“Yesterday, at Union Station in Washington, D.C. we saw despicable acts by unpatriotic protestors and dangerous hate-fueled rhetoric,” read a statement from US Vice President Kamala Harris Thursday. “I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation.”
“I support the right to peacefully protest, but let’s be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation.”
The pronouncement is characteristic of Democratic elites’ treatment of the Israel-Palestine issue, deftly conflating the pro-Palestine sentiment of a growing segment of the progressive grassroots with the conduct of an intolerant few. The rhetorical tactic, known in campaign circles as “nutpicking,” has been frequently employed to tar dissident factions within the party, and Harris’ adoption of the technique suggests broad continuity with Clinton, Biden, and other longtime Democratic Party leaders.
Covert Action magazine managing editor Jeremy Kuzmarov joined Sputnik’s Fault Lines program Friday to weigh in on the presumptive Democratic nominee, warning the party risked ceding momentum to Donald Trump as voters learn more about Harris’ positions on a number of issues.
“it's not clear what she will do if [Netanyau] continues doing what he's doing,” Kuzmarov claimed, responding to Harris’ statements on Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. “I mean, she's not going to threaten to withhold the weapon supply.”
“You have a precedent,” the analyst continued. “The Eisenhower administration threatened sanctions on Israel during the Suez crisis of 1956. So that's what American leaders [can do] if they genuinely want to stop this bloodshed, they can threaten to withhold the weapons, as Eisenhower did. But the Democratic leadership is not going to that level. So they seem kind of hypocritical to those who really want to see an end to this.”
A few US leaders have made tentative efforts to oppose Israeli policy over the years. Former President John F Kennedy reportedly worked behind the scenes to prevent the country from developing nuclear weapons, while George HW Bush’s Secretary of State James Baker threatened to withhold funds from the country for its policy of settlement building, which he feared endangered US national security.
But as the power of the pro-Israel lobby has grown, most politicians in the United States have bowed to its influence. Kuzmarov claimed mainstream media has worked to give cover to Democrats' hawkish politics, putting a progressive sheen on policy often indistinguishable from that of their opponents.
“A lot of the media, they're just shameless champions of political candidates,” Kuzmarov argued. “They're not practicing objective journalism. And as you point out, that may be a marketing strategy to try and depict Harris as this kind of bold progressive who will depart from certain unpopular Biden policies. But in reality she's a company woman who's really advancing the policies of the Biden administration's status quo.”
Democrats’ pro-war policy could ultimately lead the party to defeat in November, the analyst speculated, claiming the failure to prevent Ukraine’s war with Russia was “a grand folly.”
“I think it will be regarded in history as a grand folly, trying to take on the Russians in the way that Hitler and Napoleon thought they could do,” he claimed. “The Ukrainian army has been decimated in that counter-offensive, and they've lost a huge number of men… This is a foolish foreign policy. I think a lot of the public in the United States recognize that, certainly.”