Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Photo by Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

By Rob Eshman August 23, 2024

You might think it was a radical thing for a presidential candidate, in a speech accepting the nomination of her party, to call for Palestinian “dignity, freedom, security and self-determination.”

You would be wrong.

When Vice President Kamala Harris addressed the delegates at the Democratic National Convention Thursday evening, she promised to seek pragmatic solutions to urgent problems. And balancing the U.S. commitment to Israeli security with support for Palestinian rights is Pragmatism 101.

In one sense, it was a surprise that Harris made such a strong statement on Palestinian rights — because Israel, Palestinians and the war in Gaza did not get so much as a mention throughout the rest of a night of speeches devoted to international crises.

Each night of the DNC was designed to focus on a major policy issue and Harris’ plans to deal with it, and Thursday’s speakers zeroed in on what Harris would be like as commander-in-chief. Sen. Mark Kelly, former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and Rep. Ruben Gallego told delegates that Harris would stand up for Ukraine and against dictators like Kim Jong Un of North Korea. The one international crisis they didn’t mention: That unfolding between Israel, the Palestinians and, not incidentally, Iran.

That omission was a matter of politics. There weren’t pro-Ukrainian protesters marching on the convention center threatening to disrupt the festivities or withhold their vote from the Democratic candidate. There weren’t Koreans waiting with bated breath to see if Harris would stand with South Korea. The suppurating wound of the Democratic party right now is Gaza.

Even before the convention began, the extraordinary tolls of Israel’s war threatened to tear apart the unity that Democrats desperately need to manifest. Protesters called for a ceasefire and an arms embargo against Israel, while American Jews, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic, were watching to see how the party would balance the entirely legitimate anguish over civilian casualties in Gaza with Israel’s right to, well, exist.

Not a single speaker addressed this agonizing tension in the speeches leading up to the main event. The international elephant in the room was hiding under the bed.

Then Harris spoke. After the thunderous applause, after accepting the nomination, after thanking her husband “Dougie” — it happened to be their anniversary — and her late mother, she talked about how her immigrant background prepared her for this moment. She launched into a prosecutorial indictment of former President Donald Trump. She addressed how a Harris administration would boost the middle class, beat inflation, secure reproductive rights and ensure free and fair elections. 

Ukraine came first once she turned to defense and international issues. And then, finally, Israel and Gaza. 

“With respect to the war in Gaza,” Harris said, “President Biden and I are working around the clock, because now is the time to get a hostage deal and a ceasefire deal done.”

“And let me be clear,” she continued, “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 a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on Oct. 7. Including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival.”

“At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating. So many innocent lives lost. Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, over and over again. The scale of suffering is heartbreaking. President Biden and I are working to end this war such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity. Security. Freedom. And self-determination.”

The applause was thunderous, unanimous. She went on to promise to stand up to Iran and to all dictators, unlike, she said, Trump.

Her pragmatism was both breathtaking and refreshing.

She pivoted from rational support for both Israel and Palestinians to an attack on Trump in a handful of sentences — that was the politically astute part.

But she also tied her support for Israeli security — including her willingness to enable Israel to defend itself, meaning to supply it with arms — to Palestinian security and self-determination.

It’s an equation that may sound radical to those Israelis — and those among their allies — who believe Palestinians deserve nothing after the atrocities of Oct. 7. And it may sound abhorrent to those Palestinians who believe Israel deserves only censure, if not erasure, after the destruction it has wrought in Gaza. 

But what Harris did in her careful formulation was acknowledge the inevitability that when the war is over, both Palestinians and Israelis will continue to live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and any solution must begin with that cold, hard fact.

Her mother, Harris said in her speech, always told her that instead of telling people she was tough, she should show them.

Well, when it comes to Israel and Gaza, she just showed them.

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