Kamala Harris took a particularly firm stance on foreign policy issues in Chicago while attempting to rebalance on Gaza, a strategy aimed primarily at beating Donald Trump in the race for the White House.
In her speech at the Democratic Convention on Thursday, the American vice president vowed that she would not make “friends with dictators,” unlike a billionaire and former president who “wants to be an autocrat himself.”
She is thus trying to appear more muscular, more capable on the international scene than her Republican adversary.
A form of break with its president Joe Biden, who had campaigned in 2020 with the promise of putting an end to “endless wars”. Barack Obama had also brought a message of appeasement on the international scene when he came to power in 2008, after the belligerent George W. Bush.
Democrat Kamala Harris, for her part, told the Chicago crowd her strong support for the military, saying she wanted to keep “the most powerful, lethal fighting force in the world” “American.” She also said she would respond to any attack by Iran or its allies in the Middle East.
With a large number of former military personnel on the convention stage, the former prosecutor also hammered home her support for Ukraine at war with Russia and denounced Donald Trump’s attacks on NATO.
Sexism
Why such strong words from a Democratic candidate?
“The general public will always have the impression that a woman is inherently a weaker leader than a man,” said Allison McManus of the left-leaning Center for American Progress in Washington.
“So as a woman, she needs to do a lot more than a man would need to do to show that she is strong,” the expert says.
This force that Kamala Harris projects in foreign policy should not necessarily be understood as a political line of warmongerAllison McManus points out with nuance.
Gaza
Because the burning issue that agitates both American diplomacy and the Democratic campaign is the war in Gaza and the Biden administration’s solid support for Israel, despite the accumulation of Palestinian civilian casualties. Thousands of demonstrators marched in the streets of Chicago this week against American military aid to Israel.
And it was on this subject, by evoking the suffering of the Palestinians and promising to work so that “they can access their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination”, that Kamala Harris was the most applauded.
The Democratic candidate’s use of the term “self-determination” is a significant step, says expert Allison McManus.
“To say this is to recognize that the Palestinians are a people, that they have rights and that they must be the ones who have a say in deciding their future,” she continues.
It comes after her promise, after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in late July, not to “remain silent” in the face of civilian suffering, and her top diplomatic adviser, Phil Gordon, has published a book critical of US policy in the Middle East.
But Kamala Harris also vigorously defended “Israel’s right to defend itself” on Thursday evening, she who does not support the much-criticized suspension of American military aid to Israel.
“I was quite disappointed that she didn’t take this opportunity to at least try to make it clear that she might move away from the current positions” of the American executive, declared Annelle Sheline, who resigned from the American diplomacy in March to express her disagreement about Gaza.
However, she assures that she has not lost all hope.
For a long time in the United States, she recalls, being critical of Israel was seen as a political miscalculation. But that, she believes, “has begun to change,” even if “it could take a while before the American political class” understands it.
