Kamala Harris’s Jewish Liaison’s Record of Poor Judgment

Aug. 23 2024

On Wednesday night, Jon Polin and Rachel-Goldberg Polin, whose son Hersh—a U.S. citizen—was taken captive by Hamas on October 7, addressed the Democratic National Convention. They were greeted by loud chants of “Bring them home!” and “USA,” as well as by tears. It was a moving moment, and a stark contrast to the scenes of protesters outside waving Iranian and Hamas flags, and burning American ones.

All this is reassuring for those worried about the anti-Israel drift of the Democratic party. Less reassuring are some of the Harris campaign’s recent personnel decisions, including the hiring of Ilan Goldenberg, who served in various national-security positions during the Biden and Obama administrations, as the liaison to the Jewish community. Seth Mandel writes:

Goldenberg is a puzzling choice. He is ideologically to the left of the current Democratic administration—of which Harris is vice-president—which is a strange signal to send. He is also, more importantly, a man of poor judgment. He has made a very public show of his opposition to just about every move intended to help Israel over the past decade or so.

Goldenberg was against moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem in recognition of its Jewish significance or of Israeli sovereignty; he wanted, instead, for it eventually to be moved only when the Palestinians had lifted their veto and decided they had what they wanted. Speaking of Israeli sovereignty, he doesn’t like that the U.S. recognizes the Golan Heights [as part of] Israel. . . . In 2020, he was an adviser to the presidential campaign of Elizabeth Warren, one of Israel’s loudest and most ignorant critics in the Senate.

Contrast the choice of Goldenberg to another person given a similar position in the campaign:

Nasrina Bargzie, Harris’s choice for Arab/Muslim liaison, has worked for the vice-president before. She also has a long record of defending the groups responsible for building up the anti-Semitism crisis on college campuses. One particular example stands out: in 2012, she and her coalition presented a report to the United Nations complaining about Jews on campus who objected to the anti-Semitic activism that has become so common. The complaint went so far as to object to Jews having Title VI protections under civil-rights law.

In other words, it seems Harris has a Jewish liaison who will appeal to anti-Israel Jews and a Muslim liaison who will appeal to anti-Israel Muslims.

Read more at Commentary

More about: Democrats, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, U.S.-Israel relationship

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023