USAnalysis

How Kamala Harris is viewed in the Arab world

Hopes rise in Middle East that the potential election of Democratic presidential candidate could help to reset problematic Arab-US relations

Israeli president Isaac Herzog greets US vice president Kamala Harris when he addressed a joint meeting of the Congress in Washington in July last year. Harris did not attend Wednesday’s address by Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
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Michael Jansen
Wed Jul 24 2024 - 20:33

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is regarded as a potential game changer in the troubled Middle East if she wins the US election in November.

President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race and Republican rival Donald Trump’s defeat could see an end to their destabilising policies and reset problematic Arab-US relations.

Chatham House regional expert Sanam Vakil told the National daily of Abu Dhabi that as president Harris would continue “the US’s steadfast support for Israel but could prove to be more sympathetic on the case of Palestine”.

Harris’s decision not to attend Wednesday’s address by Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu to a joint session of Congress is regarded by some as a message to the Middle East. The London-based pan-Arab bilingual Al-Araby Al-Jadeed/The New Arab said the vice-president’s plan to travel to a previous engagement in Indiana has been seen as a “snub” to Netanyahu over the “brutal Gaza war”. Nevertheless, Harris, like Biden and Trump, plans to meet Netanyahu during this visit.

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Across the region, the Gaza war has become a gauge of US and western politicians. Harris had no choice but to go along with Biden’s unwavering political, diplomatic and military support for Israel’s war. Regional commentators argue his stance makes the president complicit, whereas she is seen as empathetic. In DecemberHarris said Israel must protect Gazan civilians, and in March she called for an immediate ceasefire – four months before Biden launched his stalled ceasefire plan.

Arab media reported the vice-president’s warning about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

“What we’re seeing every day in Gaza is devastating. We have seen reports of families eating leaves or animal feed. Women giving birth to malnourished babies with little to no medical care. Children dying from malnutrition and dehydration. The Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid. No excuses,” she said in early March.

Harris later “ruled out nothing”, including suspending US aid, if Israel invaded Rafah.

She supports the two-state solution, rejects Israeli annexation of the West Bank and condemns Israeli settler violence, issues central to resolving the Arab-Israel crisis.

Harris has been critical of the Iranian government and condemned its crackdown on protests over the 2022 death in morality police custody of Mahsa Amini, who was detained for allegedly failing to wear her headscarf properly. Harris has expressed support for the US return to the 2015 agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for lifting sanctions which Trump abandoned in 2018.

While in the Senate, she voted to end US support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen and co-sponsored legislation banning US military action against Iran that could plunge the region into full-scale war. She condemned president Syrian Bashar al-Assad for crushing the antigovernment protests that led to the country’s civil war.