In her speech at the DNC, Kamala Harris emphasized Israel’s right to defend itself but also spoke about the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, vowing to work so that “the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination.” The audience cheered that sentence more than any other in her whole speech.
I saw two analyses of the speech: for the Israeli news site Ynet, Nadav Eyal wrote that Israel got exactly what it wanted from Harris; the progressive American news site Vox, meanwhile, wrote that Harris presented a different approach to the conflict compared to that of Biden, more supportive of the Palestinians. How do you see her speech?
I think she achieved what she wanted: that both of those kinds of reporting could come out, and that both AIPAC and J Street could endorse it. But if we shift attention to the Palestinian rights movement or the Uncommitted Movement, there is nothing there for them. The way the DNC treated the issue tells you everything you need to know about the ways things aren’t changing — for instance, [the fact there was] no Palestinian speaker or perspective on the stage.
Harris can talk about bad things that have happened to Palestinians, but from her words you wouldn’t know who caused it — a natural disaster? An earthquake? When Hamas does something bad, they are named and shamed; but when bad things happen to Palestinians, there is never any acknowledgement that they are caused by Israel.
Not everyone responds well to having absurdities leveled at them.