We explore how the US-Israel relationship has shifted over 10 months of war in Gaza and a change at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket. How might Kamala Harris approach the crisis differently than Joe Biden – and does the US still have any leverage to secure a long-term peace deal in the Middle East? Andrew Mueller speaks with Monocle’s US editor, Christopher Lord, analysts Julie Norman and Yossi Mekelberg, and former negotiator Aaron David Miller. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Where U.S.
foreign policy is concerned, any American president or prospective American president can take their pick from a world of trouble.
When Vice President Kamala Harris formally accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for the presidency at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week, she spoke at any meaningful length of only one foreign Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza.
In the United States, even more than in most countries, the long Israel, Palestine imbroglio transfixes attention and arouses passion like no other non domestic issue.
After Hamas attacked Israel last October 7, President Joe Biden's response was actually pretty nuanced, at least relative to the United States traditional, reflexive and barely conditional support for Israel.
Speaking in Tel Aviv 11 days after the massacre, Biden acknowledged the comparisons being made with the Al Qaeda attacks on the US of September 11, 2001, and warned Israel not to make similar mistakes as it responded, Don't, Biden cautioned, be consumed by rage.
The refusal of Israel, specifically of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to heed this council took a pretty obvious toll not only on Biden's patience, but his campaign.
Polling in swing states, especially those with substantial Arab and or Muslim communities, suggested that it might have cost him the election.
Does Kamala Harris really see Gaza any differently from Joe Biden?
Could the issue still trip the Democrats up between now and Election Day?
And could President Harris or President Anybody really fix the Middle east if they wanted to?
This is the foreign desk.
It's not just the US and Israel.
You're working with Qatar, you're working with Egypt, trying to work with Hamas, which has multi layers in itself.
The US knows that they can't be seen as completely manipulating everything in the region.
There needs to be some buy in and there needs to be some ownership from local actors as well.
We are not only talking about the ceasefire, but the ceasefire also might avert a regional war because it's not only about Israel interest.
You remember what happened with the war in Ukraine and how it affects cost of living in the United States.
If there is a war in the Middle east, it might be even worse.
This is just a few months before election.