One of the main concerns surrounding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial visit to Washington this week is what kind of reception he will get from the White House and how he will be received by Joe Biden and his vice-presidential and presumptive Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris.
The Israeli prime minister has already departed for the United States and was due to address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday at the request of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Ky., but there was no confirmation for much of Monday that Netanyahu would meet with Biden and Harris.
Harris appears likely to miss the session, where she would have sat directly behind Netanyahu as Senate president, as she is due to leave Washington for a public event at a sorority house in Indiana.
Aides to Harris said late Monday that both she and Biden plan to meet separately with Netanyahu at the White House and denied that Harris’ Indianapolis visit signaled a change in her position on Israel.
Still, the disjointed welcome could be a blow to Netanyahu, who had been hoping to use his political connections in the United States to bolster his statesmanship at home and maintain ties with Democrats if they defeat Donald Trump in November.
Ms. Harris is likely to be more openly critical of Mr. Netanyahu than Mr. Biden and to focus on the Palestinian civilian toll of the Gaza war, even as she maintains U.S. military aid and other support for Israel, a pillar of Mr. Biden’s foreign policy, according to her allies and associates.
“The generational difference between Biden and Harris means a big difference in how they view these issues,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, a liberal pro-Israel lobbying group that is backing Harris’ presidential bid.
“I think this isn’t necessarily a policy issue, but a framework issue. Kamala Harris and others of her generation have a framework that is more cognizant of the Palestinian position and that the fears and needs and rights of both sides of the aisle need to be part of this conversation.”
Harris has urged a ceasefire and criticized Israel’s conduct of the war. At the same time, she has cultivated a pro-Israel profile, and aides acknowledged that she will not be present when Netanyahu addresses parliament on Wednesday. “Throughout her career, [Harris] “We have always had an unwavering commitment to Israel’s security, and that remains true today,” the aide said.
“As I have said many times, too many innocent Palestinians have been killed,” she said in March during a speech in Selma, Alabama, the scene of historic demonstrations in the US civil rights movement.
“And just a few days ago we saw hungry and desperate people approaching aid trucks – after weeks of almost no aid reaching northern Gaza, just trying to find food for their families – and they were met with gunfire and chaos.”
“There’s little doubt that she’s an inside voice,” said Ivo Daalder, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a former U.S. permanent representative to NATO. [the administration] “We urge you to prioritize the impact on civilians in Gaza and to ensure that that remains the foremost issue in people’s minds, including the president’s.”
But once a decision is made within the administration, Daalder added, Harris won’t publicly break with it.Democrats who criticize the Biden administration’s support for Israel during the war say Harris doesn’t demonstrate enough of a break from convention.
Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of the majority Arab city of Dearborn, Michigan, did not explicitly endorse Harris. “I will nominate a candidate who can lead historic policies at home and abandon the path of genocide in Gaza and elsewhere,” he wrote. “America needs a candidate who can inspire voters to turn to the ballot box this November.”
Foreign policy experts said they generally believe Harris would maintain a similar policy on Israel to Biden’s, but would be more vocal in her opposition to the plight of Palestinians and Israeli settlements caused by the war.
“She will be subject to the same constraints as Biden — both political constraints and the constraint of not being able to leverage our allies. We don’t pressure our allies,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow specializing in U.S. foreign policy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“The rhetoric will be tougher. There will be more sympathy and empathy for Palestinian rights. The settlement policies may be tougher, but the rhetorical approach will be tougher. They will follow the Obama model, where the rhetoric was tough but the actions were not as tough.”
Two European diplomats said they believed Ms Harris’s policy would be heavily influenced by the team she surrounds herself with, centered around her national security adviser, Phil Gordon, a veteran of the State Department and National Security Council.
After all, much of the next week will be focused on appearances. “Prime Minister Netanyahu is here to mind his politics and our politics,” Miller said. “And I think he’s determined to show the Israeli people that, despite his declining political fortunes, he’s the only Israeli prime minister who can meet at the White House and address Congress for the fourth time. All of this seems to me to be part vanity and part smart politics.”
