Kamala Harris’ entry galvanises Democrats

Democrats have been energised and their Republican rivals confounded by the unexpected leap of Kamala Harris into the previously dull race for the US presidency. Donald Trump has mourned the withdrawal of low-key President Joe Biden who was set to lose the contest and relegate Democrats to minorities in both the Senate and House of Representatives.

Biden was forced to end his bid for a second term in office by his wholehearted support for Israel’s deadly and destructive war on Gaza as well as his faltering mental and physical performance. A recent poll revealed that 38 per cent of Democrats would vote for Biden in November’s presidential poll. Many reside in the swing states of Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia. Some are alienated Muslim and Arab-background voters while others were among the tens of thousands of university and college students who occupied campuses to protest the Gaza war.

It is up to Vice President Kamala Harris to change the minds of these voters and win over independents and disaffected Republicans alarmed by the possibility of another four years of Donald Trump. Even Trump, who caved in to all Israel’s demands during his time in the White House, has belatedly called for Israel to end the war.

While Harris has toed the general pro-Israel line during her career as senator and vice president, during the Gaza war she has created distance between herself and Biden. He is a self-confessed Zionist who has provided Israel with the weapons needed to wage the war.

The Washington Post gave details of her actions in a long article by Yasmeen Abutaleb and Shane Harris published on July 24th. They wrote that Harris has pushed the administration “to more heavily consider Palestinian suffering (by) lambasting the civilian death toll, calling on Israel to allow more aid into the territory, and speaking more forcefully and empathetically than President Biden about the Palestinian plight.”

She has repeatedly argued that Palestinians must not be treated as justifiable “collateral damage,” a line adopted by most Israelis, the right-wing Israeli regime, and Israel’s supporters in the West. Addressing the November climate change conference in Dubai, Harris declared, “As Israel defends itself, it matters how. Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating.” This was the first time an administration member was so frank and clear minded about the situation in Gaza.

In March, she called for a ceasefire in Gaza during a speech in Selma, Alabama, to Black civil rights activists who see the struggle of Palestinians against Israeli occupation as being akin to the Black fight for human rights in the US. She spoke movingly about Palestinian starvation and inhumane conditions in Gaza. She demanded Israel end restrictions on aid deliveries. By contrast, at that time, Biden argued that Hamas’ October 7th attack on Gaza was far worse than Israel’s retaliation. He took until the end of May to put forward his cease-fire plan. This remains unimplemented while Biden continues to arm Israel to prosecute the war.

Harris could be a game changer in this region if she takes seriously Arab concerns on Palestine and other issues and acts upon them. She supports the two-state solution involving the creation of a Palestinian state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, opposes Israeli annexation of the West Bank, and condemns Israeli colonist violence against Palestinians. If she wins the presidency, she will have to act on these stands if there is to be progress. The US has, for decades, obstructed the realisation of the two-state solution, done nothing about Israeli colony expansion, and ignored attacks by colonists on Palestinians.

While both are Democrats, conservative Biden, 81, and progressive Harris, 59, are from different generations and different backgrounds.

Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, into a largely Irish Catholic family which suffered economic reverses during his childhood before settling in Delaware. As a boy, Biden was sensitised by his father to Jewish suffering during the World War II Holocaust. This pre-determined his attitude toward Israel.

Biden took his first degree at the University of Delaware and studied law in New York State. After a few years involvement in Delaware’s Democratic politics, he was elected to the Senate in 1972 with the backing of Israeli lobby groups.

Biden supported arming Israel and visited Israel in 1973 where he met Prime Minister Golda Meir. He told her he agreed with Israel’s retention of certain West Bank areas for security reasons. Biden is anchored in the Israel of the 1970s, which partially explains his refusal to understand Israel of 2024.

During 1982, he backed Israel’s war on Lebanon and met Netanyahu for the first time at an event convened a week after the Sabra-Chatila massacres of hundreds of Palestinians by Israel’s Lebanese allies. Biden constantly courted AIPAC, the main pro-Israel lobby. His campaigns for the Senate and presidency were supported by pro-Israel mega-donors.

Kamala Harris’s parents were immigrants, her mother from India and father from Jamaica. Her late mother Shyamala Gopalan was a cancer researcher and father Donald Harris is a retired professor of economics at Stanford University.

The family moved repeatedly between California and the mid-west while her parents took up teaching positions until their divorce when Kamala was seven. Her mother and siblings settled in Montreal in Canada where Kamala graduated from high school before returning to the US to study at Howard University, a traditional Black university, before taking a law degree in California.

Unlike “Scranton Joe” who identifies with his scrappy birthplace, Harris’ background has given her broad global vision. Kamala visited her mother’s family in Chennai where she was heavily influenced by her maternal grandfather, P V Gopalan, a retired Indian civil servant with progressive views on democracy and women’s rights. He steered her towards the progressive wing of the Democratic party. She has also connected with her father’s relatives in Jamaica.

She was elected as district attorney for San Francisco, California’s attorney general, and the US Senate where she was regarded as the “most left senator” (2017-21), before becoming Biden’s vice president in the 2020 election.

In the tumultuous week that she has been the Democratic presidential candidate, she has seized the attention of the media and potential voters by being a fresh face with a sharp tongue unlike mumbling, bumbling Biden. On the domestic front, she has loudly and clearly declared support for gun control, reproductive rights, well-paid jobs, affordable health care and “freedom,” including freedom to read books banned by ultra-conservative right-wingers and Christian zealots. Small donations from individuals have filled her campaign chest and at her rallies she has called on attendees to vote for a “people-first presidency.”