Matt Duss on Netanyahu visit & protests, Gaza policy, Kamala Harris

In his first public call since leaving the race, President Joe Biden vowed to end the war in Gaza during his final months in office as he is set to meet with Netanyahu this week.

But much of the attention will be on Vice President Kamala Harris. The presumptive Democratic nominee will reportedly have her own face-to-face chat with Netanyahu.

CIP executive vice president Matt Duss joined Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s RN Breakfast to discuss. Listen here.

Transcript:

PATRICIA KARVELAS, HOST: More than 400 protesters against the Gaza War have staged a sit-in in a Washington, DC Congressional building ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress. Now in the last hour, police have arrested a number of protesters, binding their hands and leading them away one by one. This comes as Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rescheduled his meeting with Joe Biden, who vowed to end the war in Gaza during his final months in office. Mr. Netanyahu will also meet with Kamala Harris, of course, who is now really the sort of presumptive nominee for the Democrats and of course Republican nominee Donald Trump. Matt Duss is the executive vice president for the Center for International Policy and a former foreign policy advisor to U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. Welcome to the program, Matt.

MATT DUSS: Thank you very much.

KARVELAS: Firstly, what do we know about these arrests?

DUSS: Well, I think we’ve seen as you’ve said hundreds of protesters occupying a rotunda in one of the House office buildings to protest Netanyahu tomorrow. But this is only the latest in these kinds of protests. We’ve seen some of these protesters occupying Congressional buildings and Capitol grounds previously, and of course all across the country, in major cities and on college campuses, often leading to arrests. So I suspect we’ll see protests continue through tomorrow, when Netanyahu is scheduled to speak to Congress.

KARVELAS: President Joe Biden is due to meet Netanyahu this week. Could his decision to leave the race impact their dynamic?

DUSS: I mean, it certainly will. For Netanyahu to come and meet with a President who is no longer running for reelection will definitely change the dynamic but in ways that could potentially be worse for Netanyahu since you know he understands that Joe Biden is no longer bound by the need to focus on reelection and can focus on his efforts in the Middle East, on securing a ceasefire which Netanyah– which sorry, which President Biden has said he would like to do. He’s already putting considerable pressure on Netanyahu to achieve a ceasefire. So I think that meeting will be very interesting.

I also would note that President Biden announced that he would be giving a major, a speech tomorrow tomorrow night to explain to the country his decision not to seek reelection and to step aside in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris, which itself is clearly a move to put a bigfoot on coverage of Netanyahu’s speech. So if Netanyahu was hoping to have a major victory in terms of coverage for a major speech to Congress, he’s not going to get as much of that as he would have wanted.

KARVELAS: Much of the attention, you’re right, has now shifted to Vice President Kamala Harris who is leading Trump in just one early Reuters-Ipsos poll. Multiple US outlets say the presumptive Democratic nominee will reportedly have her own face-to-face chat with Netanyahu. This is kind of important, isn’t it, for Kamala Harris? Because Joe Biden’s been under so much pressure on this issue domestically.

DUSS: I think it is important but it’s notable that I think that conversation with Netanyahu will be private. Of course there will likely be some pictures to come out of it but I don’t think it will be the usual kind of video recorded meeting live, where Netanyahu is able to do his usual sort of thing and filibuster and kind of show dominance against his American patron. But I also think that Vice President Harris does have an advantage here. I would not expect her to depart dramatically from President Biden’s policy here, but I do think that she benefits from not having been in the driver’s seat of the policy. So she really does have the opportunity now to bring back some really important constituencies in the Democratic party that have been really angered and alienated by this policy over the past nine months.

KARVELAS: Do you think she’s going to take a tougher stance on Israel’s conduct? What do you imagine there will be a different policy that she articulates?

DUSS: Well I think we already have evidence that she has been one of the strongest voices– it’s been reported, I should say, that she’s been one of the strongest voices um for you know addressing the Palestinian humanitarian crisis inside the Administration. She of course gave a pretty aggressive speech back in March um lifting up the Palestinian crisis, pushing and criticizing the Israelis for blocking humanitarian aid. From my understanding, I think this has also been reported, she actually wanted that speech to be much harsher but was, it was changed by Biden’s people at the last minute. So I think we can expect to see something of a shift. As I said, I don’t expect it to be a dramatic shift. You know, she is running as Biden’s successor so I don’t really expect her in the short term to really depart a lot from what President Biden is doing. But I do think she has an opportunity to make a better policy that’s both better in terms of the policy but also in terms of the politics if she wants to win.

KARVELAS: If you’re just tuning in, this is ABC RN Breakfast. We’re talking to Matt Duss. He’s executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and a former foreign policy advisor to US Senator Bernie Sanders. We’re talking about Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the United States. So, tomorrow, the Israeli prime minister will address a joint session of Congress. What’s he going to try and achieve in that address?

DUSS: Well I think first off the fact that he is once again speaking to Congress — I think this makes him the foreign leader that has the most speeches before Congress um of any foreign leader. I mean, the his only — it was between him and Winston Churchill, which itself is a sad commentary. So just the fact of him giving this speech is a political win for him domestically back home and globally. I mean, there’s been enormous criticism of Israel’s conduct in this war. We of course have the ICC [International Criminal Court] warrants, we have multiple ICJ [International Court of Justice] rulings. And for Netanyahu to be able to come and speak to a joint meeting of Congress is way to show, ‘Ok, I’m getting a lot of criticism but I still have enormous political power and influence in the most powerful country in the world.’ So again the speech itself is an important signal.

As for what he’ll say, I’m not quite sure. I think it’s very possible that he will use the speech as an opportunity to push back against pressure for a ceasefire, to say that we need more time to finish the job, which is what he’s been saying for a long time. He could surprise people by announcing his acceptance of the ceasefire deal, although I think that that is less likely.

KARVELAS: Hm. You wrote a piece about the Gaza vote in the UK and France. You say that one thing is clear: Palestine will matter in November. Just explain the challenges Democrats face as you see them.

DUSS: Yeah, I mean we’ve seen first protests in the street for months now, going back to very early in the beginning of this war. We saw major encampments in major universities um over the course of the spring. I expect some of those encampments will start back up again when students come back at the end of August if this war is still going on. I think we will see major protests at the Democratic Convention uh in mid-August. And of course we had over 100,000 uncommitted votes in Michigan a few months ago during the Democratic primary, which was a number of Democrats who were using that write-in vote of ‘uncommitted’ to protest Joe Biden’s conduct and support for the Gaza War. So you know it’s you know it’s true that these are not enormous numbers, they are not um a majority of Democrats. But I think this is an election, this presidential election in November, will be extremely close. America is very closely divided and polarized. And even if this ends up being a marginal issue, this is an election that will be won or lost on the margins. It will come down to a few key states including Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennslyvania – perhaps Georgia and Arizona. And if we are talking about a few tens of thousands of votes in any of these states that could swing the election, this issue of Gaza will matter.

KARVELAS: Look Matt, just before I let you go, I think the protest group that is protesting about Netanyahu in Washington is called Jewish Voices for Peace. A few people on our text line are making the point that there are a lot of Jewish people behind some of these movements. I’d just like you to sort of comment on that because it does add another dimension to all this.

DUSS: Yeah, I think that’s right. Jewish Voice for Peace is a major group that is behind these protests. Another group is called If Not Now – it’s mainly young American Jews who have been challenging Israel– support for Israel, and for the occupation and for this war. Bur they are doing this work and these protests in solidarity and in coordination with a range of other groups. Of Palestinian American and Arab American groups, of broader progressive groups. I think just today we saw a statement from a number of labor unions calling for an immediate ceasefire. So I think these groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and others have been at the forefront of the actual direct actions. But I do think that the upset and the opposition to this war is far broader than what we are just seeing in terms of who is showing up um at the protests.

KARVELAS: Thank you so much for joining us, Matt.

DUSS: Very glad to. Thank you.