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      ‘I know the dangers of a Trump presidency’: Palestinian solidarity groups pressure Harris as election looms

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      In the days leading up to last month’s Democratic national convention (DNC), some pro-Palestinian groups and individuals expressed cautious excitement about Kamala Harris’s ascent to the candidacy. Representative Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said that there was “a sense that there’s an opening” with the vice-president, referring to a possible shift in US policy on Israel’s war on Gaza, while others voiced more measured optimism.However, following the convention, during which party officials refused to allow a Palestinian to speak on the main stage, and where Harris hawkishly affirmed her support for arming Israel, many of those groups’ initial hope has turned into a belief that Harris will remain in line with Joe Biden’s Israel policies. The result has been a splintering of sorts: some organizations are still attempting to push Harris toward a more anti-war stance; others have decided to support Harris through the election regardless, citing the risk of a Donald Trump presidency.Muslim Women for Harris-Walz, a group that formed in early August in support of Harris, disbanded after the DNC, saying that it could not “in good conscience” continue to support the candidate. But a week later, the organization changed its position, writing in a statement: “With less than 70 days until the November election, we have to be honest with ourselves about what is at stake here for Muslim women.”In a statement to the Guardian, Muslim Women for Harris-Walz said that the group had received an outpouring of support from Muslim and Arab Americans who shared its desire for a change in Gaza policy, but who also urged the organization to not give up on the ticket.“As Muslims, it is our duty to advocate for what is right and against what is wrong, and that often requires nuance and pragmatism. We continue to try and do the best that we can with what we have. We believe that Muslim Women for Harris-Walz has, and will continue to, play a positive role in these elections, including in our ability to advocate for the causes that matter to Muslim Americans.”But some Palestinian solidarity groups have disagreed with this approach. Tarek Khalil, a board member for the Chicago chapter of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), said he didn’t understand Muslim Women for Harris-Walz’s decision to backtrack and support the Democratic nominee.“I don’t know the logic behind that,” Khalil said. “If the logic behind disbanding [initially] is ‘You’re part of this administration that’s enabling this genocide and you’re doing nothing about it,’ that still remains true today.”Khalil added that he and others involved in the Palestine solidarity movement remain critical of Harris and the Democratic party at large, especially as the vice-president has not provided any policy shifts away from the Biden administration.“We are against the policies of this administration,” he said. “With Kamala Harris being the head of the ticket, we believe that because she has not provided any new agenda, any new vision, any new policy prescription, it’s just a different person expressing the same views.”Khalil also condemned the Democratic party’s platform as “utter hypocrisy”, citing the various horrors that are taking place in Gaza with US support.“The Democratic party platform talks about ending poverty and homelessness, healthcare as a human right and [having] more affordable housing,” he said. “Those very values and policies are being destroyed in Gaza right now, with US taxpayer money and US-made weapons.”If Trump is re-elected, Khalil said that AMP had “nothing concrete” planned. “Our grassroots organizing, our advocacy work, our educational work, all of that would just have to stay at its pace and, if need be, intensify,” Khalil said. “We’d stay the course.”The Muslim American and Arab American vote will play a crucial role in swing states during the upcoming election. In 2020, Joe Biden won Michigan, where 278,000 Arab Americans live, by just 154,000 votes. And in Georgia, where the Arab American population is at least 57,000, Biden won by 11,800 votes.During this year’s Democratic primaries, more than 700,000 voters across the nation cast uncommitted ballots or the equivalent to signal to Biden their dissatisfaction with his Middle East policy. Following a Michigan campaign where more than 100,000 voters marked their ballots “uncommitted” in February, the Uncommitted National Movement has since spread to two dozen states. The movement sent 30 uncommitted delegates to the DNC and has demanded that the US adopt an arms embargo and support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza in recent months.Following the convention, a survey of nearly 1,200 Muslim American voters found that respondents were evenly split in their support of Harris and the Green party candidate, Jill Stein, at 29% each.‘A retrenchment of efforts’As a Muslim and Palestinian American organizer, Georgia-based Ghada Elnajjar said that two months away from election day she remains undecided on whether she’ll cast a vote for Harris or Stein. While Elnajjar hoped that Harris would chart a new course on US’s Gaza policy, she expressed disappointment that Harris’s plans mirror Biden’s. “Unless President-elect Harris distinguishes herself from the current administration’s policy on Israel and Gaza,” Elnajjar said, “then nothing really changes in terms of how I’m approaching my selection.”When DNC leaders didn’t allow Ruwa Romman, the first Muslim woman elected to the Georgia house of representatives, to speak during the convention, it was “soul-crushing” for Elnajjar.“It was a huge disappointment and a letdown for many voters,” she said. “This was an opportunity for them to show that they want our votes.”Romman said that following the DNC she has seen “a retrenchment of efforts”. People who had been ambivalent or even optimistic about Harris before the convention are now suggesting that they will not vote at the top of the ticket or that they will vote third party.“These elections are determined by such tight margins in swing states,” Romman said. “There’s definitely a lot of anger [in] the community about what is happening. I’m really worried we’re not going to be able to win Georgia.”On 10 September, the civil liberties organizations Cair-Georgia, Georgia Muslim Action Committee, Georgia Muslims and Allies for Peace, and Indian American Muslim Council launched a campaign called “No Votes for Genocide. No Peace, No Peach,” to signal an ultimatum to the Harris-Walz campaign.The groups say they will withhold support for the ticket in the coming election if the Biden-Harris administration does not adopt an arms embargo on Israel, halt arms shipments to Israel and publicly demand a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the West Bank by 10 October. “We are Georgia voters who oppose Donald Trump and his bigotry, and have a desire to fight far-right fascism at home and abroad,” the group said in a press release. “At the same time, we will not tolerate the funding and enabling of a genocide.”‘I know the dangers of a Trump presidency’Layla Elabed, an Uncommitted National Movement founder, sees the DNC’s refusal to allow a Palestinian American to speak as a glaring mistake for the Democratic party and the Harris campaign. The US is complicit in its continued support of Israel, she said, which is only able to continue its siege on Gaza with US backing. “[Harris] continues to contradict herself by saying that she supports Israel’s rights to defend themselves,” Elabed said, “but also is working really hard for a ceasefire, but has no plans to stop or condition the fire that our government sends to Israel.”Harris’s campaign told Uncommitted leaders that they met with Palestinian families in February. But Elabed said that another meeting is needed with Palestinian families and Uncommitted leaders now that more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed since 7 October. The Harris campaign has not yet agreed to the request.“If Vice-President Harris wants to signal to voters, not just Arab Americans or Muslim Americans, but to anti-war voters that she plans to work in good faith [toward] Palestinians deserving freedom and liberty and the right to self-determination,” said Elabed, “then I think that it would be a misstep for her not to meet with Palestinian American families now or Uncommitted leaders.”As the Uncommitted National Movement continues to await a meeting with Harris, Elabed said that the group will continue to pressure the Biden administration and the Harris-Walz campaign to adopt an arms embargo and to support a permanent ceasefire. She said she didn’t want Donald Trump to win the presidential election, but she believed that the Democratic party must also change course on Gaza policy in order to win the election.“I 100% understand and know the dangers of a Donald Trump presidency,” said Elabed. “That is why the uncommitted movement has worked so diligently about showing the Democratic party that they were going to be in trouble because of this disastrous Gaza policy under Biden. They might not have the support from their Democratic base in order to beat Trump in November.” More

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      West Bank residents tell of teargas then shots before US woman’s death

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      US officials have insisted that a ceasefire in Gaza is close even as fighting rages unabated in the blockaded Palestinian territory and violence spirals in the occupied West Bank, where witnesses told the Observer an American-Turkish dual national was killed by Israeli forces on Friday.William Burns, who is also the US’s chief negotiator in the indirect talks between Israel and Hamas, echoed secretary of state Antony Blinken during a speech in London on Saturday in which he said that “90% of the text had been agreed but the last 10% is always the hardest”.But pressure from the US, Israel’s most important ally, and the two mediators speaking to Hamas, Qatar and Egypt, has done little to assuage the fighting in Gaza or rising tensions in the West Bank.The US has also said it is urgently seeking more information about the killing of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, who witnesses said was shot in the head by Israel Defence Forces (IDF) troops during an anti-settlement protest in the West Bank on Friday. Several of Israel’s western allies, including the US, have recently imposed sanctions on individuals and organisations associated with Israel’s settler movement, despite blowback from prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ­government, which includes far-right supporters of Israeli extremism in the West Bank.Eygi’s family have called for an independent investigation into her killing, adding to the pressure on the Biden administration to end what critics say is US complicity in the Israeli occupation.On Saturday, IDF troops, some of whom appeared to be forensic investigators, visited the town of Beita, near Nablus, to examine the scene where Eygi was killed. For the residents, it was yet another case of the IDF investigating itself: about 1% of army inquiries result in prosecutions, according to rights groups.All of the Beita residents the Observer spoke to gave very similar accounts of the shooting. A group of demonstrators had gathered on the hillside, as they have every Friday for midday prayers in recent years, to protest against Eyvatar, an Israeli settlement on the next hill built on land belonging to Palestinian farmers.On this occasion, there were some 20 Palestinians from Beita, 10 foreign volunteers from the anti-occupation International Solidarity Movement, including Eygi, and about a dozen children from the district.“The kids were throwing stones here at the junction, and the soldiers fired tear gas at them,” Mahmud Abdullah, a 43-year-old resident said. “Everyone scattered and ran into the olive grove and then there were two shots.” One of the bullets hit something along the way and a fragment hit a protester in the stomach, wounding him slightly, the witnesses said. The other bullet hit Eygi in the head, passing through her skull. Neighbours pointed out both the spot where Eygi was shot and where the bullet came from: a house on a ridge.The owner, Ali Mohali, said a group of soldiers, perhaps half a dozen, had gone on to his roof, 200m from where Eygi was shot. He said he heard one shot, but was not sure if there had been a second from that position.The IDF statement on the incident said it was looking into the report that troops had killed a foreign national while firing at an “instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them”.View image in fullscreenMoneer Khdeir, Mohali’s 65-year-old neighbour, was derisive of the IDF account. “They said that the stones posed a threat to the soldiers. They were stones thrown by kids from all the way down there, yet they talk about it like it was a Yassin [rocket propelled grenade],” Khdeir scoffed.Across the West Bank, army units on the ground are increasingly seen by Palestinians as a protective military wing of the settlers, taking their cues from the far right elements of Netanyahu’s government. Palestinian officials and rights groups have long accused the IDF of standing by during or even joining in settler attacks.Hisham Dweikat, 57, a science professor from Beita, said Eygi was the 15th person to be killed protesting against Eyvatar over the three years since the settlement was reoccupied, but hers was the first killing the IDF has investigated. He did not put much faith in the result. “It is clear that the army is with the settlers,” he said.Fifteen kilometres south of Beita in the village of Qaryut, Amjad Bakr and his family buried his 12 year-old daughter Bana on Saturday afternoon. She was shot dead while opening the window in her bedroom at about the same time on Friday that Eygi was killed in Beita.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“As usual on Friday, settlers came to raid the town and the people of the town went to defend themselves. There was a confrontation and the army came,” said Bakr, 47.“We went back home, because we thought that if the army was here, maybe they could stop the settlers. But unfortunately the army did not stop the settlers. They stand with the settlers,” he said.“The bullet that hit my daughter came through the window and hit her in the heart,” he said. “She was innocent, and shy, and clever. She had memorised three sections of the Holy Quran.”As to what Bana had planned to do with her life, Bakr shrugged: “An Israeli bullet doesn’t care about the future of any Palestinian.”In a statement, the IDF said that soldiers were dispatched to disperse violent confrontation between dozens of Palestinians and Israelis, and had fired shots in the air. “A report was received regarding a Palestinian girl who was killed by shots in the area. The incident is under review,” it said.Since Hamas’s 7 October assault that triggered the war in Gaza, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 662 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry, which does not differentiate between militant and civilian deaths. The toll is almost five times higher than the 146 killed in 2022, which was already an almost 20-year record high.At least 23 Israelis, including security forces, have been killed in Palestinian attacks during the same period, according to Israeli officials. Meanwhile, in the Gaza Strip, another 61 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes across the territory in the past 48 hours, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said, putting the death toll at 40,939 people. Around 1,200 Israelis and other nationals were killed in Hamas’s 7 October assault that triggered the war, according to Israeli tallies.The latest round of ceasefire talks have stalled over Netanyahu’s insistence that Israeli troops will not withdraw from the Gaza-Egypt border – a dealbreaker for Hamas – despite agreeing to the measure in talks held in July.Tensions between Israel and its regional foes – Iran and the powerful Lebanese militia Hezbollah – have brought the Middle East to the brink of regional war on several occasions in the past 11 months. More

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      ‘Deeply disturbed’: White House calls for inquiry in to killing of Ayşenur Eygi by Israeli troops

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      The White House said it is “deeply disturbed” by the death of an American woman who was shot in the head by Israeli troops during a protest against Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and called for Israel to investigate her killing, which has caused strong reactions across the international community.The US state department confirmed the death of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, a volunteer peace activist with the anti-occupation International Solidarity Movement (ISM).Eygi – a US-Turkey dual national – died on Friday after being fatally shot during a regular protest against settlement expansion in Beita near Nablus, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.The ISM, which organises foreign volunteers in the Palestinian territories, said Israeli forces “intentionally shot and killed” an international human rights activist during the weekly protest on Friday morning. It did not name the volunteer.“The demonstration, which primarily involved men and children praying, was met with violence from the Israeli army stationed on a hill. The volunteer died shortly after being transported to a local hospital in Nablus,” the ISM said in a statement.The individual’s family had requested privacy as they mourn their loss, it said. “Their wish to grieve in peace should be respected by all, as they navigate this tragic and difficult situation.”The US has not said whether Eygi had been shot by Israeli troops. “We are urgently gathering more information about the circumstances of her death, and will have more to say as we learn more,” Matthew Miller, a state department spokesperson, said.The US ambassador to Israel, Jacob Lew, echoed those comments, posting to X his “deepest condolences” to Eygi’s family and loved ones. “We have no higher priority than the safety and security of American citizens,” he added.The White House said it had contacted the Israeli government and requested an investigation into Eygi’s killing. “We are deeply disturbed by the tragic death of an American citizen, Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, today in the West Bank and our hearts go out to her family and loved ones,” said Sean Savett, the White House’s national security council spokesperson.Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, the country’s top diplomat, deplored the “tragic loss”. “When we have more info, we will share it, make it available and, as necessary, we’ll act on it,” Blinken told reporters, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).Turkey’s foreign ministry said it had learned “with great sorrow” that a Turkish national had been killed. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, condemned Israel’s “barbaric intervention against a civilian protest” that he said led to Eygi’s killing.The Israeli military admitted to firing at the demonstrators and said it was looking into reports that a foreign national was killed. The Israel Defense Forces said it “responded with fire toward a main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them”.Eygi graduated from the University of Washington earlier this year, according to Aria Fani, an assistant professor of Middle Eastern languages and cultures. Fani said Eygi was an exceptional student and person.He said he had seen Eygi about two months earlier and urged her not to go to the West Bank because he was worried for her safety there.The University of Washington said she had been a peer mentor there, having helped “welcome new students to the department and provided a positive influence in their lives”.In a statement, the university’s president, Ana Mari Cauce, described Eygi’s killing as “awful” and said she called for “a ceasefire and resolution to the crisis” on the West Bank.“My heart goes out to Ayşenur’s family, friends and loved ones,” she added.Pramila Jayapal, the US representative for the area, said in a statement that Eygi’s death was a “terrible tragedy”.“My office is actively working to gather more information on the events that led to her death,” Jayapal said. “I am very troubled by the reports that she was killed by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers. The Netanyahu government has done nothing to stop settlement expansion and settler violence in the West Bank, often encouraged by rightwing ministers of the Netanyahu government. The killing of an American citizen is a terrible proof point in this senseless war of rising tensions in the region.”Eygi is the third ISM activist to have been killed since 2000, according to the Associated Press. She was the 18th demonstrator to be killed in Beita since 2020, the ISM said.In 2003, while protesting against the Israeli military’s destruction of houses in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Rachel Corrie – a 23-year-old US citizen from Olympia in Washington state – was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer.A month later, Tom Hurndall, a 22-year-old Briton, was shot in the head while he was helping Palestinian children cross a street in Rafah. He died the following year. An Israeli soldier was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to eight years in prison.In August, an American activist said he was shot in the leg by Israeli forces during a protest in Beita. The man, who spoke to the AFP using a pseudonym, said Israeli troops were “firing teargas at us, live rounds” and that he was shot while he was running away. More

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      Trump tells Jewish donors they would be ‘abandoned’ if Harris is elected

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      Donald Trump told Jewish donors on Thursday that they would be “abandoned” if Kamala Harris becomes president.In his speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, the Republican presidential candidate also said he would ban refugee resettlement from “terror-infested” areas such as Gaza and arrest “pro-Hamas thugs” who engage in vandalism, an apparent reference to the college student protesters.While Trump sketched out few concrete Middle Eastern policy proposals for a second term, he painted a potential Harris presidency in cataclysmic terms for Israel.“You’re going to be abandoned if she becomes president. And I think you need to explain that to your people … You’re not going to have an Israel if she becomes president,” Trump said without providing evidence for such a claim.Under both Trump and Joe Biden, similar numbers of Palestinians were admitted to the US as refugees. From fiscal year 2017 to 2020, the US accepted 114 Palestinian refugees, according to US state department data, compared with 124 Palestinian refugees from fiscal year 2021 to 31 July of this year.Trump also said US universities would lose accreditation and federal support over what he described as “antisemitic propaganda” if he is elected to the White House.“Colleges will and must end the antisemitic propaganda or they will lose their accreditation and federal support,” Trump said, speaking remotely to a crowd of more than 1,000 donors.Protests roiled college campuses in spring, with students opposing Israel’s military offensive in Gaza and demanding institutions stop doing business with companies backing Israel.Republicans have said the protests show some Democrats are antisemites who support chaos. Protest groups say authorities have unfairly labeled their criticism of Israel’s policies as antisemitic.The Association of American Universities, which says it represents about 70 leading US universities, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.In the United States, the federal government does not directly accredit universities but has a role in overseeing the mostly private organizations that give colleges accreditation.The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump’s speech.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Democratic presidential candidate has hewed closely to the president’s strong support of Israel and rejected calls from some in the Democratic party that Washington should rethink sending weapons to Israel because of the heavy Palestinian death toll in Gaza.She has, however, called for a ceasefire in Gaza, calling the situation there “devastating”.Health authorities in Gaza say more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli assault on the enclave since the 7 October 2023 attacks led by Hamas.Approximately 1,200 Israelis were killed in the surprise attack and about 250 were taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.The subsequent assault on Gaza has displaced nearly its entire 2.3 million population, caused a hunger crisis and led to genocide allegations at the world court that Israel denies. More

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      Was Kamala Harris’s big interview a success? Sort of | Moira Donegan

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      How much of an incentive does Kamala Harris really have to lay out a thorough policy agenda? With fewer than 70 days until the general election, the newly official Democratic presidential nominee has exited her party’s Chicago convention riding a a wave of tight but improving poll numbers and tremendous party goodwill.Her move to the top of the ticket has prompted waves of enthusiasm and barely concealed relief, as young voters and weary Democrats greeted the happy prospect of an election campaign that was, at last, not between Biden and Trump. The shift of candidates initiated a new shift in the campaign’s voice, with a more playful, irreverent and optimistic turn coming to characterize the Democrats’ public messaging. When the vibes are this good, few people ask about specifics.There are pitfalls, too, for a politician who is too precise about what they aim to do in office. After all, much of the Democrats’ 2024 campaigning has featured deep dives into Project 2025, the 900-plus-page policy prescription for a second Trump term that was compiled by conservative thinktanks under the auspices of the Heritage Foundation. Democrats, including Harris herself, have used the document as a near-depthless well of possible attacks, making each one of the plan’s copious number of proposals into an attack that they can make Republicans answer for. As Harris heads into the final weeks of the campaign, one can see a certain cynical logic to her imprecise policy positions: why would she bother painting a target on her own back?So maybe it’s not surprising that on Thursday night, in her first major interview since ascending to the presidential nomination, the vice-president did not seem interested in making any news. She was competent, personable and a forceful defender of the Biden administration; she was attentive to issues where her campaign believes her to be vulnerable, such as on immigration and energy policy; and she was deliberate in depicting herself as a hawkish advocate for stricter border controls.She did not talk much about her opponent, Donald Trump, brushing off a question from CNN’s Dana Bash about his recent slanderous claim that Harris had only recently “turned Black”. She did not endorse an arms embargo to Israel, whose genocidal war in Gaza has killed upwards of 40,000 Palestinians with the aid of American weapons. And with the exception of a few economic proposals – like for an expansion of the child tax credit, a $25,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers and a repeat of her promise to punish price gauging – she was light on specifics.The interview seemed to be less about presenting a policy vision for the American people than about presenting them with a character. The character that emerged in the form of Vice-President Harris was one who is confident, intelligent and at ease with her authority; one who was unfazed by Bash’s sometimes pointed questioning, in part because she has mastered the art of the dodge.Among the interview’s surprising omissions was abortion, the issue that has redefined the status, health and civil rights of half of Americans as a result of the presidency of her opponent. The word was only mentioned once over the course of the interview, when the vice-presidential nominee, Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, mentioned the issue as something that voters were more interested in than his own previous verbal gaffes. He’s probably right that voters care more about it, but both he and Harris declined to address the issue further.Harris, historically a forceful advocate for abortion rights who was largely tasked with campaigning on the issue while Biden was still in the race, seemed to demur from the historical nature of her candidacy more broadly. When Bash asked her about a viral photo from the Democratic national convention – which pictured Harris at the podium, being gazed up at by her great-niece, a pigtailed young girl – she avoided the question’s implicit inquiry into how she feels about the prospect of becoming the nation’s first female president. Harris said only that she was running because she believed herself to be the best person for the job, and that she aimed to be a president for Americans of all races and genders.It was a nice sentiment, and probably even true. But her words avoided the gender issue that has come to shape the campaign, and left aside an opportunity to rally voters in the 10 states that will have abortion rights measures on the ballot in November. If anyone in the Harris campaign feels that electing a woman president now, in this post-Dobbs era, could be a righteous rebuke to the backward and bigoted misogyny that has come to define the Trump-Vance ticket, then that is not an argument they are interested in having their candidate make.Harris will be criticized on the left for her refusal to endorse an arms embargo to Israel, whose war has become a generational moral catastrophe that threatens to destabilize the region. When asked about the conflict, Harris spoke of the atrocities of 7 October in lurid terms; of the unfathomable human cost that has been imposed on Palestinians, she said only that “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed”. (An unfortunate phrase that implies that there is an acceptable number of innocents that Israel can murder.) Her unwillingness to speak with more empathy and commitment about this issue threatens to alienate young voters, a disorganized but growing left, and the large cohorts of Muslim and Arab voters she needs to win over in places like Minnesota and Michigan.That unwillingness also threatens to give more credence to other leftwing suspicions of Harris, such as the marginal but noticeable suspicion among activists over whether she will maintain Biden’s enthusiasm for antitrust enforcement.Maybe Harris is calculating that these voters have nowhere else to go; maybe she just doesn’t really share their values on these issues. But the central argument for her candidacy is about values: that she is a more moral, more principled, more trustworthy candidate than Donald Trump; that she will bring less bigotry, less selfishness, less recklessness and less tedious narcissism to the White House. It’s a low bar, but she still has to clear it. If Harris’s campaign is about values, but she is unwilling to more forcefully champion women’s rights and the value of Palestinian lives, she risks making some wonder just what those values are.

      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      ‘Next question, please’ and Gaza war: key takeaways from Harris and Walz’s first interview

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      In a primetime spot on CNN Thursday evening, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz sat for their first interview together as the Democratic ticket, taking questions from anchor Dana Bash on a range of important issues, including their plans for day 1 if they win the race, the approach to the war in Gaza, and how Joe Biden passed the baton.With just over two months until voters will head to the polls on 5 November – and even less time before some will mail in their ballots – the Democratic candidates for president and vice-president made good on a promise to speak more candidly about how they will tackle the US’s most pressing problems.But this interview was about more than just policies and priorities.For weeks, Republicans and members of the media have called for the nominees to open themselves up to questions, especially the vice-president, who has for the most part sidestepped unscripted moments in the six weeks since the president ended his bid for re-election and endorsed her. Analysts and opponents were watching Thurday’s interview closely for new insights into how a Harris administration would approach the presidency, how the candidates interact with one another, and how she would respond in more candid moments.Here’s what we learned:1. Harris: ‘My values have not changed’Bash pushed Harris on how voters should view some key shifts on important policy positions over the years, including on immigration and the climate crisis. Harris responded resolutely saying her “values have not changed” but explained that experience has provided some new insights.“As president I will not ban fracking,” Harris said, reversing a position she expressed during her first bid for the presidency. Explaining that she now believes a “thriving clean energy economy” can be built without a ban, Harris highlighted achievements from the Biden administration, including the US’s landmark climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, that have helped set the course. “The climate crisis is real, it is an urgent matter,” she said. “I am very clear about where I stand.”She also spoke about her work on the border and how she plans to address the immigration crisis. “I believe we have laws that have to be followed and enforced,” she said, adding that she is the only person in the race who has prosecuted transnational criminal organizations, work she did as California’s attorney general.2. Day one: strengthen the middle classIf Harris is elected president, she will start by working to strengthen the middle class with a strategy she is calling “The Opportunity Economy”. Building from “Bidenomics” – a platform her predecessor used to move away from trickle-down policies that favor the wealthy and instead grow the economy “from the middle out and the bottom up – Harris outlined her plan to help struggling families.“People are ready for a new way forward,” she said, highlighting that she hopes to bring down costs of everyday goods with key investments, cracking down on price gouging, and expanding the child tax credit. She also reiterated her plan to secure $25,000 in assistance for first-time homebuyers.While she agreed with Bash that prices remain higher than they were during the Trump presidency, she argued that she and Biden ensured the country recovered from the Covid-19 crisis.“Bidenomics is a success,” she said. “There’s more to do – but that’s good work.”3. War in Gaza: ‘We have to get a deal done’“Israel has a right to defend itself – we would,” Harris said, emphasizing that she is “unequivocal” in Israel’s defense and that that position would not change. But, she added: “How it does so matters.”Harris told Bash she supports a two-state solution where Palestinians have “security, self determination, and dignity”, and said she is focused on both getting the remaining hostages out and a ceasefire.“Far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed,” she said. “We have got to get a deal done. This war must end.”4. Tim Walz defends his recordThrough much of the interview, Harris’s running mate Tim Walz nodded in support while she detailed their platform. But Bash had questions for him too, specifically about claims he has made in the past and corrections his campaign has had to make about them.Walz served in the army national guard for 24 years and retired in 2005 to run for Congress, nearly a year before his unit deployed to Iraq. He has been criticized by Republicans who first questioned his decision to depart before his unit deployed, and then scrutinized for a statement he made about “weapons of war” that implied he’d been involved in active combat.Walz also incorrectly described the type of fertility treatments he and his wife sought in their effort to conceive, several times referring to their reliance on IVF. He later clarified they actually used another common fertility procedure called IUI, or intrauterine insemination, which does not involve creating or discarding embryos and is not a target for anti-abortion legislators.“My record speaks for itself,” he said. “I certainly own my mistakes when I make them … I won’t apologize for speaking passionately – whether it’s about guns in schools or protecting reproductive rights – the contrast could not be clearer.”5. Getting the call from Biden“We were sitting down to do a puzzle,” Harris said with a big smile. Before Thursday’s interview, little was known about how she came to learn that Biden would be withdrawing from the race. She described a family breakfast with her “baby nieces”, complete with pancakes and second-servings of bacon, that had just wrapped up when the phone began to ring.“It was Joe Biden. He told me what he decided to do,” she said, adding that he quickly offered his support for her candidacy. “My first thought was not about me – it was about him,” she said.“I think history is going to show a number of things about Joe Biden’s presidency,” Harris added. “He puts the American people first.”6. Impacting future generationsBash also asked about the now viral New York Times photo of young Amara Ajagu, one of Harris’s young grandnieces, watching Harris accept her party’s nomination, and what it means for her as a woman of color. Donald Trump had previously questioned her racial identity, making comments at the National Association of Black Journalists convention saying she “happened to turn Black”.Harris called Trump’s comments “the same old tired playbook”, and dismissed them with a curt: “Next question, please.”But she took the opportunity to look past race while also recognizing the importance of this moment, especially for younger generations.“I am running because I believe I am the best person to do this job in this moment – for all Americans, regardless of race and gender,” Harris said. “But I did see that photograph, and I was deeply touched by it.” More

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      ‘Enough is enough’: the Muslim American officials who resigned over US’s Israel-Gaza policy

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      When Maryam Hassanein joined the US Department of Interior as a Biden administration appointee in January, she hoped that Israel’s war on Gaza would soon come to an end. But when the US authorized a $1bn arms shipment to Israel in the spring, Hassanein decided to use her voice to affect change. She was inspired by the resilience of students involved in the anti-war movement at nearby George Washington University, where she had attended pro-Palestinian rallies.“Seeing the strength of the students who led that movement across the country really made me think about what I should be doing,” Hassanein said, “and how I can advocate far more for an end to the carnage in Palestine.”So last month, Hassanein joined the ranks of at least a dozen officials who have resigned from the Biden administration due to the US’s support of Israel’s war on Gaza, where more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed since 7 October, according to the Gaza health ministry. Hassanein said she saw “value in making your voice heard on a public level when it’s not being heard while working there”.View image in fullscreenIn a Zoom call hosted by the civil rights group Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) on Tuesday, Hassanein and Hala Rharrit, a former US state department diplomat who resigned in April, shared their experiences of witnessing the Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian animus that they say drives the Biden administration’s Middle East policies.Rharrit resigned after nearly two decades of working with the state department because she said she witnessed US officials continuously dehumanize Palestinians following Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel. Robust debate was once welcomed at the state department, Rharrit said, but that changed 10 months ago. “I never faced a situation personally where there was fear for retaliation, there was silencing, there was self censorship,” she said. “For me, personally, in the 18 years that I’ve served, this is the very first time.”When engaging with Arab media, Rharrit said she was directed to repeat a narrative that Israel had the right to defend itself. And when giving a presentation to other diplomats, she said that she was lambasted for wanting to include a picture of a Palestinian child dying of starvation. In a group chat where diplomats discussed Egyptian journalists, she said that one colleague expressed disbelief that the Egyptians had built the pyramids.“This is a failed policy,” Rharrit said about the US’s aid to Israel, “and we as Americans and as taxpayers that are sending these bombs and these weapons need to have a collective voice and say: enough is enough.”In her role at the interior department, Hassanein joined other staffers in signing letters, attending rallies and vigils, but soon recognized that her voice wasn’t being heard, she said. “What I realized is that I don’t want to just be a Muslim in a public service position for the sake of being a Muslim in a public service position,” she added. “I want my perspective and my background and the fact that I’m a representation for Muslim communities in the country to truly be considered.” She also disapproved of the Democratic national convention’s denial of a speaking slot for the Georgia state representative Ruwa Romman.Since her public resignation last month, Hassanein said that she has not received a response from her former employer. The interior department and state department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The Harris-Walz campaign is not doing enough to change course on Gaza policy, Hassanein said. She is undecided on whether she will vote for Harris in November and wants to see a marked shift in US’s Gaza policy before casting a ballot for her. In a call to action, Cair encouraged attenders to demand that the state department and the White House uphold US law by ending the transfer of weapons to Israel.“I hope that as horrific as all of this has been, that we eventually emerge from it with a sense of realization of the things that we need to do – the healing that we all need in order to treat each other with humanity, dignity and respect, regardless of background,” Rharrit said. More

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      The US diplomatic strategy on Israel and Gaza is not working | Daniel Levy

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      The Biden administration remains in an intense phase of Middle East diplomatic activity working to avoid a regional war while optimistically spinning the prospects for a Gaza breakthrough deal.Following the latest round of provocative Israeli extrajudicial killings in Tehran and Beirut and the intensified exchange of fire between Israel and Hezbollah over the weekend, the region appeared to lurch further in the direction of all-out war. Preventing that is a worthy cause in itself.With a US election looming and policy on Gaza, Israel and the Middle East unpopular with the Democrats’ own constituency and a potential ballot box liability in key states, there are also pressing political reasons for a Democratic administration to avoid more war and to pursue a diplomatic breakthrough. Countering domestic political criticism with hope for a deal was a useful device to deploy at the Democratic convention in Chicago and will be needed through to 5 November.Team Biden is attempting a difficult trifecta. First, the Biden administration is trying to deter the Iranian axis from further responses to Israel’s recent targeted killings in Tehran and Beirut. Joe Biden no doubt has wanted to hold out the prospect of a ceasefire, which Iran would prefer not to upend, while he simultaneously bought time for the US to beef up its military presence in the region as leverage and a threat against Iran.The US is also trying to help a key regional ally, Israel, reclaim its deterrence posture and freedom of military operation after the balance of forces shifted against it during the current conflict.Second, the Biden administration is trying to reach election day on a positive note, by bringing an end to a divisive conflict – or, as a fallback, to at least avoid further escalation and a potentially debilitating regional explosion into which Israel could pull the US. Third, and more speculatively, the Biden administration might want to bring an end to the brutal devastation and killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, the humanitarian crisis there, and the hellish ordeal of the Israelis held in Gaza and their families. A ceasefire would also have the benefit of avoiding further damage to US interests and reputation as a consequence of Biden running political cover for and arming Israel throughout this war.Ordinarily, delivering on those first two goals – and merely scoring two out of three – might constitute an acceptable achievement. It is made more attainable by the Iranian-led axis of resistance not wanting to fall into the trap of all-out war. However, failure to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza risks everything else unravelling and keeps the region at boiling point. Regional de-escalation and domestic political quiet will be that much more difficult to sustain if the Gaza talks again collapse, especially against the backdrop of raised expectations.Sadly, that is the direction in which things are headed, exacerbated by the current US diplomatic push being exposed as clumsy or fraudulent or both.It should go without saying that putting an end to the unprecedented daily suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, as well as bringing the Israelis who are held there home, is reason enough to throw everything at achieving a ceasefire. But the Biden administration has been singularly incapable of treating Palestinians as equals with the humanity and dignity accorded to Jewish Israelis – one of the reasons this has played so badly with the Democratic voting base.The staggering shortcomings in the Biden administration’s approach, exacerbated in secretary of state Antony Blinken’s latest mission, are highly consequential and worth unpacking. Alarm bells should have been set off when Blinken at his recent press conference in Jerusalem announced that Benjamin Netanyahu had accepted the US “bridging proposal” – when the Israeli prime minister himself declared no such thing. Within hours, it became clear that Israel’s chief negotiator, Nitzan Alon, would not participate in the talks as a way of protesting against Netanyahu’s undermining of the deal.That was followed by senior US and Israeli security officials anonymously briefing the press that Netanyahu was preventing a deal. Similar conclusions were also reached and made public by the main forums representing the Israeli hostage families. On his ninth visit to Israel since the 7 October attack, Blinken again failed – not just at mediating between Israel and Hamas, but even in closing the gaps between the competing camps inside the Israeli system. The US refusal to take seriously that there are Hamas negotiating positions which are legitimate, and which will need to be part of a deal (and with which the US ostensibly agrees to in substance – such as a full Israeli withdrawal and a sustainable ceasefire), has condemned US-led talks to repeated failure.Repackaging Israeli proposals and presenting them as a US position may have a retro feel to it, but that does not make it cool. And it won’t deliver progress (it can’t even sustain Israeli endorsement given Netanyahu’s constant shifting of the goalposts to avoid a deal). That the US has zero credibility as a mediator is a problem. That it has conspired to make its contributions not only ineffective but counterproductive is devastating. Even Itamar Eichner, a diplomatic correspondent for the Israeli Yedioth newspaper, describes Blinken’s visit as having displayed “naivete and amateurishness … effectively sabotaging the deal by aligning with Netanyahu”.This is a US government modus operandi with which Netanyahu is extremely familiar, and which falls very squarely inside his comfort zone. Netanyahu knows that he has won once the US mediator – whatever the actual facts – is willing to blame the Palestinian side (Arafat during Oslo, Hamas now). Despite having the US having changed its own proposal to accommodate Netanyahu, and Netanyahu still distancing himself from the terms and being called on it by his own defence establishment, Biden and senior US officials continue their public disinformation campaign of claiming that only Hamas is the problem and should be pressured.Even if US governments hold personal frustrations with Netanyahu, their policies serve to strengthen Bibi at home.From early in this war, Netanyahu’s bottom line has been that while internal pressures exist to secure a deal (and therefore get the hostages back and cease the military operation), the opposite side of that ledger is more foreboding: a deal would upend Netanyahu’s extremist governing coalition and bring an end to the most important shield Netanyahu has created for himself politically: his claimed mantle as Israel’s indispensable wartime leader.Netanyahu’s ideological preference is for displacing Palestinians and eviscerating their rights, alongside pulling the US more actively into a regional clash with Iran; his short-term political goal is to maintain an open-ended war which can accommodate varying degrees of intensity, but not a deal.So where might change ultimately come from? Given current tensions, something approximating an all-out regional war might yet unfold. Alongside the dangers and losses this would entail, a broader conflagration might belatedly produce a more serious external push for a comprehensive ceasefire.Israeli coalition politics could also throw a spanner in the works for Netanyahu, given tensions among his governing allies, and particularly with the ultra-Orthodox parties over the issue of military enlistment. But the surest way to de-escalate in the region and to bring the horrors of Gaza to an end continues to be via challenging the Israeli incentive structure in meaningful ways – through legal, political and economic pressure and sanctions, and especially by the withholding of weapons.Netanyahu is a loose cannon, which Kamala Harris should have no interest in reloading 10 weeks out from an election.

      Daniel Levy is the president of the US/Middle East Project and a former Israeli peace negotiator More