Vice President Kamala Harris’ acceptance speech began slowly, punctuated by a familiar recitation of her biography. But it grew stronger over time, when he approached a subject that often withered: foreign policy. There, he showed a facility for navigating deeply divisive issues like Israel-Palestine with principles and skills that did wonders for his credibility as commander-in-chief.
Part of what worked was Harris’ clearly emotional delivery. But there was also real crispness in the logic of the speech. Here’s what he said, for example, when discussing Trump’s affinity for dictators:
I will not make concessions to tyrants and dictators like Kim Jong Un who are rooting for Trump. People rooting for Trump because they know he’s easy to manipulate with flattery and favors. They know Trump can’t hold dictators accountable because he wants to be a dictator himself.
In just three lines, he lays out a completely compelling theory of what’s wrong with Trump—that he’s a selfish, unimportant man whose entire approach to politics is unwelcoming to American democracy—and illustrates it with a compelling, easy-to-understand example. As a writer, it’s hard not to admire the craft here.
He also applied it to his discussion of Israel-Palestine, where he delivered one of the most thorough handlings of the issue I’ve seen from a politician, showing empathy for both sides while distancing himself from Biden’s unbalanced pro-Israelism. Procedure:
I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself. And I will always make sure that Israel has the ability to defend itself, because the people of Israel will never again have to face the horrors that a terrorist organization called Hamas committed on October 7, including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival.
At the same time, what has happened in Gaza in the last 10 months is devastating. Many innocent lives have been lost, desperate, starving people are repeatedly fleeing for safety. The level of suffering is heartbreaking. President Biden and I are working to end this war so that Israel is safe, the hostages are freed, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination.
Harris’s framing not only recognized the strongest points in both Israeli and Palestinian narratives of the current conflict, it took them seriously.
He did not utter a word or dance around the horrors of October 7. He acknowledged why the attack was such an unforgivable attack on Israeli life and reiterated his commitment to never allow it to happen again. At the same time, he has gone further than even most Democrats in recognizing the immense and ongoing suffering of the Palestinians. More than that, in fact: He recognizes that Palestinians have legitimate rights — rights that demand more than an end to this war, but a future in which Palestinians truly govern themselves.
Often, people discussing this issue feel the need to recognize only one of these narratives—and in American politics, it’s often the Israeli one. Yet Harris placed them on a truly equal footing, bringing to the fore the ethical concepts underlying a two-state solution to the conflict. The result was a discussion that anyone who cares about the lives of both Israelis and Palestinians can appreciate, and that felt genuine in its delivery rather than merely pro forma.
Now, to be clear: President Joe Biden has said the same thing about Palestinian status, and his policy still leans overwhelmingly toward Israel.
But this speech seems to be meaningfully different in two respects.
First, its rhetorical structure: presenting the Palestinian desire for self-determination as the moral climax of his discussion of the issue, the top concern, felt like a meaningful shift away from a partisan status quo. Second, and more important, it is consistent: publicly and allegedly privately, Harris has expressed a great deal of concern with the suffering of Palestinian civilians.
Harris “certainly shows more realism and flexibility than Biden and has also shown a much more humane approach to the Palestinians in the past year in his public comments,” said Josh Paul, a former State Department official who resigned over Biden’s approach to Gaza. told the New York Times in July.
I don’t want to read too much into mere words; No one should trust Harris to rule perfectly on Israel-Palestine or any other foreign policy issue. But a good speech at least gave him the benefit of the doubt.
