Should Kamala Harris use debate to prove support for Jews, Israel?

Two Democratic political strategists, a foreign policy expert, and an actor and community advocate preview what they expect to hear regarding Israel and issues concerning the Jewish community on the debate stage Tuesday night when Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump meet for the first time. 

The strategists are confident in Harris's support for the Jewish community and Israel. The foreign policy expert and the actor think the onus is on Harris to use the debate to prove it. 

Halie Soifer CEO, Jewish Democratic Council of America 

Tuesday night's debate will be different from what was seen during the debate at the end of June between President Biden and Donald Trump, Halie Soifer said. 

"When Donald Trump lies, which he will do because he cannot help himself, Kamala Harris is going to call him out on his incessant lies. It may be difficult to keep up. In the last debate, I believe that Donald Trump lied more than 100 times," she said. 

When it comes to Israel, according to Soifer, Harris does have a clear policy that the "overwhelming majority of Jewish Americans share."

"It's a vision and a policy that transcends party lines. She's been calling for a ceasefire that ensures the return of all the hostages and security for Israel," she said. "87% of Jewish voters support this administration's calls for a ceasefire, including the release of hostages. I'm confident that Jewish Americans will be very happy, not just with her policy on Israel, but her policy on every issue."

Soifer would like to see Trump pushed to defend white supremacy from the debate stage, something she said Jewish voters will never forget that Trump pointedly refused to do on the debate stage in 2020 when he told the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by."

If Trump attacks Harris over the Biden-Harris administration's handling of Iran, Harris just "needs to present the facts," Soifer said. 

"The facts are that this administration has imposed more sanctions on Iran. They've also left in place the Trump-era sanctions on Iran, and Donald Trump himself, last week, at the economic hub of New York, suggested he was going to lift sanctions on Russia and Iran. His policies are almost incoherent, to the extent he has any policies."

Soifer said the onus is on Trump to explain his policies as the Biden-Harris administration has an incredibly strong record on both domestic and foreign policy. 

"This is why he's made 0.0% inroads with Jewish American voters. I'm not saying that in a general sense. I'm basing this on polling in 2016; he got 25% of the Jewish vote, and as of this poll that came out yesterday, he has 25% of the Jewish vote," Soifer said. "That means, over the course of eight years, he has made zero progress with Jewish voters. That's because his policies, his views, his values, and his rhetoric are antithetical to everything our community stands for."

Michael Makovsky, President & CEO, Jewish Institute for National Security of America 

Makovsky would want Muir and Davis to ask what Harris and Trump would do to prevent a nuclear Iran, as he said whoever is elected president will likely have to deal with this problem. 

"What are they going to do with Iran so close to nuclear weapons capability? Are they committed to preventing a nuclear Iran? What are they prepared to do to prevent it?" he asked. 

More likely, in the foreign policy section, Makovsky said Muir and Davis will ask about what the US should be doing about Israel and alleviating Palestinian suffering. 

"Harris just says the same thing pretty much, 'We want to see a ceasefire and self-determination for the Palestinians,'" he said. 

Makovsky wondered if Harris would reiterate her statement after the murder of the six hostages last weekend, including American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin, in which she took a firmer tone calling for the elimination of Hamas from Gaza. 

"Or, is she going to say, 'We're going to always support Israel's right to self-defense' or something? Let's see," Makovsky said. "Those just become slogans. Let's see if it gets beyond that."

Trump has made it clear he's not into those slogans, he said.  

"I think it's more of an onus on her than him to go beyond the slogans," Makovsky said. "The thing to look for, does she get past what have become slogans: ceasefire, hostages, supporting the rights of Palestinians. What does that mean?

There's Jews that might not vote for Trump but think he's good on Israel, he said. 

"I do believe the onus is more on her. They want to be reassured," Makovsky added. 

Makovsky described the perception of Harris as being more sympathetic to the Palestinians than Biden is and called Harris's comments about the war from before she was the presidential nominee "not good."

"Her meeting with [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] when he was here in the summer was more focused on saying what Israel needed to do, and it suggests that the onus was more on Israel," he said. "There were reports over the last week that the US realizes that Hamas is more of the obstacle. Well, does she say that?"

For Trump, Makovsky would like him to go into further detail about confronting Hezbollah and Iran's nuclear capability to see if he really understands the Hezbollah threat. 

"Those are Israel's biggest problems, but I'd doubt it if he's gonna say too much," Makovsky said. 

Makovsky would also like Trump to look more like a statesman. 

Jeremy Ben-Ami President, J Street

According to new poll data, the number one issue Jewish voters care about is the threat that Donald Trump poses to US democracy and the issue of abortion and women's rights, Jeremy Ben-Ami said. 

"When you ask, what does Kamala Harris need to do vis-à-vis Jewish voters, the number one thing is to reaffirm her commitment to American democracy and reaffirm her commitment to a woman's right to control her own health decisions," Ben-Ami said. "And that's what American Jewish voters care about first and foremost."

There is a percentage of Jewish American voters who view Israel as their number one issue, though Ben-Ami said it's a smaller percentage, and some of those voters need to hear from Harris a strong affirmation of her support for Israel's security. 

But, according to Ben-Ami, another significant part of the American Jewish community also needs to hear the balance that Harris had in her acceptance speech at the DNC, which is that she not only has Israel's security interests at heart, she also has in her mind the rights and the need for Palestinian dignity and self-determination.

"That's what I'm looking for [at the debate] is that kind of a balanced approach," Ben-Ami said. "But the real issues that matter to Jewish voters are actually other issues that I assume she'll spend a lot more time on."

If Harris is asked if she would do anything differently from Biden to bring the hostages home, Ben-Ami said he doesn't know if there's "anything she could possibly do that he's not already doing."

On the Republican Jewish Coalition's newly released ad, which will air in five battleground states during the debate and paints Harris as a supportive member of the "squad," Ben-Ami said it has "zero chance of success."

"Seventy-plus percent of American Jews will vote Democratic, as they do election after election after election because the American Jewish community overwhelmingly appreciates the democracy that we live in, appreciates the rule of law, and appreciates having sane and balanced leadership in the Oval Office," Ben-Ami said. 

Ben-Ami hasn't seen any data showing a significant number of Jewish Democrats are changing their party affiliation to vote for Trump. 

"This isn't more than a handful of anecdotal stories," he said. "You know, you could probably find a single handful of people who have a story to tell, but this is not a large-scale phenomenon. There's no data whatsoever to back that up."

Yuval David, Jewish and LGBTQ Actor, Advisor, Advocate, Journalist and Filmmaker

Yuval David told The Post he's facing a significant issue as a lifelong Democrat. 

"I've come to learn that the Democratic party, based on their own actions and inactions, that they don't necessarily represent the Jewish people as well as we would like, and definitely not as fairly as we would hope," David said. 

He's written and publicly spoken about his uneasy voting for Harris and his uncertainty about what he'll do come Election Day. 

David doesn't know what the deciding factor for either campaign will be to convince him. 

"I mean, I'm listening, as so many American Jews are listening to their every word, and we're able to understand the subtext," David said. "Jews who are connected to their Jewishness, whether it's Jewish religion, culture, ethnicity, nationality, peoplehood, we're able to understand the subtext, and know when there is very selective and strategic wordsmithing in order to try to appease the Jewish people and to appease the people who are anti-Jewish, anti-Israel and anti-Zionist."

He said that doesn't necessarily make Jews feel safer when, within the same sentence, the campaign can "practice both sides-ing."

"I need candidates who will openly speak up in support of the Jewish people, against anti-Jewish racism, and in support of Israel," he said. 

On the debate stage, David needs Harris to condemn anti-semitism, anti-Israel, anti-Zionists and anti-Jewish racism by speaking about those forms of hatred and bigotry "in their own right, without including Islamophobia, other forms of racism and other forms of bigotry within the same sentence," he said. 

"She needs to say those words without having to conflate it with other forms of bigotry," he added. 

David said it would be amazing to hear Harris speak about why she supports the Jewish community "without tokenizing her Husband as a Jew," which he said is what so many people within the Democratic party, including marketing teams, are doing in order to say, "well, of course, we support the Jewish community. He's the first Jewish person in the White House."

"We need her to openly speak in a coherent and exacting way about the support for Israel, why we support Israel as a democracy and as America's greatest ally in the Middle East and one of America's greatest allies in the world," David said.

David said he's having this conversation with a lot of people he meets through his work in the Jewish community, who are speaking to him in private about the way anti-Jewish racism on the Left pushed them to change their voter registration to Republican. 

"I have many friends and people in my life who have decided to switch from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party," David said. "Many are doing so silently, because they're afraid of being shunned by their communities that they've been part of."