By Ron Kampeas
(JTA) — In the space of an hour or so on Wednesday (Aug. 7), Kamala Harris both listened to and shushed pro-Palestinian activists, in a raw display of the fine line Democrats must walk while war rages between Israel and Hamas and a presidential election looms.
Current Vice President and 2024 Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris speaks to several thousand attendees at her presidential campaign rally at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, Romulus, Michigan, Aug. 7, 2024. (Adam J. Dewey/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Harris met with pro-Palestinian activists in Detroit, a metropolitan area thought to house the largest concentration of Arab Americans, leading to competing claims about whether the vice president and presumptive presidential nominee agreed to consider an arms embargo on Israel.
The tumult reflects the tightrope Harris must navigate between two of her party’s natural constituencies, Arab Americans and Jews, as well as other groups on either side of Israel’s current war, and comes just a week and a half before the party’s convention in Chicago.
What should be a crowning moment for Harris, her coronation after a historically rapid ascent to the party nomination, threatens to be defined by planned pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian street rallies and protests. Additionally, families of hostages held by Hamas and advocates for the medical professionals tending to the tens of thousands of Palestinian wounded want prime time spots at the convention.
Harris’ experience on Wednesday offered a taste of how challenging it might be for her and other Democrats to navigate the tensions.
An hour after Harris reportedly told pro-Palestinian activists in their meeting that the carnage in Gaza was “horrific,” she shut down a pro-Palestinian chant at her rally, staring at the protesters and glowering in a clip that has gone viral.
“Kamala, Kamala, you can’t hide! We won’t vote for genocide,” a clutch of protesters chanted as Harris spoke at a hangar at an Detroit airport.
Harris at first acknowledged the protesters and their right to speak out. “I’m here because we believe in democracy. Everyone’s voice matters, but I am speaking now, I am speaking now,” she said, to applause.
She returned to her topic, the radical changes she said her rival, Donald Trump, would bring if he were elected, but the protesters chanted unabated for 30 seconds.
That prompted a sharp rebuke from Harris.
“You know what?” she said. “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.” She leaned back and glowered at the protesters as the rally erupted into applause and cheers.
The same dynamic played out before her speech. The founders of the “Uncommitted” movement, which encouraged Democrats to withhold votes in the primaries to register unhappiness with the Biden administration’s support of Israel, briefly met with Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
“The Vice President shared her sympathies and expressed an openness to a meeting with Uncommitted leaders to discuss an arms embargo,” Uncommitted said in a press release.
That led to calls for a clarification from pro-Israel figures, alarmed at the notion that a Harris administration would consider cutting defense assistance to Israel.
“If Kamala Harris does not directly and unequivocally reverse her reported promise to anti-Israel group in Michigan that she ‘is open to request’ to consider arms embargo to Israel, she will lose significant support from American Jews and Democrats that support Israel!” tweeted Abe Foxman, the former Anti-Defamation League national director who in 2020 campaigned for President Joe Biden.
Direct and unequivocal came soon enough. Harris “has been clear: she will always ensure Israel is able to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups,” Phil Gordon, Harris’s national security adviser, said in a tweet. “She does not support an arms embargo on Israel. She will continue to work to protect civilians in Gaza and to uphold international humanitarian law.”
Shelley Greenspan, Biden’s Jewish outreach director, amplified Gordon’s statement. “The VP does *not* support an arms embargo on Israel,” she tweeted, quoting Gordon’s tweet.
A campaign aide to Harris pointed the Jewish Telegraphic Agency to Gordon’s statement and said Uncommitted’s claim that Harris expressed openness to an embargo was “inaccurate.”
“Since Oct. 7, the Vice President has prioritized engaging with Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian community members and others regarding the war in Gaza,” the aide said. “In this brief engagement, she reaffirmed that her campaign will continue to engage with those communities. The Vice President has been clear: she will always work to ensure Israel is able to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups.”
Harris replaced Biden as the nominee last month after Biden pulled out of the race. She already had emerged as tougher on Israel than Biden, who has been close to the country for most of his career — at least rhetorically. That soon came into focus days after she assumed Biden’s mantle as the likely nominee.
After meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month in Washington, Harris said in a press conference that she “will not be silent” in the face of Palestinian suffering.
That spurred hope among pro-Palestinian activists that Harris would be more amenable to their cause.
Even after Gordon shot down Uncommitted’s claim that Harris would entertain an arms embargo, the group appeared hopeful that she represented a shift, and did not back down from their claim that she was open to the idea.
“We found hope in Vice President Harris expressing an openness to meeting about an arms embargo, and we are eager to continue engaging because people we love are being killed with American bombs,” the group’s founders, Layla Elabed and Abbas Alawieh, said in a statement.
“When we told Vice President Harris that members of our community in Michigan are losing dozens and hundreds of their family members to Israel’s assault in Gaza, she said back: ‘It’s horrific,’” their statement said. “It’s clear to us that Vice President Harris can lead our country’s Gaza policy to a more humane place. We hope she will meet with us so we can move forward to discuss an arms embargo.”
Jewish and Arab Americans are both constituencies that vote in substantial majorities for Democrats. Harris will likely need both to best Trump in a close election, particularly states like Michigan that have significant Jewish and Arab American populations.
The constituencies have come together in the past — pushing back in 2017 against Trump’s ban on visitors from a number of Muslim majority countries, for instance. But they have largely stood against each other when it comes to the war in Gaza and how Israel has conducted it.
The tensions likely won’t abate before Aug. 19, when Democrats convene for their convention in Chicago. A number of pro-Palestinian groups have planned rallies. At least one pro-Israel group, the Israeli American Council, has applied to Chicago authorities to mount a pro-Israel march near the convention but has so far been rebuffed, Jewish Insider reported
Uncommitted wants the convention to give a prime-time speaking slot to medical professionals from Gaza. The families of American-Israeli hostages still held by Hamas also want a slot, having received one last month at the Republican convention.
A spokesperson for the Harris campaign did not respond to a query as to whether either or both requests would be granted.