LAST UPDATE | 22 Oct

TWO WEEKS OUT from US Election Day, and as early in-person voting begins in key battleground state Wisconsin, the crisis in the Middle East is looming over the race for the White House.

Kamala Harris struggling to find the right words to navigate its difficult cross-currents, while her opponent Donald Trump makes bold pronouncements that the age-old conflict can quickly be set right.

US Vice President Harris has been painstakingly — and not always successfully — trying to balance talk of strong support for Israel with harsh condemnations of civilian casualties among Palestinians and others caught up in Israel’s wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Former president Donald Trump, for his part, insists that none of this would have happened on his watch and that he can make it all go away if elected.

Both of them are bidding for the votes of Arab and Muslim American voters and Jewish voters, particularly in extremely tight races in the battleground states of Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Over the weekend, Harris alternately drew praise and criticism over her comments about a pro-Palestinian protester that were captured on a widely shared video.

Some took Harris’ remark that the protester’s concerns were “real” to be an expression of agreement with his description of Israel’s conduct as “genocide”.

That drew sharp condemnation from Israel’s former ambassador to the US, Michael Oren.

But Harris’ campaign said that while she was agreeing more generally about the plight of civilians in Gaza, she was not and would not accuse Israel of genocide.

A day earlier, the dynamics were reversed when Harris told reporters that the “first and most tragic story” of the conflict was the October 7 Hamas attack last year that killed about 1,200 Israelis.

That remark triggered anger among those who feel she is not giving proper weight to the deaths of more than 41,000 Palestinians in Gaza during the latest conflict.

Trump, meanwhile, has participated in interviews with Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya and Lebanese outlet MTV, where he promised to bring about peace and said “things will turn out very well” in Lebanon.

In a post on his social media platform on Monday, he predicted a Harris presidency would only make matters worse in the Middle East.

Trump posted: “If Kamala gets four more years, the Middle East will spend the next four decades going up in flames, and your kids will be going off to War, maybe even a Third World War, something that will never happen with President Donald J Trump in charge.

“For our Country’s sake, and for your kids, Vote Trump for PEACE!”

Harris’ position is particularly awkward because as Vice President she is tethered to President Joe Biden’s foreign policy decisions even as she has tried to strike a more empathetic tone to all parties.

But her aides and allies are also frustrated with what they see as Trump largely getting a pass on some of his unpredictable foreign policy statements.

“It’s the very thoughtful, very careful school versus the showboat,” said James Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute, who has endorsed Harris.

“That does become a handicap in these late stages when he’s making all these overtures. When the bill comes due they’re going to walk away empty-handed, but by then it’ll be too late.”

The political divisions on the campaign trail augur potentially significant implications after Election Day as major powers in the region, particularly Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, monitor the outcome and its potential to cause shifts to American foreign policy.

A new AP-NORC poll finds that neither Trump nor Harris has a clear political advantage on the situation in the Middle East. About four in 10 registered voters say Trump would do a better job, while a similar share say that about Harris. Roughly two in 10 say neither candidate would do a better job.

There are some signs of weakness on the issue for Harris within her own party, however. Only about two-thirds of Democratic voters say she would be the better candidate to handle the situation in the Middle East. Among Republicans, about eight in 10 say Trump would be better.

In Michigan, which has the nation’s largest concentration of Arab Americans, the Israel-Hamas war has profound and personal impacts on the community. In addition to many community members having family in both Lebanon and Gaza, Kamel Ahmad Jawad, a metro Detroit resident, was killed while trying to deliver aid to his hometown in southern Lebanon.

The war’s direct impact on the community has fuelled outrage and calls for the US to demand an unconditional ceasefire and impose a weapons embargo on Israel.

Although both parties have largely supported Israel, much of the outrage and blame has been directed at Mr Biden. When Harris entered the race, many Arab American leaders initially felt a renewed sense of optimism, citing her past comments and the early outreach efforts of her campaign.

However, that optimism quickly faded as the community perceived that she had not sufficiently distanced her policies from those of Biden.

Future Coalition PAC, a super PAC backed by billionaire Elon Musk, is running ads in Arab American communities in Michigan focused on Harris’ support for Israel, complete with a photo of her and her husband, Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish.

The same group is sending the opposite message to Jewish voters in Pennsylvania, attacking her support for the withholding of some weapons from Israel — a Biden administration move to pressure the longtime US ally to limit civilian casualties.

Harris spokesperson Morgan Finkelstein cast Trump’s approach toward the Middle East as part of a broader sign that “an unchecked, unhinged Trump is simply too dangerous — he would bring us right back to the chaotic, go-it-alone approach that made the world less safe and he would weaken America”.

Early voting in Wisconsin

In-person early voting kicked off today across battleground Wisconsin, with former President Barack Obama and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz hosting a rally in liberal Madison and Republicans holding events to encourage casting a ballot for Donald Trump before Election Day.

Trump lost Wisconsin by just under 21,000 votes in 2020, an election that saw unprecedented early and absentee voting due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Republican former president Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris are expecting another razor-thin margin in Wisconsin, and both sides are pushing voters to cast their ballots early.

Dozens of voters waited in line outside Milwaukee’s municipal building for the start of early voting at 9am. Hours and locations for early voting varied across the state.

Trump was highly critical of voting by mail in past elections, falsely claiming it was ripe with fraud. But this election, he and his backers are embracing all forms of voting, including by mail and early in-person.

The former president himself encouraged early voting at a rally in Dodge County, Wisconsin, earlier this month.

Wisconsin Republican party chairman Brian Schimming said Monday that the vote-early message from Trump and Republicans this year has been “very clear”.

Schimming even put in a plug for using absentee ballot drop boxes, a method of returning ballots that Trump once opposed and that some Wisconsin Republicans still do.

“We need to avail ourselves of every imaginable way to get votes in,” Schimming said on a press call. “If it’s the difference between getting a vote in, or not getting a vote in, I say to Republicans, ‘Put it in the mailbox or put it in the drop box’.”

Numerous Republican officeholders and candidates planned to cast their ballots today.

“You never know when a snowstorm is going to come in November in Wisconsin,” said US Representative Bryan Steil, who represents south-eastern Wisconsin and plans to vote on Tuesday.

“It’s a great opportunity while the weather’s nice to get out to your local office and cast your vote and have that vote banked.”

Obama and Walz, the governor of neighbouring Minnesota, scheduled an early voting rally in the Democratic stronghold of Madison. Harris held a rally at the same venue last month, attracting more than 10,000 people.

Obama was headed to neighbouring Michigan later Tuesday, among the several stops the former president is making in battleground states to encourage early voting.

Harris has been spending a lot of time in the “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania in the final weeks of the campaign, including stops in Michigan and Wisconsin on Monday.

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance was in the conservative Milwaukee suburbs on Sunday.

The Wisconsin Democratic Party was also staging events across Wisconsin to encourage early voting, as were liberal advocacy groups including Souls to the Polls, a Milwaukee-based organisation that targets Black voters.

That is a key demographic for Democrats in Milwaukee, the state’s largest city and also the source of the highest number of Democratic votes.

Early voting in Wisconsin runs until November 3. However, locations and times of early voting vary across the state. Voters do not need to give a reason for voting absentee.

Ballots were sent by mail in late September, but beginning today, voters can request one at designated voting locations and cast their ballot in person.

More than 305,000 absentee ballots had already been returned in Wisconsin.

Voters can continue to return them by mail, in person or at absentee ballot drop boxes in communities where those are available.

All absentee ballots must be received by the time polls close at 8pm on Election Day.