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SvennoJ on 29 July 2024
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Outrage after Harris, Australia’s Wong refer to Majdal Shams as ‘Israeli’ town

Legal experts have criticised statements from US Vice President Kamala Harris and Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong that described Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights as an Israeli town, although it is located in a territory that is internationally recognised as part of Syria.

Israel occupied two-thirds of the strategic Golan Heights plateau after capturing it in the Six-Day War in 1967, and annexed the territory in 1981.

Adil Haque, a law professor at Rutgers University, said Harris’s condemnation of the attack on the Golan Heights was “entirely appropriate” but “recognition of Israel’s illegal annexation of the Golan Heights is not”.

Kamala Harris shifts tone on Gaza, but advocates say US voters want more

The US vice president and the Democratic Party’s likely presidential nominee has said that she will “not be silent” in the face of Palestinian suffering, but rights advocates want to know exactly what that means for Washington’s foreign policy.

They say expressing sympathy for Palestinians without pursuing a meaningful shift away from the US’s policy of unconditional military and diplomatic support will not help Harris win back voters alienated by President Joe Biden’s approach to the war.

“Without an actual commitment to stop killing the children of Gaza, I don’t care about her empathy for them,” said Eman Abdelhadi, a sociologist at the University of Chicago. She stressed that the US bears “responsibility” for the atrocities committed against Palestinians.

“To be empathetic to someone that you’re shooting in the head is not exactly laudable. We don’t need empathy from these people. We need them to stop providing the weapons and the money that is actively killing the people that they’re supposedly empathising with.”