Opinion | Farrukh Abadi
On Tuesday, Vice President and Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris announced Tim Walz as her pick for vice president. Walz is the current Minnesota governor, long-time congressman and US military veteran. Walz, like Harris, is a staunch Zionist who has been described by the chairman of Democratic Majority for Israel’s super PAC as a “proud pro-Israel Democrat with a strong record of supporting the U.S.-Israel relationship.”
Walz began his political career in the House of Representatives, serving from 2007-2019. Despite running on an anti-war platform, he voted in favor of expanding the US military budget, US wars in the Middle East, and support for Israel. He voted to renew a 10-year commitment to send billions of dollars in US military “aid” to Israel and also supported a resolution in favor of Israeli settlements that condemned the UN’s opposition to them as well as BDS.
In 2009, Walz traveled to Israel and met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and in 2015, he attended Netanyahu’s speech to the US Congress despite dozens of other congress members boycotting the speech. He maintains close ties with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), one of the largest pro-Israel lobbying groups in the US, and gave a speech at their 2010 conference. He described Israel as having “a commitment to values of personal freedoms and liberties, surrounded by a pretty tough neighborhood”—the freedom and liberty, apparently, to create a neighborhood of concentrations camps, the freedom to rape and torture, and the defense of the liberties of murderous settlers.
In his role as governor of Minnesota, Walz has continued to support Israel. In October 2023, Walz praised President Joe Biden for his trip to Israel, saying: “We cannot let terrorists like Hamas win.” He expressed his opposition to the student protests, characterizing them as antisemitic: “When Jewish students are telling us they feel unsafe, we need to believe them and I do believe them.”
Walz, along with the rest of his state government, are actively being protested by pro-Palestine activists over the state’s investments in companies with ties to the ongoing genocide, worth over $100 million according to the demonstrators. Even prior to the ongoing series of protests, activists have demanded for years that the state repeal legislation that requires state contractors to sign a pledge that they will not engage in a boycott of Israel, a law that Walz has kept in place and is fully in line with his congressional voting record in support of Israel and against BDS.
At a Zionist event on June 2, 2024, hosted by the Jewish Community Relations Council that featured the senior analyst for the Times of Israel, Walz gave a speech where he stated, “[t]he failure to recognize the state of Israel is taking away [their] self-determination. So it is antisemitic.”
Following the announcement of Walz as Harris’s running mate, the Israeli diplomat and consul general of Israel to the Midwest tweeted: “It has been an honor to work with Governor Walz on deepening the Israel-Minnesota partnership.”
Despite Walz’s long and consistent record in support of Israel that actively continues to this day, some have attempted to paint him as being sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and that his views are evolving. A recent Huffington Post article on the topic claims that “pro-Palestinian groups said that they’re cautiously supporting Walz for that exact quality ― he is someone who will listen and be open to shifting perspective.”
However, Walz’s alleged support for the Palestinian cause has amounted to upholding the same positions as the Biden-Harris government, such as his support for “aid” for Palestinians, a two-state solution, and a “working ceasefire.” US aid for Palestinians has taken the form of a multi-million dollar pier constructed near Gaza City that provided cover to deploy a thousand US troops to the area and provide operational support to a failed Israeli prisoner rescue operation that killed and injured nearly a thousand Palestinians. The two-state solution the Democrats claim to support—though they actively undermine any progress toward their own “solution”—is one in which a highly militarily-equipped Israel funded by the US engulfs a demilitarized Palestine obedient to both Israel and the US, similar to the Palestine Authority today. The notion of a working ceasefire does not even stray from Netanyahu’s own position of a temporary ceasefire to return Israeli prisoners of war so that they can continue the genocide.
The idea that Walz will “listen and be open to shifting perspective” also has no merit, and such arguments are undermined by Walz’s continued open support for Israel to this day. Walz’s current positions are the continuation of his positions as a congressman, and he remains a target of pro-Palestine protests in his state for good reason. Just like Biden and Harris, Walz gives lip-service to the suffering of Palestinians while remaining invested in the very basis of their suffering. Not only does he maintain state investments in companies linked to genocide, but he upholds a state law that restricts the freedom to boycott Israel under threat of economic coercion. A look at the history and present facts of Walz’s political career shows his alleged openness is really just his ability to adapt to the needs of the imperialists he serves while deceiving the public along the way.
Photo: Walz poses with Israeli diplomat and consul general of Israel to the Midwest Yinam Cohen on August 6, 2024. Cohen praises Walz for “deepening the Israel-Minnesota partnership” and “standing with Israel during our darkest hour on Oct. 7.” Photo retrieved from X.
