uncommitted campaign,” which began as an effort to get registered Democrats to vote “uncommitted” during the state primaries as a protest against Biden’s support of Israel’s genocide. More than 650,000 people cast this vote.[1] The “uncommitted” movement has gone on to help organize “Not Another Bomb” rallies around the country during the week of the Democratic Party National Convention, and to agitate for a voice on the convention floor.
But there are two problems with seeing the Democrats’ substitution of Harris for Biden as a victory on the issue of Palestine. The first and obvious one is that the pressure to get Biden to step down from the race really came out into the open after his tragicomic performance in the debate with Trump on June 27, which put into question his ability to govern at all. Secondly, the pressure to step down came from the Democratic establishment—not its left flank, which supported him to the end, with few exceptions.[2] Evidence indicates that the pressure to have Biden withdraw from the race was a maneuver from the Democratic Party establishment in order to increase their chances of winning the elections. His low-approval ratings came primarily from concerns with Biden’s age and cognitive abilities, with Palestine only being a secondary matter.
Of even greater importance is the political understanding that the alternative to Biden is a candidate who has shown just as much support for Israel as he has. As president, we cannot expect that Harris would be any different toward U.S. policy in the Middle East as when she was vice president.
Democratic Party cooptation game
Even before the pressure to get Biden to step down came out into the open, Harris was often presented as being more amicable to the Palestinian cause. Back in March, she was chosen by the administration to publicly call for a ceasefire.[3]
The Not Another Bomb campaign claims that over 86% of registered Democrats support a ceasefire in Gaza; polls from earlier in the year said 70%.[4] Biden as well as Harris have given lip-service to a ceasefire, but at least until now, have not actually tried to push it through. Every day that the genocide continues, more and more people become disgusted with the current administration over the issue.
Of course, the ceasefire that the administration says it supports leaves the Palestinians at a terrible disadvantage. Moreover, Harris placed the responsibility of achieving a ceasefire on Hamas—not on Israel, which is the entity currently carrying out the genocide.
In June, much pomp was raised over the fact that Harris did not attend Netanyahu’s address to Congress—even though she met with him personally the following day. Soon afterward, she again gave assurances of seeking some sort of peace deal in Gaza: “So, to everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you and I hear you. Let’s get the deal done so we can get a ceasefire to end the war. Let’s bring the hostages home. And let’s provide much-needed relief to the Palestinian people.”
And yet, while affirming that she would “not be silent” in the face of the suffering, Harris also repeated the tired old line that “Israel has a right to defend itself.”
What is this? Is the Democratic Party candidate battling internal demons, trying to do the right thing in a difficult situation? Or is she simply speaking out from both sides of her mouth, trying to demobilize the Palestine solidarity movement while maintaining unwavering support for Israel?
Harris is not a neutral player; she is not just a person chosen at random from the mass of the population of the U.S., and “courageous” enough to face off against Trump. She is a calculating representative of the U.S. capitalist class, the most powerful imperialist class in the world. This capitalist-imperialist class has objective, concrete interests in maintaining Israel as a beachhead in the Arab World. Israel defends U.S. economic and geopolitical interests; it is a constant threat to the Arab masses in the region, and acts to prevent their unification, which itself would be a threat to U.S. influence in the region.
Harris is trying to assuage Israel, letting it know that the U.S. will have its back and that a ceasefire will be on their terms; Israeli interests in ethnic cleansing, genocide, and land grabs will not be interfered with. But at the same time, she is trying to pacify the antiwar movement at home. We must dig deeper into this second aspect, because it is at the core of the matter.
The pro-Palestine movement poses a problem for the Democratic Party since it is occurring under its administration. It is difficult for the Democrats to pretend they would have a more humane policy, as happens under Republican administrations. Nevertheless, at the DNC, even Biden felt compelled to say that his current administration would work “to end the civilian suffering of the Palestinian people.” He continued, “Those demonstrators out in street—they have a point. A lot of people are dying—on both sides.” But despite such displays of “concern”—and despite toothless warnings to Israel about the dangers of crossing a “red line”—the Biden-Harris administration continues to support the genocidal policy of Israel to the hilt.
Now that Harris is officially in the running, she is forced more than ever to show who truly has her support: Palestine or Israel. Her support, unsurprisingly, falls squarely on the latter. At a recent campaign rally, when pro-Palestine protesters interrupted her speech, she lectured them, “If you want Donald Trump to win then say that; otherwise, I am speaking!”[5]
The continous assault on Gaza, the invasion of Rafah, the repeated bombings of schools—all demonstrate that there is no real “red line” for the Biden-Harris administration. None of it has made the administration change its course in regard to U.S.-Israel relations; it continues to offer staunch support to Israel regardless of its latest bloody acts in Gaza and the West Bank.
Recently, Phil Gordon, Harris’ national security adviser, asserted that the vice president does not support an arms embargo on Israel.[6] Obviously, an arms embargo—which is a key demand put forward by the Not Another Bomb movement—would not truly sever the U.S. lifeline to Israel; a clearer demand is “End U.S. Aid to Israel.” Nevertheless, Gordon’s admission, more than 11 months into the current genocide, makes it crystal clear that a Harris administration would not take any meaningful steps against Israel and would continue Biden’s current course of giving indefinite impunity to the Zionist state. Harris’s expressed sympathies for the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza thus remain empty.
Walz as VP
Some have expressed the opinion that the selection of Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota, is likewise a victory for the movement, ousting Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as a candidate for the vice-presidential ticket. But where is the victory? Walz has also come out as a staunch ally of Israel and an enemy of social movements for liberation. As governor, he was responsible for deploying the National Guard against the George Floyd movement, tear gassing and brutalizing people coming out against police brutality.
Gov. Walz has also been dismissive of Palestinian rights. In an interview with Mondoweiss after Walz had canceled a meeting with Palestinian families, Sana Wazwaz of American Muslims for Palestine said:
“He has never, not once, decided to sit down to meet with a Gazan family. He’s refused all attempts to sit down and talk to any of us, and he has refused to meet with a single mosque here in Minnesota about what’s happening in Gaza. But on the flip side, he rushed immediately after October 7 to go to the synagogues, to go to a stand with Israel rally, to order flags be flown at half-staff in honor of the Israeli victims.”[7]
Walz is clearly no friend of the Palestine movement either, and framing him as such is a maneuver to steer those that have becoming horrified with the Democrats support for genocide back into the Democratic Party fold. No trust should be put on either Harris or Walz.
The movement must be independent
The only way forward for us in the Palestine solidarity movement is to maintain a strict independence from the capitalist parties, both Republican and Democrat, no matter what sweet little lies they spew.
Harris’s policy on Palestine will not differ from Biden’s. She is using the rhetoric of solidarity in order to demobilize a movement that threatens U.S. capitalist interests abroad, due to its mass appeal. If we allow ourselves to be brought into the fold of the Democratic Party, we will end up falling into a trap that has already been played, by Obama in the Iraq War and by several presidents, both Democratic and Republican, during the Vietnam War.
The movement is a thorn in the side of the ruling class. As masses of working-class people see their government spending billions upon billions of dollars to fund a daily televised genocide, as they mobilize in the streets against it, they are going through a process of radicalization. To mobilize for Palestine ends up being a mobilization against the U.S. state as a whole, putting into question who rules this country and why.
Many might ask themselves: why not just stop? Why not invest the money here, where it is needed, to better the lives of millions, instead of raining destruction on another people? The ruling class and its political parties are unable to give a satisfactory answer to the question.
In reality, Palestine is revealing to millions of people the bloody depths to which the ruling class is willing to go in order to maintain its interests—and also the little heed they pay to the demands of the people. There is no reason to think that a Harris administration would be any type of ally to the movement; we must continue building a mass movement that is independent of the parties of the ruling class.
Citations:
[1]https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/05/biden-uncommitted-primary-vote-00161700
[2]https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/why-did-progressive-democrats-support-joe-biden
[4]https://www.commondreams.org/news/poll-permanent-ceasefire
[5]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgvKaMQOUPI
[6]https://x.com/PhilGordon46/status/1821539980017070229
[7]https://mondoweiss.net/2024/08/minnesota-activists-criticize-tim-walz-for-refusing-to-meet-with-palestinians/
Photo: Protesters hold a Kamala Harris puppet at the DNC in Chicago on Aug. 19. (Eduardo Muñoz/ Reuters)
