Harris presidential campaign’s appointment of Ilan Goldenberg as Jewish liaison and Nasrina Bargzie as liaison to Muslims last week has deepened already existing concerns in the Jewish community about her intentions for the Middle East and combating campus antisemitism.
Goldenberg, who most recently served as an adviser to Vice President Harris on the Middle East, will now guide the campaign on “issues related to the U.S.-Israel relationship, the war in Gaza and the broader Middle East,” according to the Jewish Insider, quoting a campaign aide.
However, according to the Free Beacon, Goldenberg has longstanding ties to the notorious J Street, which is in sync with virtually all Palestinian positions on disputes with Israel. He also served as a foreign policy adviser to the decidedly anti-Israel Elizabeth Warren during her failed 2020 presidential bid, when she had some very bad things to say about Israel. He has also been an outspoken defender of the Democratic party’s criticisms of Israel and a critic of Republican efforts to strengthen ties between the U.S. and Israel.
Goldenberg has also been a leading proponent of deepening diplomatic relations with Iran and an ardent supporter of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal – which most Israelis believe presented an existential threat to their country by providing a pathway for Iran to develop nuclear weapons and achieve hegemony in the Persian Gulf. He has also been amongst the harshest critics of all Israeli settlement activities, dismissing out of hand any and all Israeli claims to their legitimacy.
And it was during his tenure as her Middle East adviser that Ms. Harris inched away from President Biden’s almost familial public support for Israel. She did not attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress last month and infamously said of anti-Israel and antisemitic campus agitators that “they are showing what the human emotion should be, as a response to Gaza.”
The Free Beacon goes on to report that Goldenberg participated in a J Street briefing in which he described President Joe Biden’s historically pro-Israel views as “old school,” and said that the U.S. must “publicly criticize the Israelis” and refrain from protecting them in the UN and other international bodies in order to pressure them on the issues.
Goldenberg was also sharply critical of the Trump administration’s Middle East policies. He condemned the move of the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem which he said was a “bad idea.”
And as a general proposition, Goldenberg seems to be all about degrading the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel, if not worse. So, it would be bad enough if he gets to have the ear of the next President on the Middle East, her “Jewish” voice, as would seem likely if Vice President Harris wins in November.
The problems will be compounded if, as would also likely be the case, Nasrina Bargzie, becomes her Muslim voice on the Middle East.
According to Ynet News, Bargzie has long argued that the complaints of Jewish students on campuses regarding antisemitism is “organized legal bullying.” She has criticized the U.S. Department of Education for accepting and investigating complaints from Jewish and Israeli students about discrimination on campus. She has written that she “rejects the central premise of these complaints, that students suffer from a hostile educational environment in violation of their civil right when a particular country or government with which they may identify is subjected to vigorous critique or academic scrutiny.”
However, Ynet reports, she has also supported organizations allegedly behind violent pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campuses and indeed some organizations have been banned over their violence.
In sum, we suspect that both the Goldenberg and Bergzie appointments presage some rough times under a Kamala Harris administration. Not only because of the advice they may give her, but also because she solicited their advice in the first place.
