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Martin Raffel

Give me Harris and Walz for the next four years

I care about many issues, from reproductive freedom to the environment. But we all have our priorities. For me, it is a secure Jewish and democratic State of Israel. Indeed, I devoted my entire professional career to building American government and public support for Israel. That is why this coming November I will vote unhesitatingly for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz as president and vice president.

Republicans long have tried to win Jewish votes by portraying themselves as the pro-Israel party. Former President Trump even asserted that Jews who vote for Democrats should be “ashamed” of themselves and Jewish Democrats “need to have their heads examined,” leaning, once again, into the antisemitic ‘Bad Jew’ trope.

No doubt, we will hear again and again that former president Donald Trump moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It’s true, and this was a welcome development, but it possesses only symbolic value and fails to advance Israel’s security and the search for peace. Republicans, once again, are peddling a false narrative.

The Biden/Harris administration should get enormous credit for the way the U.S. has stood by Israel since that awful October 7 providing billions of dollars of additional military assistance — repeatedly working around a Republican controlled House that held up the administration’s supplemental aid package for Israel and Ukraine — and defending Israel before biased and hypercritical international forums. The US joined with a coalition of regional forces to protect Israel from the barrage of Iranian missiles and drones last April. And we have deployed naval strike groups, as well as a nuclear submarine, to the Eastern Mediterranean to deter Iran further. These represent only a small number of examples of how the administration has concretely helped an Israel at war.

Israel’s Defense Ministry acknowledged the critical role the U.S. has played under Biden-Harris. On August 26 the Ministry announced that the 500th American aircraft with weapons and equipment recently landed in Israel. In addition to the airborne assistance, the U.S. has sent 107 shipments of military supplies by sea. Since October 7, Israel has received over 50,000 tons of military equipment from the U.S., both offensive and defensive. According to the Defense Ministry, the equipment includes “armored vehicles, munitions, ammunition, personal protection gear, and medical equipment, which are crucial for sustaining the IDF’s operational capabilities during the ongoing war.”

While the administration’s past record on Israel is exemplary, we are electing a president who will serve for the next four years. Thus, we would be well served to look to the future. What can we expect from an administration led by Kamala Harris, whose close relationship with the Jewish community goes all the way back to her days as San Francisco District Attorney? Will she maintain the kind of support Israel enjoyed while Harris served as vice president? I believe we got an answer in her nomination acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention when she declared, “Let me be clear: I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself. Because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that the terrorist organization Hamas caused on October 7…”

There will be a day after in Gaza, in fact, years of reconstruction and complex efforts to implement a post-Hamas governance structure. In addition, even if Hamas is neutralized, Iran and its other terrorist proxies will continue to pose severe threats to Israel’s security.

These are enormous challenges that Israel, with the help of the US, must address in the years ahead. A reason for optimism, there is potential for establishment of a regional alliance involving Israel and the moderate Sunni Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, that will work together to address Gaza’s future and, also, to confront the Iran-led Axis of Resistance.

The key question here is who would be best positioned to take advantage of this historic opportunity going forward, a Harris administration or a second Trump administration? The Arab states have made it clear they are not prepared to move forward with this vision without some movement, however incremental, toward the goal of Palestinian independence. This is not likely to happen under a Trump administration. Last June, when asked whether he will agree to support a Palestinian state if its establishment brings Middle East peace, Trump responded in his usual equivocal style, “I’d have to see.” Republican members of Congress have consistently expressed antipathy toward the two-state outcome.

Harris can be expected to pursue this agenda, albeit with the clear-eyed recognition that peace between Israel and the Palestinians can only be achieved over time, not in the near term. One may legitimately ask; how can Harris go down this road if the current Palestinian leadership is corrupt and dysfunctional and the Israeli government is adamantly against even discussing the possibility of future Palestinian independence? Yes, these are problems. But there ought to at least be an effort to encourage the formation of a more responsible and effective Palestinian Authority. And we don’t know what kind of Israeli government will emerge in the years ahead once the dust settles in Gaza, maybe one that is prepared to seize the opportunity of a transformed Middle East.

Then, there is the broader foreign policy environment to consider. Would Israel’s security be best served by a Harris administration that supports NATO and believes fundamentally in America’s obligation to stand by our democratic allies, or by an “America First” neo-isolationist and thoroughly transactional President Trump who has essentially indicated he would hand Ukraine to his pal Vladimir Putin on a silver platter?

I know the answer to that question. Yes, give me Harris and Walz for the next four years.

About the Author
Martin J. Raffel, until his retirement in 2014, served for 27 years as senior vice president at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), an umbrella body with 16 national member organizations and over 120 locally based organizations (JCRCs). He was JCPA’s lead professional on matters related to Israel, world Jewry and international human rights. In 2009, Raffel took the lead in organizing the Israel Action Network, a joint strategic initiative of The Jewish Federations of North America and JCPA that seeks to combat the assault on Israel’s legitimacy. He currently serves on the Board Of Democratic Jewish Outreach PA.
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