INTO THE FRAY: November: Persian Preferences

By Dr. Martin Sherman | October 14, 2024

Photo Credit Asher Schwartz

In a disconcerting display of barefaced side-stepping, evasion, and diversion of a simple interview question, Kamala Harris provided more cause for concern for those warning of the grave consequences for Israel if she should win the November election for the US presidency. 

 Treating Israel with disrespect? 

 During a lengthy interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes, Harris balked at referring to Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister—by far the nation’s most popular political figure with Israeli voters—as a long-term ally of the?United States. 

 In reply to host Bill Whitaker’s question, “…do we have a real close ally in Prime Minister Netanyahu?” Harris’s blatantly evasive response was: “I think, with all due respect, the better question is: Do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people? And the answer to that question is yes“.  

 Harris’s crass attempt to differentiate between the head of Israel’s democratically-elected leader, and the Israeli people who elected him, indicates one of two things—or worse, both. It either reflected hopeless ignorance of the political process in the Israeli polity, or it revealed her utter contempt for the Jewish state, seeing it as nothing more than a “banana republic” in which its electorate can be disregarded, by-passed, and supplanted by more pliant minority elites, who oppose the majority-elected government. 

 Dodging the issues 

 Adding to the reasons for Israel’s accumulating alarm, was Harris’s attitude to the Islamic Republic of Iran. True, when asked to identify America’s “greatest adversary” she somewhat surprisingly, singled out the tyrannical theocracy in Tehran , rather than China. However, she refused to specify what action—if any—she would instigate to thwart it from achieving its malevolent goals. Thus,?despite the fact that she stipulated that “ensur[ing] that Iran never achieves the ability to be a nuclear power…is one of my highest priorities”, she refused to commit as to how she would prevent that from coming about. Indeed, when pressed as whether she “would take military action” to foil Iranian nuclear designs, her evasive response was “I’m not going to talk about hypotheticals…” 

 This display of open reluctance is comforting news for the mullahs in Tehran. Indeed, as one WSJ piece asserts: “Neither diplomacy nor sanctions will stop the advance [towards Iran’s nuclear goals]”. Despondently, it observes: “Harris probably knows this. The search for peace and regional stability, the oft-heard aspiration of U.S. policy in the Middle East, now means, when translated into Persian, giving Tehran the bomb”. 

 In similar vein, an analysis in the British Telegraph accuses “the feckless Biden-Harris administration” of “shameful betrayal” of Israel on the nuclear issue—and of “doing nothing to prevent this nightmare from happening…even pressuring Israel to refrain from taking action against Tehran’s nuclear programme”.  

 Israelis’ overwhelming preference 

 Given the Democrats’ aversion to any action more robust than diplomacy for the resolution of the Iran nuclear impasse, it is unlikely that they would abandon negotiations no matter what the Iranian provocations or transgressions. 

 It is thus hardly surprising that, according to a recent ABC poll, Israelis prefer Donald Trump, Harris’s opponent in the November elections, at a rate of well over 2 to 1, while on security issues, the ratio is 3 to 1 in favor of Trump.  

 Indeed, for Israel, the indulgent approach of the Biden-Harris regime is a matter of critical—indeed, existential—importance. Thus, informed sources charge that, since the Biden-Harris incumbency, Tehran increased the number of centrifuges almost 15 times, its uranium enrichment from 5% to 60%, and more than quadrupled its oil production. 

 But beyond Harris’s Obama-like docility toward the Ayatollahs, there are additional reasons for grave apprehension regarding the murky relations that underlie the support for Harris’s presidential campaign. In part, this involves her endorsement of Armenia in its clash with Azerbaijan in an attempt to curry favor with the influential US Armenian diaspora.  

 While it is understandable that diasporic communities seek to maintain warm supportive sentiments toward their motherland, this cannot conceal the troubling behavior of Armenia in?recent years, including acting as a conduit for circumventing US-led sanctions against Iran and Russia. Indeed, in light of Tehran’s ongoing endeavor to enhance its influence with Yerevan, Israeli sources warn that Armenia could be on its way to becoming a new Iranian proxy. Particularly worrying is the reported $3 billion security collaboration and covert arms deal between the two countries.  

 One can, thus, only wonder whether Harris is unaware of the pernicious role Armenia has hitherto played in undermining Western objectives, or whether her political ambitions have made her insensitive towards them. Indeed, in her apparent clamor to find favor with voters of Armenian descent, Harris has even exceeded the demands of Armenia itself! Thus, she essentially called for a return to the pre-2023 status quo ante in Nagorno Karabakh—notwithstanding that the Armenian government has reiterated that for it, “the Karabakh issue is closed”.   

 For Jews—a stark choice 

  Athough Israeli officialdom has scrupulously avoided taking sides in American elections, there can be little doubt that the?outcome of the November poll has crucial importance for the Jewish state. After all, beyond the niceties of diplomatic decorum, for Israel there are life-and-death issues at stake.  

 Thus. despite professions of Democratic support?for?Israel, there are mounting reasons for believing that the mullahs of the theocratic tyranny in Tehran would applaud a Harris victory in November. Conversely, there is emerging consensus that the radical rulers of the Islamic Republic view the election of Trump, who in the past brought them to the brink of financial collapse, with increasing trepidation. 

For the Jews—and the Jewish state –the choice could not be starker.