Harris will have Israel’s back, former ambassador says

As thousands marched on Chicago’s West Side to call for an end to U.S. aid to Israel, a former ambassador to Israel assured Jewish Democrats that Kamala Harris, if she won the presidency, would not abandon the Middle Eastern country.

Thomas R. Nides, a banker who served as ambassador from November 2021 to July 2023, spoke on a Monday afternoon panel convened under tight security downtown by the Jewish Democratic Council of America.

“Both Biden and Harris collectively have over the last year … shown to the American people, to the Israelis and to Israel’s enemies that they have Israel’s back,” said Nides, a former Morgan Stanley managing director and vice chairman.

That support has ranged from shifting U.S. warships in the Mediterranean to boosting military aid to Israel by billions of dollars.

Nides spoke on the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

He said the vice president has worked in lockstep with Biden since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks in southern Israel: “In every single one of those meetings that President Biden has been in, Kamala Harris has been at his side. In every single phone call that Joe Biden has made to [Benjamin] Netanyahu … the vice president has been in those rooms or on the phone, which is highly unusual, by the way.

“I have 100% confidence in her support for the security of the state of Israel,” Nides said.

The panel comes as pro-Palestinian liberals and leftists debate whether Harris should be expected to alter the U.S. course on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Harris gave us some clear indications that, as she put it, this is not a binary issue,” longtime Democratic National Committee member James Zogby told WBEZ this month, saying Harris had demonstrated a remarkable sense of compassion for both sides in the conflict “in a way that I have not heard Democrats speak before, so I think I have hope that she will be much better.”

Zogby, who founded the Arab American Institute, said he believes Harris would put greater constraints on Israel than President Biden, whom he called “exceptionally bad” on Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But Hatem Abudayyeh, spokesman for the pro-Palestinian march Monday afternoon, has called the policy differences between Harris and Biden insignificant and refers to Harris as “Killer Kamala.”

Nides said pro-Israeli Jews have to communicate more effectively with young people, including those in Chicago streets this week demanding the United States cut off aid to Israel.

“You can say, ‘I want to get rid of Hamas. I want to kill Hamas. But, at the same time, I want to feed innocent Gazans,’” Nides suggested telling youths. “And, by the way, this fight is not with the Palestinian people. This fight is with Hamas and the extremists. And we, as Jews, have the responsibility to communicate that way.”