What Tim Walz Could Mean For Kamala Harris’s Stance on Gaza and Israel

Kamala Harris announced her choice of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday, a decision that has excited Democrats from all corners of the party.

While the pick appears to be a bid to unite the Democratic Party heading into a crucial week of campaigning in key states, Harris’s selection of Walz could also signal a shift from President Joe Biden’s stance on Israel’s war in Gaza. 

Walz offers Harris a strong counterpoint to the Republican vice presidential pick J.D. Vance. Like Vance, Walz is a small-town Midwesterner, but he has built a political career in the progressive wing of Minnesota’s Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party. Walz’s matter-of-fact tone in his criticism of conservatives in TV appearances launched the former schoolteacher and football coach to a new level of popularity in recent weeks.

But it’s also worth focusing on what Walz is not, said James Zogby, especially around the war on Gaza and pro-Palestinian protests in the U.S. Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute, contrasted Walz with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who was widely reported to be the other frontrunner for Harris’s running mate, and believes that rejecting Shapiro in favor of Walz bodes well for Harris’s approach to the world.

“What we have is somebody who will do no harm, who is not going to step on the fact that the vice president is trying to turn a corner,” Zogby told The Intercept. “This is not going to be the policy of Joe Biden — she’s made that clear in a number of ways, even though she can’t break from her boss. But we have every indication that she is going to turn a corner, and [Walz] does not impede that corner turn — Shapiro on the other hand would have become an issue.”

Shapiro has received criticism from the progressive wing in the party for his aggressive responses to campus protesters who were advocating for schools to divest from Israel. In some cases, he aligned with Republicans in Congress who were calling for a crackdown on student protesters. Shapiro has also said he would sign a state bill that would withhold state funding to any institution that boycotts or divests from Israel. The Philadelphia and Pittsburgh chapters of the Council on American-Islamic Relations wrote a pointed letter to Shapiro for failure “to recognize the structural root causes of the conflict” and to “intentionally ignore the civilian loss of life in Gaza” soon after the war began.

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Walz, who has the support of prominent progressive members from his state, Rep. Ilhan Omar and Attorney General Keith Ellison, showed a softer approach to protesters critical of Israel’s war that aligns more with Harris, Zogby noted.

“With regard to demonstrators on college campuses, [Walz] said that he respected the empathy they’ve demonstrated for the suffering of people in Gaza, which is pretty much what Harris has said as well,” Zogby said. “He didn’t call them ‘KKK,’ right? He didn’t call the National Guard to start arresting people. And he’s been in very close contact with the ‘Uncommitted’ people in the state,” referring to the anti-war movement that protested Biden’s handling of the Gaza war through voting in Democratic primaries.

Several weeks after October 7, Zogby spoke with Harris and urged her to “say some things that would give Palestinians hope.” Days later, during a Hispanic Heritage Month event in the White House Rose Garden, Harris seemingly headed Zogby’s concerns and mentioned the war in Gaza, recognizing Palestinian suffering, as well as their right to self-determination, something even mainstream Democrats, including Biden, had been hesitant to say at the time.

“I didn’t expect her to do it that night,” Zogby recalled. “And she got an ovation from this Hispanic Heritage Month crowd, and it sunk in that this is an issue that resonates with people.”

A March poll from the Pew Research Center showed nearly half of adults under 30 opposed providing military aid to Israel. And half of all Americans were in favor of sending humanitarian aid to Palestinians. 

Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and former foreign policy adviser for Sen. Bernie Sanders, said the issue of Palestine and Israel continues to divide Democrats, which he said is mirrored by the debate between pro-worker and pro-business constituencies in the party. He also said Harris’s choice of Walz speaks to where she stands on these dividing issues.

“It’s impossible to know exactly what calculations were made and what issues mattered the most,” Duss said, referring to the Walz selection. “But I think it’s clear that there is a growing constituency in the Democratic Party that takes the issue of Palestinian rights much more seriously than in previous years, and it has to be engaged with and its views have to be taken into account.”

By deciding against Shapiro, Duss said, Harris is showing that she is to some degree listening to this movement within the party. Duss also noted Harris’s speech in March in which she pressed the Israeli government for not doing enough to ending the loss of civilian lives and delivering humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, along with her remarks after her July meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as evidence that she is paying closer attention to Palestinians. 

“That gives some evidence that she is someone who has put more value on Palestinian lives, which is unfortunately something that is missing from Biden’s approach — that reflects her own views,” Duss said. Even so, Duss said he still would like to see more from Harris and Walz in the coming months to further clarify their stance on Gaza and Palestine.

Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, a progressive Jewish publication, was more hesitant when linking the pressure from the pro-Palestinian movement and the Walz pick.

“We just don’t know how much the pressure from pro-Palestinian folks inside the Democratic Party may have played a role in her decision of Walz over Shapiro,” Beinart said. “But it also may not have, right? It could have been that she just liked Walz better personally, and she feels like he’s got all this momentum, and he’s got this great kind of attack on Trump and Vance.”

While noting that Walz falls in line with the typical Democratic stance on Israel and Palestine, Beinart said he will pay close attention to whether he and Harris would advocate for the conditioning U.S. military aid to Israel, something Biden vehemently opposed in his 2020 campaign. The U.S. pumps billions in military aid to Israel each year, and that support has continued even amid the civilian casualties and charges of war crimes in Gaza. The Working Families Party also called on Harris and Walz on Tuesday to commit to the arms embargo in its support of her pick.

“If they open the door to that, that would be significant, because that’s only recently become a kind of even modestly mainstream policy,” he said. “If that’s the case, then yeah, I think that would contribute to the sense that the politics in the party has somewhat changed.”

Beinart did recognize that even the perception of influence of the pro-Palestine movement in Democratic Party is unprecedented. But he also pointed to opposition against New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who was ousted in June after intense pushback from the pro-Israel lobby over his views on the war, and the ongoing opposition to Missouri Rep. Cori Bush in her own reelection bid.

“I mean we still have a situation where where if you’re a member of Congress running for reelection, you would much, much rather be pro-Israel than pro-Palestine from a political point of view,” he said.

Walz has drawn applause for his progressive record as governor for his pro-labor views and for leading an impressive slate of laws passed through Minnesota’s legislature, including expanding child care, a $2.2-billion boost in K-12 education, increased financial aid for low-income families, as well as an executive order to protect gender-affirming care. Duss said the Walz pick and his progressive record also signals to voters Harris’s willingness to continue the party’s post-neoliberal swing, which started in earnest in 2016 with Sanders’s candidacy and continuing into Biden’s presidency with pro-infrastructure, pro-labor bills. 

Some observers also noted Walz’s antiwar record while a member of Congress, pointing to his opposition to a war in Syria in 2013 and his support of repealing the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, which has given the White House broad powers to bypass Congress to conduct attacks and military operations in other countries. 

“On 16th anni. of 2001 [Authorization for Use of Military Force] passage, we’re reminded it’s Congress’ duty to #VoteOnWar,” Walz tweeted in 2017. “#EndlessWar is not sustainable. Time to debate & vote.”

Update: August 6, 2024, 5:01 p.m. ET
The story has been updated to include a quotation from Peter Beinart.