Harris faces new battles with expanding Middle East conflict

Vice President Harris is struggling to confront a rapidly worsening crisis in the Middle East as she seeks to balance unwavering support for Israel with appeals to progressive and Arab American communities.

In a tight race for the White House, Harris is facing increasingly difficult questions about the Biden administration’s handling of the Middle East crisis, which expanded at the end of September into a larger conflict when Israeli troops invaded Lebanon to fight against the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah.

Israel is also weighing a retaliation strike against Iran that could target nuclear facilities and trigger an escalation, leading to concerns about a direct war between the two bitter enemies.  

In a Monday interview with “60 Minutes,” Harris was criticized for dodging a question about whether the U.S. has lost leverage over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

“The work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles,” she said. “We’re not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.” 

She also danced around a question on whether Netanyahu is a close ally, instead saying the U.S. has a close relationship with Israel. President Biden and Harris spoke with Netanyahu on Wednesday in what the White House described as a direct and productive discussion, while Israel calibrates its expected retaliatory strike against Iran. 

But perhaps more significant than the stumbles has been Harris’s refusal to break with Biden on the war and propose tougher action on Israel, despite a growing conflict that has increasingly angered voters on the left who want Israel out of Gaza and now Lebanon.

Harris has repeatedly been met with protests at campaign stops and, outside her residence in Washington, D.C., on Monday, protesters sought to drown out her remarks for the Oct. 7 anniversary alongside second gentleman Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish. 

There is historical precedent for breaking with a sitting president on the campaign trail. Hubert Humphrey, who was the vice president for Lyndon B. Johnson while running for president in 1968, broke with his boss on the Vietnam War. 

Gil Barndollar, a nonresident senior fellow at Defense Priorities, said Harris would benefit from putting daylight between her position and Biden by drawing a harder line on Israel, though he added it “takes political guts.” 

“Fundamentally, it’s a lack of courage or creativity,” he said. “Her incoherence and inability to answer these questions really reflects the state of someone who is speaking for a fractious Democratic Party on this [issue] and is trying to appease everybody and satisfy no one.” 

The Biden administration has also pushed for months to reach a cease-fire in Gaza, where more than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed since Hamas sparked the war with its Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel, killing some 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages.  

But the U.S. has seen efforts for a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of the 100 remaining hostages stymied by both Hamas and Netanyahu. 

On the campaign trail, Harris has spoken about the suffering in Gaza in a way that Biden has not, but she has failed to win over anti-war protesters, which could hurt her among progressives, young voters and Arab Americans.

The “Abandon Harris” group, which was behind the push to cast protest votes against Biden in the Democratic primary, endorsed the Green Party’s Jill Stein in the presidential race Monday. 

Hudhayfah Ahmad, a spokesperson for the movement, hit back on criticism that voting for a third party will only help former President Trump, who is strongly pro-Israel, explaining the objective was “holding the party that is currently in power accountable for the atrocities that we have been witnessing.” 

“We’re also working to uplift those who we feel embody the message that we have, the values that we have,” he said. “Harris has the power to break away from Biden’s foreign policy today.” 

Critics have slammed Harris for a Saturday post on the social platform X that pledged millions in aid for the people of Lebanon. 

“Harris’s messaging on the escalation that’s been taking place has been horrific,” Ahmad said. “The way she speaks about what’s going on, particularly in Lebanon, you’d think she’s talking about a natural disaster.”   

There are also concerns about Harris among Israel’s supporters.

Michael Makovsky, president and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, said both Trump and Biden have stronger pro-Israel records than Harris.

“I suspect that Trump might get a historic amount of Jewish support,” he said. “Whatever issues some Jews might have with him, he has a very pro-Israel record and he’s been out there condemning antisemitism.” 

Makovsky expressed concern that Harris would be overly sympathetic to Palestinians, or overly critical of Israel, if elected. And he noted Harris didn’t pick Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) as her running mate, which he suggested could have helped her with the Jewish vote. 

“There’s a real concern that Biden might be the last real, strong Zionist that’s elected Democratic president. I hope that’s not true, but there’s certainly, I think, a concern about it, given where the party has been going,” he said.  

Like Biden, Harris has strongly backed Israel’s right to defend itself while also acknowledging the suffering in Gaza, a balancing act on display Tuesday night when she appeared on “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert.

“There is pain. Pain and suffering that is happening in that region of the world,” she said, adding that the U.S. “must work and not lose hope and not throw up our hands around the role we must play in urging and seeking and building toward a resolution.” 

Alp Sevimlisoy, a millennium fellow at the Atlantic Council, said Harris would benefit from a simpler, refined message to voters that is focused on defending American interests, arguing she should “double down on patriotism” and take from the Republican playbook. 

“Her approach has to become less of a we are protecting certain, specific countries, and it needs to become more of, Americans are under threat here; American interests are under threat,” he said. “This is a much clearer message for the electorate. It resonates much better.” 

But that message is unlikely to satisfy progressive and Arab American voters, and Harris is less than a month away from Election Day, with polls showing her in a close match-up with Trump. 

One of the most closely watched swing states is Michigan, which has a large Arab American population. In the primary, when Biden was still running, more than 100,000 Michigan voters voted “uncommitted” instead of the president in a protest vote for his handling of the Gaza war.  

A poll released last week showed Trump ahead of Harris among Arab American voters, an example of the eroding support from a group that more often leans Democratic. 

Harris met with Muslim and Arab American community while in Flint last week to discuss their perspectives on Gaza and Lebanon, and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), participated recently in a related virtual event with Engage Action. 

Still, the outreach efforts are hampered by the fact that the fighting continues to escalate, and that U.S. calls to stop the fighting have failed. 

The Biden administration had urged Israel against a Lebanon campaign and to accept a three-week truce with Hezbollah, but the U.S. is now saying it backs Israel’s plans for a limited operation. 

Critics have frequently pointed to the fact that despite critical public comments and statements from the Biden administration, it has not used any leverage, such as withholding or conditioning weapons that Israel relies on, to hold back Netanyahu.

Research published Monday showed the U.S. has spent more than $17 billion to support Israel throughout the more than yearlong war, the highest level since direct U.S. security aid began around 1959.

Brian Katulis, a senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Middle East Institute, said Harris is struggling to defend Biden’s policies “because the administration is struggling to actually handle their own policy and then communicate what they’re trying to get done.” 

“She and her team candidly suffer from this common affliction that you see among Democrats when it comes to the politics of foreign policy,” he said. “They’re constantly sort of trying to move things by millimeters in their messaging to appeal to different constituencies, and the message ends up sounding quite muddled.” 

But Democrats still say her message is preferable to Trump’s.

John LaBombard, former communications director to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and other Democratic senators, said “winnable voters who will decide this election understand that the world is a dangerous place.”

“And the vice president’s demonstrated steady, thoughtful approach can help convince those voters that she’s the right person for this difficult job compared to the reckless, chaotic approach to the world stage they saw in former President Trump,” he said.