By Andrea Tucci,
Lily Greenberg Call special assistant to the chief of staff at the U.S. Department of the Interior spent 20 years of my life in Jewish schools and synagogues learning about the Holocaust; “When she see these images from Gaza, the resemblance that is impossible to ignore”, she said.
Photo: Lily Greenberg Call first Jewish Biden Appointee to Publicly Resign over Gaza
In May, she resigned from the Biden administration to protest its indefensible policy of continuing to bolster and subsidize Israel’s war on Gaza. So when Biden stepped aside and Harris became the Democratic Party standard-bearer in July, many of her collegues saw an opening to change course. The success of the Uncommitted movement in Democratic primaries across the country made it clear that voters wanted Harris to break with Biden, and they believed they could pressure her campaign to come out in favour of an immediate ceasefire and stopping weapons transfers to Israel as long as they continued to violate US laws.
Instead, Harris has merely expressed slightly more empathy for Palestinian suffering, while showing no indication that she will compel Israel to end its war if she assumes the presidency.
Five years ago, when Lily Greenberg Call was organising for Harris’ her first presidential campaign, she was shunned when she tried to speak up for Palestinians, She said: “ I am not the only former Harris staffer who feels this way”.
Meanwhile, the violence continues to escalate.
As I write this, my TV screen displays footage of Palestinians forcibly displaced from the ruined city of Jabalia in northern Gaza, carrying whatever belongings they still have along with white flags and their IDs..
After this past year, it is hard not to feel utterly demoralized about the state of American politics. The movement for Palestinian rights has made tremendous strides in USA, but there remains a large gap between winning people’s hearts into a change in policy a gap seems insurmountable.
In the weeks leading up to this election, I have grappled with the sad truth that neither Harris nor Trump care about the Palestinian people and for Lebanon now, but one of them soon will be president.
Clearly, a Harris administration is not going to be the panacea for the systemic inequalities and injustices we face in USA, nor for America’s disastrous decades of foreign policy across the whole Middle East. However, a second Trump term would be catastrophic not only in Middle East, but also for progressive movements for justice and equality across the country.
Trump’s promised crackdown on civil liberties would devastate many communities already under threat. His administration would fast-track mass deportations. It would gut support systems for asylum-seekers and legal resources for immigrants, moreover restrictions on medication abortion and abortion care access in emergency situations. “Queer and Trans” people would face an assault on healthcare, legal protections, and marriage rights.
It is also important to note that, under a Trump presidency, the movement for Palestinian rights could be prosecuted out of existence. Earlier this month, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank that authored the controversial Project 2025, unveiled a blueprint for the Trump administration to destroy the Palestine solidarity movement within two years, surveil, and take legal action against groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, Palestinian Youth Movement, , and One land Two States all of whom it tarnishes as a global “Hamas support network.”
It is too late to save the potentially hundreds of thousands of innocent woman and kids Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza, but there are still people to be saved, inclusive of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas. Trump recently told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “do what you have to do” in Gaza. In his first term, Trump became the first U.S. president to authorize Israeli annexation of the West Bank, recognize Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, and move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The unrestrained, total annexation of and potential genocide in the West Bank has not begun in earnest, but Netanyahu knows it will be easier to achieve under Trump and his pro-Israel Republican Party.
Harris if wins, she will be leading a coalition with an expanding progressive base and a growing number of legislators who are demanding an immediate cease fire and the end to unconditional support for Israel and several Democratic senators also want the U.S. government to follow its own laws which could result in shutting off the flow of offensive weapons to Israel.
There is no guarantee that exists right now for political leaders to constantly won’t make war, but I believe that It will be more possible to avoid it with a Democratic president in the White House.
Under a Trump administration, It would also be difficult to imagine it…
