Democrats attempted to assuage Jewish voters’ fears in Chicago on Tuesday about Vice President Kamala Harris’s perceived shift toward the anti-Israel far-left, as she courts anti-Israel activists and appoints anti-Israel policy advisers.
As Breitbart News reported, Harris appointed a “Jewish liaison,” Ilan Goldenberg, who has helped lead efforts to sanction Israelis, and who worked on the Iran deal in the Obama administration. She also appointed a “Muslim liaison” with a history of anti-Israel activism, and who has rejected the idea that anti-Israel protests on campus are antisemitic. Harris also met secretly with the antisemitic mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, to court his support.
The Times of Israel reported on a panel discussion outside the Democratic National Convention, organized by the American Jewish Committee (which also hosted a discussion at the Republican National Convention). It noted:
A Kamala Harris administration will not cut or condition US security assistance to Israel, her former aide says during a panel on the sidelines of the Democratic National Convention.
Jewish Democratic Council of America CEO Halie Soifer, who previously served as Harris’s national security adviser in the Senate, notes that the Biden-Harris administration has approved more aid to Israel in the past six months — $15 billion — than any other administration ever.
Also speaking on the panel organized by the American Jewish Committee is Rep. Brad Schneider who says he spoke yesterday with the Harris campaign’s new Jewish outreach chief, Ilan Goldenberg, who assured him that the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee would oppose a return to the Iran nuclear deal.
Harris and President Joe Biden have used increasingly critical rhetoric toward Israel, and have also softened their criticisms of anti-Israel protesters. On Monday night, Biden told the convention that the protesters “have a point.”
Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides, who led efforts to oppose Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s domestic policies last year before leaving his post, said that antisemitism was a problem, but vouched for Harris, saying that she was responsible for urging her Jewish husband, Doug Emhoff, to speak out against antisemitism.
Emhoff’s efforts including work on the White House antisemitism “strategy,” which was faulted by some Jewish groups for excluding extreme criticism of Israel from the definition of antisemitism at the behest of Muslim groups.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
