“We must stand with Israel,” declared then-Senator Kamala Harris to healthy applause at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s 2017 policy conference. “Our defense relationship is critical to both nations. Which is why I support the United States’ commitment to provide Israel with $38 billion in military assistance over the next decade.”
US backing for its Middle Eastern ally has become increasingly controversial as the official death toll during its months-long military operation in the Gaza Strip approaches 40,000. Democratic activists mounted a campaign to win hundreds of thousands of “uncommitted” votes during the party’s primary earlier this year as a protest against President Biden’s backing of Israel, while some conservative figures such as commentator Tucker Carlson have also questioned continued US support.
But the US-Israel relationship remains an article of faith for the vast majority of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, notes CovertAction Magazine editor Jeremy Kuzmarov. The author appeared on Sputnik’s The Backstory program this week to discuss Harris’ record of support for the country and the newly minted Democratic presidential candidate’s broader foreign policy vision.
“This is part of the pattern where they’re actually subverting democracy,” said Kuzmarov of the controversial process by which the Democratic Party has affirmed Harris as its candidate, “because it’s been known for a long time that Joe Biden was in poor health and becoming senile and yet he continued to stay in the race.”
“What he could have done was dropped out in December [or] January, and that would allow for an open primary process,” he claimed. “Then people could actually choose a candidate they want. It would be probably a popular candidate with a very strong chance of defeating Donald Trump. But what we’ve seen in the past few years is that the hierarchy in the Democratic Party don’t want an open primary. They don’t value democracy despite their rhetoric.”
The Democratic Party’s presidential nominating process was rocked for two successive cycles by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ insurgent candidacy in 2016 and 2020. The self-avowed democratic socialist has been openly critical of the party’s direction since the 1990s, during which it has charted an increasingly business-friendly, economic neoliberal course.
Critics claim a 2010 Supreme Court decision overturning much of the United States’ campaign finance law has made parties even more dependent on the support of wealthy donors and corporate interests. Democratic leaders have responded by backing fiscal conservative candidates at both the state and national level.
“They want to hand select corporate-type candidates and an open primary would lead to the likelihood that somebody with the views of a Bernie Sanders would emerge – the popular candidate,” said Kuzmarov. “Your audience, I’m sure, will recall what happened the last two cycles is that the primary was clearly rigged against Bernie Sanders who, whatever his flaws, represented a more progressive, democratic candidate who was promoting policies that would challenge corporate power and that were popular among huge sectors of the electorate, including things like Medicare for All.”
“But the Democratic hierarchy are tied to large corporate interests, and they don’t want a Sanders-type emerging, a genuinely popular candidate… So, [Harris] may be the successor or somebody like her and there’s going to be no vote, no primary.”
Kuzmarov compared the Democrats’ modern day primary process to the party establishment’s selection of Harry Truman as former President Franklin Roosevel’s running mate in the 1944 election. Party leaders insisted on the Cold Warrior Truman over Roosevelt’s previous vice president, the more progressive Henry Wallace. Truman would become president when Roosevelt died less than three months after his inauguration the following year.
The Democratic Party’s neoliberal turn has coincided with an assertive US foreign policy, with Kuzmarov arguing both major parties are “pretty much aligned” on policy regarding Israel, which he claimed “carries out a lot of the US dirty work in the Middle East.”
“She’s tied with the kind of Biden-Clinton wing of the party, which is the pro-empire, pro-war wing of the party,” he said of Harris. “When she was a candidate in the last primary, there was one peace candidate Tulsi Gabbard, who was very progressive in her foreign policy views, and Kamala Harris used red-baiting tactics against Tulsi Gabbard and accused her of being a Putin lover, an Assad lover and that kind of thing when Gabbard was advocating for peace and diplomacy.”
“That's right out of the playbook of Joseph McCarthy and the cold warriors of the 1950s,” Kuzmarov argued. “So I think that’s where Harris stands. I mean, she’s backed the Biden policy with regard to Ukraine, where they’ve provided billions in weaponry… The US is building new military bases in the Philippines as part of the strategy of confronting China. And Harris was the point man to negotiate with Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of a horrific dictator, to get these new bases.’
“We shouldn't forget that this is taxpayer dollars, billions of our taxpayer dollars are going into these militaristic and imperialistic foreign policies. And that’s not money that’s going into where it’s needed here at home, including Sanders’ plan for Medicare for all, which is what many Americans want. So Harris is not a progressive in any way, she’s a militarist.”