Should Harris Finally Speak Out for Gazans?

She can create her own mandate for change from a policy that cannot be morally defended.

This article in The New Republic is a sadly powerful and accurate assessment of the administration’s role in the Gaza disaster:

Joe Biden Chose This Catastrophic Path Every Step of the Way

What’s happening in the Middle East was enabled by a president with ideological priors, aides who failed to push back, and a cheerleading media establishment.

The Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, were an abominable crime. The Israeli government had both the right and responsibility to protect its people. Biden was right to respond with support and solidarity.

It was also right to expect him, at some point over the last year, to pivot to real pressure to end the war and save human lives. 

He never did.   

The author, Matthew Duss, compares Biden’s Gaza policies to the disastrous Iraqi War.

Obviously, the U.S. didn’t invade Iraq because Netanyahu told it to. He was one of many self-styled foreign policy experts who supported it, a list that includes our current president, who to this day has never adequately accounted for his own key role as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in enabling the war, sheltering behind the transparently nonsensical claim that he was misled by President George W. Bush.  

…

It’s unclear yet whether the consequences of Israel’s post–October 7 war will be as bad as the Iraq War. They very well might, but one thing already clear is that both catastrophes were enabled in part by a U.S. president with strong ideological biases, a confidence in his own judgment as unshakeable as it was unjustified, advisers unwilling or unable to push back effectively, and an elite media establishment with an overtly militarist bent and a shockingly callous disregard for Arab lives.

I wonder if Harris shouldn’t finally break with Biden on this issue. She would lose some Jewish and other pro-Israel votes that she’s probably already lost. She would incur the wrath of AIPAC and the rest of the ultra-Israeli lobby, but it’s probably too late for them to really harm her. She might regain a bit of crucial support from the progressive far-left and the Arab-American community, though it might be too little too late for that to help a lot. 

Perhaps she’s damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t, but in my experience, when that’s true, you might as well do the right thing.