The Memo: Harris heads to Michigan, the epicenter of anger over Israel, Gaza and Lebanon

Vice President Harris is headed to Detroit on Tuesday for the first of several Michigan appearances this week. She will be in Grand Rapids and Lansing on Friday and back in Detroit on Saturday.

Her visits come as events in the Middle East careen even further out of control. This month alone, Israel has invaded Lebanon and, according to aid agencies, begun to choke off humanitarian aid to northern Gaza.

An Israeli strike on a Gaza hospital complex in the early hours of Monday local time killed at least four people and hospitalized many more with severe burns after tents were set ablaze. Horrific images — shocking even by the standards of a brutal year since the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023 — were widely shared on social media.

Israel contended that a Hamas command center adjacent to the hospital was the target of the attack.

The confluence of events in the Middle East complicates the political calculus for Harris in a state that has the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the nation. More than 200,000 Arab Americans live in Michigan.

In a statement on social media Sunday night, Harris acknowledged United Nations reports that no food had entered northern Gaza in almost two weeks, said Israel “must urgently do more to facilitate the flow of aid to those in need,” and asserted “International humanitarian law must be respected.”

But Harris has ruled out stopping U.S. military aid to Israel — the main demand of progressive voices within her party. Such aid has totaled almost $18 billion in the last year alone, according to a recent study from Brown University. 

She has also said her commitment to Israel’s security is “ironclad.” And, while she has sometimes appeared more sympathetic in tone to the suffering of the Palestinians than President Biden, she has not proposed any break with his policies.

Progressive activists are urging Harris to change course before, as they see it, it is too late — either for the Middle East or for Democratic hopes of victory in an election that is now just three weeks away.

“The infuriating thing is that Kamala Harris could say now, on this trip [to Michigan], that she supports an arms embargo. But we have seen absolutely no sign that they plan to reverse course,” said Eva Borgwardt, the national spokesperson for IfNotNow, an organization of Jewish Americans opposed to Israel’s policies with regard to the Palestinians.

“My question is for Kamala Harris and the Biden-Harris administration: Do they want to win or not? Is Donald Trump dangerous enough, or not dangerous enough, for them to stop funding Israel as it bombs hospital and starves northern Gaza? The American electorate is furious as they continue to learn there are no red lines for this administration.”

Progressive politicians have joined the chorus of frustration.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), in a Monday afternoon post on social media, was more explicitly critical of the White House than she has been previously.

“The horrors unfolding in northern Gaza are the result of a completely unrestrained Netanyahu gov, fully armed by the Biden admin,” the congresswoman wrote, referencing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “This is a genocide of Palestinians. The US must stop enabling it. Arms embargo now.”

The previous day, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) wrote on social platform X that Netanyahu was a “genocidal maniac,” adding “When will our country stop funding this madness? When?”

Michigan was decided by fewer than 11,000 votes in 2016, when former President Trump beat Hillary Clinton — and by roughly 150,000 votes in 2020, when it was carried by Biden.

In February, an “Uncommitted” option on the Michigan Democratic primary ballot — in effect, a protest vote against Biden’s policies on Israel and Gaza — drew more than 100,000 votes, or about 13 percent.

Adding to Democratic concern, a small lead that Harris had enjoyed in polling in Michigan has been erased in recent weeks. Trump currently leads the Michigan polling average maintained by The Hill and Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) by just under 1 point, whereas Harris had led by roughly 2 points through much of August.

As if all that was not enough to jangle Democratic nerves, the Green Party’s Jill Stein will also be on the ballot in Michigan. Stein is far more critical of Israel than is Harris.

At the same time, Harris has come under attack from Trump, other Republicans and conservative commentators for alleged “weakness” on foreign affairs generally. 

Her campaign wants to rebut that attack — and to reassure conservatives who might be persuaded to vote for Harris if they are sufficiently turned off by Trump’s personality and approach. Harris said Monday she would sit for an interview Wednesday with Fox News, a decision that comes with some risks but that also points to her hopes of winning over some GOP voters.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) have both endorsed Harris.

Those endorsements, in turn, have caused consternation among more progressive Democrats, who note the elder Cheney’s role in the Iraq War and the fact that his daughter shares his hawkish foreign policy instincts.

The broad political calculus of the Middle East is complicated for Harris, too.

Polls indicate that a clear plurality of Democratic voters are more sympathetic to the Palestinians than the Israelis in the broad conflict between the two peoples. But the overall population leans in the opposite direction.

Therefore, the question is whether Harris is right, from the standpoint of electoral math, to try to mollify pro-Israel voters in the center and even on the center-right — or whether this is a folly that will lose her more support from the left than she gains from the center.

Nowhere will that be put to a sterner test than in Michigan.

“We’re trying to advocate through every means necessary to highlight the need to change course on Gaza,” Dearborn, Mich., Mayor Abdullah Hammoud (D) told progressive news organization Mother Jones last week.

Asked whether he would encourage people to sit out the election in protest, he replied that he would instead push people “to make sure that they cast their ballots and take care of their moral conscience.”

“What that means for each individual may be different,” he added.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.