The presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris is promoting new digital advertisements that emphasize her vow to “not be silent about human suffering in Gaza” and target voters in Detroit’s predominantly Muslim areas.
According to documents made public by the firms, the advertisements, which started airing on Snapchat and Google on Tuesday, feature a video of Harris expressing sympathy for the people of Gaza. They signal a new phase in the GOP-aligned group’s microtargeted back-and-forth over the Biden administration’s handling of Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, where the ads emphasize Harris’ support for Israel, ostensibly in an effort to sway voters in that area away from her.
The super PAC Future Coalition PAC also released other advertisements, some of which relied on antisemitic “dual loyalty” stereotypes about Jewish Americans, to emphasize Harris’ spouse Doug Emhoff’s Jewish beliefs.
The advertisements, which seem to be the first sponsored advertisements from the Harris team over Gaza, demonstrate how her campaign is attempting to engage with administration detractors on the matter.
The first two video excerpts in the advertisement feature Harris’s words during her July meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which took place four days after Joe Biden declared he would not run for president again. In the advertisement, Harris declares, “I will not be silent,” and then cuts to another footage from that speech in which she talks about the extent of human suffering in Gaza and the deaths of far too many innocent civilians. Although those and other statements made by Harris indicate her support for Israel’s right to self-defense, they are not included in the digital advertisements.
In a different clip from a speech she gave in March, Harris says, “Our common humanity compels us to act” in reference to the situation in Gaza.
Similar sentiments are expressed in a second advertisement, which quotes Harris from the July speech as saying, “It is tragic what has transpired in Gaza throughout the last nine months,” and that “I refuse to remain silent. We cannot permit ourselves to grow indifferent to the pain.”
The advertisements target nine ZIP codes surrounding Detroit, one of which is Dearborn. Political figures who identify as Muslim or Arab American have criticized Israel’s conduct of the war, and Dearborn has a large population of people of Middle Eastern or North African origin. This year, in the face of criticism, Biden officials met with leaders in that location. Angry opponents then organized a drive to encourage Democrats to cast “uncommitted” ballots in the presidential primary in order to express their dissatisfaction of the administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict and its military aid to Israel.
Representative Rashida Tlaib of the Democratic Party represents most of the nine ZIP codes featured in the Harris advertisement campaign in Congress. American-Palestinian Tlaib supported that protest vote back in February, but she hasn’t declared that she will vote against Harris in the general election.
More recently, the party tried in vain to force a Palestinian speaker at the convention using the few delegates to the DNC that the proponents of the “uncommitted” movement were able to secure.
Regarding its advertising approach, the Harris campaign remained silent.
There seems to be some agreement between Biden and Harris over Israel and Gaza, although both have emphasized their support for Israel’s right to self-defense in the wake of the attack. A cease-fire between the two sides and a hostage agreement is necessary, as said in a speech by Harris that was toned down by White House National Security Council officials, according to NBC News in March. In the speeches that the advertisements reference, Harris openly expressed her concerns over civilian casualties in Gaza.
During a conversation with the National Association of Black Journalists on Tuesday, Harris addressed the matter.
“We are working nonstop to achieve that end,” she stated. “This war has to end, and it has to end as soon as possible, in my opinion. That will be accomplished by completing the cease-fire and hostage agreements.”