They quit the Biden administration over the war in Gaza. But they are backing Harris.
They wrote in an op-ed that they see the Democrat as the best chance to curb violence in the Middle East
Lily Greenberg Call, seen here during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary season with Kamala Harris, whose staff she joined, became the first Jewish Biden administration staffer to resign publicly over the Israel-Hamas war. (Courtesy Lily Greenberg Call)
(JTA) — Two Jews who publicly resigned from posts in the Biden administration over its handling of the Gaza war now say they will be voting for Vice President Kamala Harris.
In a joint op-ed published Monday, on the eve of Election Day, Lily Greenberg Call, 26, and Harrison Mann, 35, expressed anger that the Harris campaign did not publicly call for an arms embargo on Israel. Yet Call and Mann added that — unlike some of their fellow pro-Palestinian activists who may not vote for either major party — they were willing to pull the lever for Harris because they saw it as the best chance to curb violence in the Middle East.
In part, that’s because they believe members of her party would try to pressure her on the issue, while they believe Trump would embolden Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take more far-reaching steps, including annexing the West Bank.
“Harris heads a coalition with a growing number of legislators demanding an end to unconditional support for Israel, including several senators co-sponsoring legislation to block weapons transfers to Israel,” Call and Mann wrote in the left-wing magazine In These Times. “Under a Harris administration, we believe there will be a wider gap in the armor that protects Israeli impunity.”
Mann is a former Middle East intelligence officer, and Call is a former Department of the Interior staffer who also campaigned for Harris in her 2020 run for president. Both have been vocal pro-Palestinian activists since they resigned, separately, in order to protest Biden’s lack of pressure on Israel. Both have also cited their Jewish heritage to explain their opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza.
The two former staffers are part of a network of activists across the country that has pushed for Biden and Harris to scale back their support for Israel. With the op-ed, they also became some of the latest pro-Palestinian activists to encourage their allies to vote for Harris despite those disagreements, as the high-stakes race appears to be virtually tied.
Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian-American Georgia state lawmaker, announced that she would be voting for Harris — and would “swap” her vote with someone in a safe blue state, who would then vote for a third party.
Activists associated with the pro-Palestinian Uncommitted movement had pushed the Harris campaign to invite Romman to speak onstage at the Democratic National Convention, but were rebuffed. The Uncommitted movement, which had also sought to pressure Biden on Israel, did not endorse Harris but has urged its followers not to vote for Trump.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish and one of the most vocal critics of the Israeli government in Congress, also released a video last week calling on voters who oppose Harris’ Israel policy to support her anyway, making a similar argument as Call and Mann. “We will have, in my view, a much better chance of changing U.S. policy with Kamala than with Trump, who is extremely close to Netanyahu and sees him as a like-minded, right-wing extremist ally,” he said.
In their piece, Call and Mann made clear that their endorsement did not temper their criticism of Israel. They called Israel’s military campaign ”openly genocidal” and wrote that they have unsuccessfully tried to pressure Harris’ campaign to address the issue in a way that would satisfy pro-Palestinian voters. They claimed that, even if she wins, Harris may never put pressure on Israel “before the last Gazan is slaughtered, starved or interned (and before the last hostage dies).”
They also acknowledged that they and other pro-Palestinian activists had failed to budge Biden and Harris from their support of Israel.
“We hoped this election would become a referendum on Gaza,” they wrote. “For us, that hope was premised on the assumption that President Joe Biden, or at least Harris, would reconsider their position on Israel if it looked like it would cost the election, either by alienating voters or instigating a larger war. We were wrong.”
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