Ominous Signs of What US Middle East Policy Might Be Under a Harris Presidency

August 16, 2024 by Fred Fleitz

A Harris administration would likely implement a Middle East policy that would be openly hostile to Israel and even more willing to appease Iran than the Biden administration.

During his recent discussion with Elon Musk on X, Donald Trump said Kamala Harris would be even worse for Israel and the Jewish community than Joe Biden. Although there are many unknowns about what Kamala Harris’s positions would be as president on Middle East security if she wins the 2024 presidential election, several disturbing signs support President Trump’s belief.

Harris’s foreign policy record has been roundly criticized. She was ridiculed in 2022 for a pollyannish explanation of the Ukraine War when she said, “So, Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So, basically, that’s wrong.”

Harris was strongly condemned in Ukraine and the U.S. for laughing and appearing cluelessduring a 2022 press conference in Poland when a reporter asked her a question about Ukrainian refugees. This response led Senator Marsha Blackburn to tweet, “It seems the only thing Kamala Harris knows how to do is laugh off her responsibilities.”

Harris praised Biden for an “extraordinary amount of courage” concerning his disastrous decision to abruptly withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan in 2021. She has argued that increasing nuclear deterrence is “dangerous” and called for reducing the defense budget and redirecting military funding to domestic programs. In dealing with Russia, China, Iran, and Yemen’s Houthi rebels, Harris usually favored appeasement over tough policies and American strength.

These and other indications of Harris’s foreign policy incompetence raise questions as to whether she can handle the complex security issues America faces in the Middle East.

There are already two indicators of this.

The first are pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel statements by Harris during her career driven by the thinking of the progressive left. She has consistently portrayed the Palestinians as victims, voted against legislation supporting Israel’s security, and voted in support of the anti-Semitic BDS movement.

Harris has sometimes pledged support for Israel. She told an AIPAC conference in 2017 that she was a strong supporter of the Jewish State and recognized Israel’s right to self-defense. She spoke out in support of the Israeli people several times since the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack and called for the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza by Hamas.

However, most of Harris’s statements about Israel and the Israel-Hamas War have been very troubling and led experts like Caroline Glick to call her “the most outspokenly anti-Israel member of the administration.”  Harris implied during a speech last December that the Israel Defense Forces were violating international law in Gaza and called Israel’s blockade of Gaza a “humanitarian disaster” directed at Palestinian civilians. Harris has called on the Biden Administration to be tougher on Israel’s government on the war and advocated for a supposed “balanced” approach to this conflict.

Like President Biden, Harris has called for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas War and a permanent peace agreement based on the “two-state solution.” Also like Biden, Harris has often criticized Israel for the war in Gaza but has leveled very little criticism at Hamas for continuing the conflict and refusing to release its hostages.

Israeli officials were concerned about statements Harris made after she met with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in July, which they thought were hostile to Israel and could harm negotiations to reach a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.

Harris has given mixed signals about whether she would support an arms embargo on Israel as president. In a brief comment on August 8 to anti-Israel activists, the vice president reportedly expressed her openness to meeting with them to discuss an embargo. The next day, however, blowback from this remark forced the Harris campaign to back away from it and state her strong opposition to an arms embargo on Israel.

However, contradicting this reversal was another comment Harris made in March on a possible Israeli military operation to take Rafah, the last Hamas-held city in Gaza. Harris warned that there would be “consequences” if Prime Minister Netanyahu went forward with an operation to take Rafah and said, “I am ruling out nothing.”

A second indicator of what Kamala Harris’s Middle East policy would be as president concerns who she might select as her top foreign policy advisers.

Although little is known about who Harris would name to her national security team, Harris appears likely to retain her current—and controversial—National Security Adviser, Philip Gordon, and could nominate him to be her Secretary of State. Gordon held national security posts in the Obama administration and is a strong proponent of the deeply flawed 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, the JCPOA. He has expressed hostility toward Israel and sympathy for Islamist terrorists. Congressional Republicans have accused him of being an apologist for Iran and connections to an Iranian influence operation in the United States known as the Iran Experts Initiative. Congressional Republicans are investigating Gordon’s association with this group and for “blatantly promoting the Iranian regime’s perspective and interests.”

Harris recently named her former adviser on Middle East issues, Ilan Goldenberg, as her liaison to the Jewish community and probably plans to give him a senior foreign policy job if she wins the election. Goldenberg worked on Middle East issues for the Obama administration and the 2016 presidential campaign of Elizabeth Warren. He is known as a far-left critic of Israel with ties to the anti-Israel group J Street and has been a sharp critic of Netanyahu and Trump’s Israel policy. Goldenberg has also been accused of being an apologist for Iran. He strongly supports the JCPOA and opposed President Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. According to Hudson Institute senior fellow Michael Doran, Goldenberg led a Biden administration effort to hunt and target Israelis for sanctions while Israel was at war against Hamas terrorists.

At the same time Harris was promoting well-known anti-Israel leftists for her campaign’s foreign policy team, as I wrote in American Greatness last week, she caved to the “darker side” of the Democratic Party in not choosing popular Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro to be her running mate because he is a pro-Israel Jew.

In a recent Front Page Magazine article, Daniel Greenfield summed up what a Harris administration’s Middle East policy would be like if it included anti-Israel radicals like Gordon and Goldenberg:

Philip Gordon and Ilan Goldenberg are two anti-Israel figures from the Obama administration whose fingerprints are all over the policies that empowered Iran…  What would Kamala’s foreign policy look like? The presence of Gordon and Goldenberg as her close advisors on the region shows that it would be the Obama administration on steroids.

Kamala Harris’s foreign policy incompetence, coupled with her tendency to side with far-left anti-Israel activists and to hire them as her advisers, likely means a Harris administration’s Middle East policy would be openly hostile to Israel and even more willing to appease Iran than the Biden administration.

A Harris administration probably would promote initiatives such as an arms embargo on Israel, sanctions on Israeli officials, and a demand to Israel to allow the U.S. to reopen a consulate for Palestinians in Jerusalem.  The U.S. also probably would quickly rejoin the JCPOA and offer huge concessions to Iran while Iran continues its nuclear weapons program.

I believe there would be threats by a Harris administration against Israel to agree to an immediate cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas War, a two-state solution, and putting the Palestinian Authority in charge of running Gaza.  A Harris administration would ignore how these initiatives would severely threaten Israel’s security by preventing the elimination of Hamas and instead allow it to rebuild and plan another deadly terrorist attack against Israel.

Most disturbingly, I believe it is very likely that a Harris administration’s Middle East policies would be so radical that it would recognize Palestine as an independent state with full UN membership and name a U.S. ambassador to “Palestine.”  This would be a huge blow to Israel’s security and prestige.

What I have written above is speculation at this point. If Harris wins the election, hopefully, pro-Israel Americans will pressure her to implement moderate Middle East policies to stand strongly with Israel and take a tough approach to Iran for its pursuit of nuclear weapons, destabilizing the Middle East, and sponsoring terrorism. Hopefully, moderate members of Congress would convince Harris to name competent, pro-Israel officials to her national security team who will reverse the damage done to Middle East security and the U.S.-Israel relationship by the Biden administration.

Although I sincerely hope that if Kamala Harris wins the 2024 presidential election, there will be moderation in her approach to the Middle East, Israel, and Iran, there are growing indications that Donald Trump is right that a Kamala Harris presidency would be even worse for Israel and the Jewish community than the Biden administration. If this happens, there likely will be similar incompetent and far-left Harris policies that would undermine global security and America’s leadership as a great power. This means Harris’s overall foreign policy as president likely would result in a world much more unstable and dangerous than it is today.

Donald Trump was heavily criticized when he recently said, “Any Jewish voter who casts his ballot for Harris “should have his head examined.” Given growing indications of the likely radical and destabilizing Middle East and national security policies in a Harris presidency, Trump makes a good point that Jewish and non-Jewish voters must consider when making their choice for the next president of the United States.