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ACCORDING TO LIZ - Kamala Harris must pivot away from the aggressive tone-deaf Imperial America threat she expressed at the Democratic Convention:
“President Biden and I are working to end this war such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity. Security. Freedom. And self-determination.”
She must roll back certain of those priorities.
The security of Israel is not up to her or Biden or the United States.
And Israel’s security must take last place behind the end of the suffering in Gaza; behind the Palestinian people’s right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination; and behind the release of the hostages.
Keep in mind that the Palestinian people are NOT Hamas, and do not deserve to die for the crimes of terrorists, especially given the growth and power of Hamas was a direct result of Israeli oppression.
And that the continued “security” of Israel as promoted by the Biden administration has led to almost a year of constant bombing that does not succor the hostages but extends their pain as Israel continues to erect barriers to a negotiated release while pursuing a campaign of blanket destruction and retribution against a captive civilian populace.
In contravention of the Geneva Convention.
Harris has until her national news media interview, promised by the end of the month – just five days away, to make the switcheroo that could define an historically successful candidacy and positively redirect the energy of world politics.
“My entire career, I’ve only had one client: the people,” Harris said, referring to her expertise as a prosecutor and politician.
Listen up, Kamala, the people have spoken: Stop the genocide!
As Oprah said at the Democratic National Convention: “values and character matter most of all. In leadership and in life.”
So, don’t continue to teeter on the Biden-Netanyahu tightrope. Hop off. And steer a nobler tack.
Standing up for Israel’s right to defend itself “because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas” may sound noble, but the “unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival” pales in comparison to the slaughter of the innocents, the devastation of a country, and the documented torture meted out in Israeli prison camps.
It pales in comparison of the pouring of American ordinance and intelligence into Netanyahu’s Vietnam.
Harris-Walz must recognize that the majority of Americans are appalled by Scranton Joe's unthinking support for Netanyahu's genocide.
By all means, support the Jewish people, support the state of Israel, support the Israeli people, but not Netanyahu. Support for Netanyahu only puts his country and his people in greater danger.
In the same way that the United States continues to attract and escalate terrorism against its own citizens by blindly disregarding the rights of all others.
Harris must also commit to immediately reversing Genocide Joe’s profound gaffe in recently appointing Mira Resnick – Netanyahu flack and the State Department factotum responsible for expediting the flow of American weaponry into the hands of the IDF – to be the State Department's point person on Israel-Palestine policy.
And she must openly commit to respecting the Leahy Laws. Named after Senator Patrick Leahy, these laws prohibit the U.S. Department of State and the Department of Defense from providing military assistance to foreign security forces that violate human rights with impunity.
That means the IDF and the whole Netanyahu military oppression of not only Gaza and the West Bank but also its illegal assassinations of foreign nationals in Beirut, Tehran, Jordan and elsewhere which cannot help but create collateral damage to infrastructure and deaths of the innocent.
The law covering Department of Defense Appropriations specifies:
“Of the amounts made available to the Department of Defense, none may be used for any training, equipment, or other assistance for a unit of a foreign security force if the Secretary of Defense has credible information that the unit has committed a gross violation of human rights... [unless it] determines that the government of such country has taken all necessary corrective steps, or if the equipment or other assistance is necessary to assist in disaster relief operations or other humanitarian or national security emergencies.
“The Secretary of Defense shall, in consultation with the Secretary of State, ensure that prior to a decision to provide any training, equipment, or other assistance to a unit of a foreign security force full consideration is given to any credible information available to the Department of State relating to human rights violations by such unit.”
Separately, the Leahy provisions hold that no assistance funded by the State Department “shall be furnished under this Act or the Arms Export Control Act to any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights... [unless] the government of such country is taking effective steps to bring the responsible members of the security forces unit to justice”.
Above all, Harris and Walz must back off the hawkish patriotism that is the purview of the MAGA-men. The United States may call itself the greatest country in the world, but Harris will shred that encomium completely if she pursues her nomination acceptance speech promise to confront China, Russia, Iran and Iran-backed terrorists and to make sure that the U.S. military remained the “most lethal fighting force in the world.”
Where Hillary Clinton went big in trying to prove she had the cojones to man-up in the White House, Kamala must embrace her humanity, roll out her compassion, her female energy.
Lean into her populist promises to help the middle class by reducing the cost of housing and health care — policies that many independents and a growing number of Republicans favor. And expand a foreign policy approach emphasizing peace and support, respect and dignity for both men and women around the world.
Make our country the country that fulfills its feel-good promises and sustains its mission of inclusivity.
Lift the energy and joy to include people beyond the borders of the United States, take the economic agenda that many working voters support to be inclusive of workers worldwide.
Invoking her mother’s admonition to “...never complain about injustice, but do something about it... [a]nd never do anything half-assed” means seizing the day – now and tomorrow – to promote justice for all people everywhere.
(Liz Amsden is a contributor to CityWatch and an activist from Northeast Los Angeles with opinions on much of what goes on in our lives. She has written extensively on the City's budget and services as well as her many other interests and passions. In her real life she works on budgets for film and television where fiction can rarely be as strange as the truth of living in today's world.)
