Six months ago, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris — caught between a left flank demanding punishment for Israel and moderate voters pleading with them to stand by their ally — could only hope that the war in Gaza would exhaust itself, or even that Israel’s right-wing leader would choose a legacy-defining peace over an endless armed conflict.
Five weeks before the election, it is clear that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a military and political timetable of his own. Now, all Ms. Harris can do is pray that the widening war in the Middle East does not overwhelm her candidacy and confirm in the minds of the last few undecided voters the idea that her opponent Donald Trump is promoting: that the world is out of control thanks to the weak leadership of the Biden-Harris administration.
Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate was supposed to be the last set-piece moment of Campaign 2024 before the final sprint to Election Day. It was all but overshadowed by the transfixing images of Iranian ballistic missiles confronting Israeli defense systems in the darkened skies over Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Mr. Netanyahu vowed retaliation — “Iran made a big mistake, and it will pay for it,” he said — while Ms. Harris was steadfast in what she called her “cleareyed” condemnation of Iran, denouncing it as a “destabilizing, dangerous force in the Middle East.”
Her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, was left to frame the issue of a looming regional war as a test of character.
“What’s fundamental here is that steady leadership is going to matter,” Mr. Walz said in the debate. “It’s clear, and the world saw it on that debate stage a few weeks ago. A nearly 80-year-old Donald Trump talking about crowd sizes is not what we need in this moment.”
But any dreams of a triumphant diplomatic breakthrough to end the hostilities, bring home the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza or even get peace talks on track in the waning days of the Biden administration were atomized along with that hail of debris from shattered Iranian missiles raining over Israel.
It was a moment the Republicans were not going to waste.
“As much as Governor Walz just accused Donald Trump of being an agent of chaos, Donald Trump actually delivered stability in the world,” Senator JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, said on Tuesday night.
To be sure, American voters still put foreign policy well down the list of their highest priorities, far below the economy, abortion, inflation and character. But to Mr. Trump, the conflict in the Middle East is part of a much larger narrative that he has been weaving the entire campaign.
He has said repeatedly that feckless Democratic leadership in Washington has let events spin out of control on matters like Afghanistan, Israel and Ukraine abroad; the U.S.-Mexican border; and the price of groceries at home: All was peaceful and prosperous when he was in power, and his strong hands on the wheel would bring peace and prosperity back.
“Look at the World today,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media on Tuesday. “Look at the missiles flying right now in the Middle East, look at what’s happening with Russia/Ukraine, look at Inflation destroying the World. NONE OF THIS HAPPENED WHILE I WAS PRESIDENT!”
His narrative leaves out key events, including Iran’s shelling of U.S. military forces stationed in Iraq and the pandemic-driven economic collapse of his final year in office. But Mr. Trump’s politics have always been impressionistic, and the events of recent days are helping his cause.
Israel is nearing all-out war with its biggest regional adversary, Iran.
And the Biden administration now appears incapable of restraining Mr. Netanyahu, who got virtually everything he wanted from Mr. Trump when he was in the White House and is likely to relish his return to power.
Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, said that Ms. Harris seemed to have just hunkered down, waiting for Election Day before making any affirmative effort to change the course of events in the Middle East and pressure Mr. Netanyahu to de-escalate.
It isn’t working — politically or diplomatically.
“She was in a bind from the beginning,” Ms. Friedman said. “If she gave an inch” toward criticizing the Israeli government, “she would be framed as anti-Israel or even antisemitic. Even if she doesn’t give an inch, she’s still being framed as anti-Israel or antisemitic.”
“So maybe it would be better to conceptualize and stand behind a defensible policy” in the region, Ms. Friedman added.
Ms. Harris’s bind is only growing worse. The anger that Palestinian Americans were feeling toward the administration — especially in the key swing state of Michigan — has now been joined by anger from Lebanese Americans, also concentrated in Michigan, who are decrying the indiscriminate bombing of their homeland.
Attila Somfalvi, an independent political analyst in Israel, said on Wednesday that Mr. Netanyahu actually had more political space for a diplomatic resolution of the tensions. He has expanded his government beyond the narrow, far-right coalition that put him back into power, and the killing of Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has increased his popularity.
“There’s a feeling of strength again; people are saying, ‘Look, the magician is back,” Mr. Somfalvi said.
But for years, going back to the presidency of Barack Obama, Mr. Netanyahu has cultivated the belief among his supporters that the Democrats are the enemy, weak supporters of Israel at best, treacherous at worst. And now, with the Israeli right sensing a possible return of Mr. Trump, Mr. Netanyahu has no political incentive to help Ms. Harris.
“It’s pretty clear where the prime minister stands,” Mr. Somfalvi said. “All those fans of Netanyahu are very pro-Trump. It doesn’t matter what Biden and Harris have done over the last year. They say they need Trump.”
Earlier this year, that was not clear. Dennis B. Ross, a former presidential envoy to the Middle East, mused in an interview in March that Mr. Netanyahu might — just might — want the peace accord with Saudi Arabia that the Biden administration was trying to broker as his legacy, instead of the carnage of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. To attain that, he would have to accept a cease-fire in Gaza and a resumption of talks on autonomy for the Palestinians.
“A normalization deal with Saudi Arabia would serve both men,” he said of Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu, while conceding, “the longer this goes on, given the political calendar, the less chance this can happen.”
That political calendar is now spent. Ms. Harris is likely to use the growing crisis in the Middle East to look resolute and presidential, as she did on Tuesday when she described joining the president and his national security team in the White House Situation Room to watch Iran’s missile attack on Israel unfold.
“Israel, with our assistance, was able to defeat this attack,” she declared. “Our joint defenses have been effective, and this operation and successful cooperation saved many innocent lives.”
With an uncertain season of Jewish High Holy Days beginning Wednesday night, with the first anniversary of the Hamas massacre of Israelis arriving on Monday, and with early voting already underway, Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance will take every opportunity to lay conflict at the feet of the Democrats.
“Donald Trump consistently made the world more secure,” Mr. Vance said in the debate. “When did Iran and Hamas and their proxies attack Israel? It was during the administration of Kamala Harris.”
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