Over his long political career, Joe Biden has felt a connection to Israel in his kishkes.
“I don’t believe you have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, and I am a Zionist,” the president told government leaders when he traveled to Israel less than two weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre.
But since Sunday, when Biden bowed out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement on the ticket, a number of Jewish leaders, lobbyists and journalists have raced to assess what a Harris presidency would mean for the U.S.-Israel relationship.
Where does she stand on the Israel-Hamas war? Does she view the U.S. bond with Israel as “ironclad,” as does Biden? And is she a Zionist, like the president, who fully embraces the ideology even as it has become toxic in certain corners of the American left?
A Zionist, in short, supports the existence of a Jewish state in some or all of the Jews’ ancestral homeland between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. It’s an idea that requires some fluency with Jewish history to support or to coherently reject.
Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney, California attorney general and U.S. senator, had a strong pro-Israel voting record in Congress, her supporters point out. The Jewish Democratic Council of America, a lobbying group that has already endorsed the likely nominee, said that Harris “has consistently supported full funding for U.S. security assistance to Israel throughout her career,” including in the Senate. Harris also worked with Biden to push Congress to pass $15 billion in supplemental aid to Israel in April.
Yet in recent months, Harris has also shown a willingness to criticize Israel sharply, and publicly, in a way that is quite different from Biden.
In a March 3 speech about the Civil Rights Movement that she delivered on the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, Harris went on at length about the wartime conditions in Gaza, lamenting that “too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.”
Decrying a “humanitarian catastrophe,” she painted a dire portrait of starvation and “inhumane” conditions. Families were “eating leaves or animal feed,” she said, and women were “giving birth to malnourished babies with little or no medical care.” She also criticized Hamas as showing “no regard for innocent life” and called for an “immediate cease-fire” — to applause.
The setting and circumstances of her address were notable, considering the link that some on the left draw between the plight of Palestinians and that of Black Americans. It also came just a week after some 100,000 people in Michigan, or 13% of the electorate, had voted “uncommitted” in the state’s presidential primary in protest of the administration’s support for Israel.
While she is not known to have made public statements on whether she identifies as a Zionist, Harris has repeatedly spoken favorably of Israel and described the bond between the U.S. and Israel as “unbreakable.” Her office did not immediately respond to J.’s request for comment.
She’s to the left of Joe Biden on Israel. But even being to the left of Biden, there’s a lot of room in the Zionist tent. Sam Lauter, political consultant
In 2018, Harris spoke in a private address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, where she discussed the importance of combating antisemitism and the need for Americans of many racial and religious backgrounds to join together to fight bigotry. At that AIPAC event, she mentioned a different visit to the Edmund Pettus Bridge — but in reference to ending all forms of hate, including antisemitism.
An Oakland native, Harris also told the audience about collecting money for the Jewish National Fund when she was a girl.
“We would have our little boxes where we were raising money to plant trees for Israel. [Laughs] And we would go around with our box,” she said. “And you know, I actually never sold Girl Scout cookies, but I raised money to plant trees in Israel.”
She said an affection for Israel was instilled in her early. Asked where her support for Israel comes from, she said, “It was always part of my life. … I don’t know when it started, it’s almost like saying when did you first realize you loved your family, or love your country. It just was always there.”
Harris, like many American politicians, has taken multiple trips to Israel. Her first one was in 2004 with the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area when she was serving as San Francisco’s district attorney. The JCRC described Harris as a “dear friend” and mentioned that trip in an Instagram post on Monday.
Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, accompanied then-U.S. Sen. Harris on a 2017 trip to Israel when she was Harris’ national security adviser. Asked whether she believes Harris has an “emotional connection” to Israel, Soifer told J., “Not only do I think that, but I have seen it firsthand.”
Soifer recalled when Harris visited the Western Wall with her husband, Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish. Emhoff was visiting Israel for the first time.
“I vividly remember her placing the kippah on his head as he approached the Kotel,” Soifer said. The trip was “very meaningful for both of them.”
Notably, during the same trip, Harris also met with Palestinian students about hardships they face. She described that encounter as “one of the many highlights of my trip.”
Some Israeli journalists have expressed skepticism about Harris’ connections to the country.
“She does not have the emotional connection that characterizes Biden,” wrote Ben-Dror Yemini on Ynet, a popular Israeli news site. “She comes from a different place.”
An article in Israel Hayom, a right-leaning daily newspaper, called Biden the “last Zionist president.”
Sam Lauter, a veteran Bay Area political consultant and board member at Democratic Majority for Israel, shared his confidence about Harris on Israel but noted that she’s part of a different era than Biden.
“She’s absolutely a friend [of Israel], but she came of age at a time that was different from the Joe Bidens and Nancy Pelosis of the world,” he said. “She’s to the left of Joe Biden on Israel. But even being to the left of Biden, there’s a lot of room in the Zionist tent.”
The American Jewish right-wing, for its part, has already begun attacking Harris as insufficiently supportive of Israel and pointing to, among other things, a June interview with the Nation in which she expressed support for young Americans demonstrating on college campuses. The protesters are “showing exactly what the human emotion should be, as a response to Gaza,” she said.
Many pro-Israel Jews viewed the Gaza protests on college campuses this past school year as rife with antisemitism and unsparing anti-Zionism. The Republican Jewish Coalition posted Sunday on X that Harris had “expressed sympathy for Hamas-sympathizing protesters” and would be a “disaster for Israel.”
David Friedman, who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Donald Trump, said in an X post on Sunday that Harris would be the “worst” U.S. president for Israel in American history.
Progressives, for their part, see opportunities. Matt Duss, a longtime foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders and the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, a progressive think tank in Washington, said he “really appreciated” Harris’ March 3 speech in Selma.
“I think there are many of us on the progressive wing of the party who are both supportive of Palestinian rights and supportive of Palestinian self-determination, but also very much in solidarity with our Israeli colleagues,” Duss said, adding that he hopes a potential Harris administration would both promote security in the region and seek to “end the occupation.”
“I’m hoping to see some evidence that a Harris approach would reflect the changes in the Democratic Party,” he said. “As you know, some on the right would like to categorize the Palestinian rights movement as just anti-Israel. I strongly disagree with that,” he said.
Regardless of Harris’ views on Israel in the past or the present, this is clear: If she ends up behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, Harris will do so at a perilous time for the Jewish state and at an inflection point in the U.S.-Israel alliance. And where she ultimately stands could impact both that relationship and the Jewish state itself, for decades to come.