How a President Harris might approach the Middle East

The flow of immigrants grew further, to monumental proportions, flooding American cities, which made her a political target for the Republicans.

She was even criticised by some fellow Democrats. This is her biggest weakness in the campaign. Clearly, immigration—and working with America's southern neighbours—is not the foreign policy profile that she would have chosen to bolster her credentials.

Learning on-the-job

It is also clear that the White House did not see her as a foreign policy asset, instead relying on the National Security Advisor, the Secretary of State, and White House envoys, for the Middle East in particular. 

The New York Times quoted foreign officials as saying Harris "did not emerge as a key point person for global leaders", but nor was she "coming from the cold". It added that the "consensus among foreign officials and diplomats is that Ms Harris has a firm grip on international affairs".

According to Politico, several world leaders were "on her speed dial", after it reviewed 100 of her calls and meetings with overseas representatives, to better understand her foreign policy strengths and weaknesses.

Most of her calls and meetings were with leaders in Asia, the Middle East, and a "limited cross-section of European, Latin American and African heads of state… She spoke frequently with the leaders of Japan, Mexico, Jordan and the Philippines".

Deploying Harris

Harris had no engagements with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or Hungary, Politico added, despite some of these countries being important American allies.

The lack of engagement with Saudi Arabia was seen as "notable," especially since Biden made a deal between Riyadh and Tel Aviv a core Middle East policy goal.

Harris attended the Munich Security Conference and travelled to Europe, in part to patch-up relations between the US and a "livid" France, whose huge military submarine contract with Australia was torpedoed by Washington and London.

She was also deployed to Asia and Africa "to help contain the Chinese influence", and to Latin America. She met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but has never met Russian President Vladimir Putin.

According to Politico, she has "deep ties" with Indo-Pacific and Israeli leaders, particularly with Israeli President Isaac Herzog.  

The White House told Politico that Harris sits on Biden's calls with Israeli officials, and that "she has either been on the line or sitting in the room while Biden calls (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu".

Fans and critics

Unlike Trump, Harris is not an isolationist, and has won the endorsement and confidence of around 350 foreign policy heavyweights who said they consider her to be the "best qualified person to lead the country".

In a letter published by the Washington Post, these former ambassadors and foreign-policy makers tellingly said she had "more international experience than most recent incoming presidents".

Signatories included former National Security Advisors Susan Rice and Thomas Donilon; former Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry; former Secretaries of Defence Chuck Hagel and Leon Panetta; ex-CIA chief Michael Hayden; and James Clapper, former head of defence intelligence.

"In today's global security environment, we need a strong and tested leader," they said, adding that Harris had been "in the Oval office and in the situation room managing high-stakes international crises and advising on the toughest decisions," from the US response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, to the defence of Israel when Iran attacked it in April 2024.

Despite all these endorsements, not everyone sings her praises. One European official described Harris as "invisible". He might as well have been speaking on behalf of the Middle East and the Arab world.

The few times that Harris has appeared on the Middle East radar before the Gaza war were her appearance in Dubai for the COP 28 Climate conference, and her meetings with United Arab Emirates leaders and King Abdullah of Jordan.

Harris on Israel

Like the Biden administration and most Democrats, Harris is pro-Israel, stating that her affinity with Israel goes back to her childhood, but she has been critical of Netanyahu's conduct of the Gaza war.

In her remarks after meeting Netanyahu, she spoke of her "unwavering commitment" to the Jewish state, adding that when she was a little girl, she remembers "collecting funds to plant trees for Israel", yet her personal links continued into later life.

She is married to entertainment lawyer Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish. Her stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, an artist and designer, is reportedly pro-Palestinian and helped raise funds for UNRWA, the UN Palestinian refugee agency.

To establish her pro-Israel bona fides, Harris co-sponsored a resolution opposing the US position on UN Security Council Resolution 2234 in 2016, which called Israeli settlements "a flagrant violation of international law" with "no legal validity".

Right at the end of his second term of office, Obama abstained to let the resolution pass at the UN, angering both Israel and pro-Israel politicians in the US.

To the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Harris said: "I believe that when any organisation delegitimises Israel, we must stand up and speak out for Israel to be treated equally."

She said her opposition to 2234 "was to combat anti-Israel bias at the UN and reaffirm that the US seeks a just, secure, and sustainable two-state solution".

Harris on Saudi Arabia

During her Senate tenure, Harris opposed arms sales to Saudi Arabia and criticised it over the Yemen war, but American political scientist Ian Bremmer says strong relations with Israel do not preclude strong relations with the Gulf.

"Harris doesn't see this as inconsistent with wanting to strengthen US relations with the Gulf states," he wrote.

On Saudi Arabia, she sees an improved security relationship (including an upgraded alliance, if Congress approves it) as a big win for the US. She wants closer engagement on technology and the energy transition away from fossil fuels, while also hoping to draw Riyadh away from China.

For Harris, expanding the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia would require a clear pathway for Palestinian statehood. Publicly, the Saudis have also said that this is their prerequisite.

Israel, however, sees it differently. For almost every senior centrist and right-wing Israeli politician, the prospect of Palestinian statehood in the coming years would be difficult to stomach—and even more difficult to 'sell' to the Israeli public.

Harris on Gaza

During the Gaza war, Harris was the first American official to call for a ceasefire and continued to press for a pause in the fighting to allow humanitarian aid in.

When Netanyahu visited Washington late last month at the Republicans' invitation, Harris was notably absent, so she did not introduce him to the floor, as per protocol when a foreign visitor addresses a joint session of Congress. It is likely that she did not want to alienate the Arab American vote.

More than 50 Democrats boycotted his speech. She denied that she did so, saying there was simply a scheduling conflict, but Netanyahu returned the gesture by omitting any reference to her in his speech, while praising Biden and Trump.

When she met Netanyahu the next day, her statement was nuanced and cutting. Israel "has the right to defend itself", she said, but "how it does so matters".

She attacked Hamas, but said: "I expressed with the Prime Minister (Netanyahu) my serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians".

She said the past nine months had been "devastating", adding: "It is time for this war to end and end in a way where Israel is secure, all the hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can exercise their right to freedom, dignity, and self-determination."

She added that a "two-state solution is the only path that ensures Israel remains a secure, Jewish, and democratic state, and one that ensures Palestinians can finally realise the freedom, security, and prosperity that they rightly deserve".

Cue the pile-on

Netanyahu's visit was Harris's first foreign policy test of the campaign, and he was reportedly upset by her remarks and "concerned it would harm the negotiations over a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal", according to an Israeli official (days later, Israel assassinated the Palestinian political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was leading the negotiations for Hamas).

Israel's American neoconservative allies immediately attacked Harris for her comments, among them former Trump appointee and another former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, who called them "very worrisome… Netanyahu has every right to be concerned".

Bolton added that former US President Harry Truman would be "turning in his grave because the Democratic Party's special relationship with Israel is disappearing… A Harris administration would be a different world in foreign relations between the US and Israel".

Trump also attacked her for being "disrespectful" towards Israel, despite him having criticised Netanyahu over Gaza, a supposedly joint operation to kill an Iranian general, and Netanyahu's congratulating of Joe Biden in 2020 while Trump was still contesting the result.

"F*** him," was how Trump recently dismissed reference to Netanyahu in an interview with veteran Israeli journalist Barak Ravid for Axios.

Striking the balance

Elliott Abrams, a senior US diplomat under Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump, expects Harris to have the "same policy toward Iran as Obama and Biden", meaning she will want to "avoid escalation and confrontation".

He added that some Arab states will share her lack of warmth towards Israel, saying this was "partly generational… Biden is from an older generation of Democrats who were truly Zionists".

He added that today's Democratic Party was less close to Israel, and Harris comes from the left-wing of the party—what former US Ambassador to the UN Jeane Kirkpatrick memorably called "the San Francisco Democrats".

Allies say Harris needs to carefully balance her stance on Israel-Palestine to appeal to Arab Americans (who will be critical for her to win Michigan, a key swing state) while also not alienating Americans who staunchly support Israel.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, Harris is widely in-line with the Biden's positioning, including over the Iran nuclear deal. She is not expected to deviate greatly if elected, yet she is also likely to take a tougher line on Iranian proxies in the region.

Harris's deputy national security advisor Dean Lieberman said that she "will always ensure Israel can defend itself from threats, including from Iran and Iran-backed militias such as Hamas and Hezbollah".

Better than Biden

Although the Arab American community in the US is angry at Biden for his full-throated support for Israel over Gaza, they may still opt to give Harris a chance in November, because she has showed much more empathy to the Palestinians.

Abdullah Hammoud, mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, told NPR Radio he felt betrayed by Biden, but that "there is an opportunity for Harris to course-correct". She will be closely watched over the next three months, he said, adding: "She has a chance."

Arab diplomats that know Harris say she will be better than Biden on the Middle East, yet this early into her election campaign, it is difficult to know what kind of president she would be, and what kind of US foreign policy we might expect.

Biden's recent record on the Middle East is certainly nothing to brag about. On Gaza, he called repeatedly for Israeli temperance, yet almost 40,000 Palestinians (mostly civilians) have been killed and few (if any) of his requests were met.

Before that, Biden's legacy in office hung largely off a botched and rushed US withdrawal from Afghanistan that ushered in Taliban rule in 2021.

The region feels like it is teetering on the edge of a major war but the US, insofar as it seeks to be a restraining force, appears toothless at best, absent at worst, with no power to bring parties together to ensure stability and peace.

The world has come to expect more from the President of the United States, whoever he or she may be from January.