Rewrite and translate this title What does the US election mean for Palestine? to Japanese between 50 and 60 characters. Do not include any introductory or extra text; return only the title in Japanese.

There are a lot of ways in which the Democratic parties are legitimately “the lesser of two evils”, most significantly on reproductive justice and LGBTQ+ rights. But it’s harder to make that case when it comes to foreign policy, and particularly the question of Palestine. Even the most terrible situation can always get worse, but Gaza is already hell on earth, and every single one of Israel’s atrocities has been carried out with the backing of a Democratic administration.

While Harris on Sunday promised to do “everything in [her] power” to bring the war to an end, this is observably untrue: she has ruled out using any of the considerable leverage which the US has to force Israel’s hand. It seems obscene to invoke Palestine in an effort to cajole people into voting for a politician so directly complicit in the ongoing slaughter of the Palestinian people, but it’s still worthwhile to consider the ways that Harris and Trump might differ in their approach to Palestine, if only so we know what to expect.

While there is no good option at this year’s election when it comes to Gaza, but Trump would probably be worse. For one thing, we could expect an increase in the suppression of the Palestine solidarity movement within the US, which Trump has promised to “set back by 25 or 30 years”. There is already plenty of suppression happening under a Democratic administration, but Trump could escalate this further – earlier this year he threatened to deport foreign pro-Palestine activists, for example. 

If Trump is elected, the policies toward the Middle East will not change substantially. They may be hardened, but hardened with continuity

“If Trump is elected, the policies toward the Middle East will not change substantially. They may be hardened, but hardened with continuity,” Dr Gilbert Achcar, Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at SOAS  and the author of The New Cold War: The United States, Russia and China tells Dazed. He suspects that Harris, rather than just being a continuity candidate, would be more willing to criticise Netanyahu than Biden has been. “She has shown that she doesn’t have much sympathy for him. She was absent from Congress when he came in July and everybody understood what that meant, even if there was a pretext,” he says.”

We haven’t seen much evidence, if any, that Harris is willing to break with Biden at the level of policy, but Dr Achcar points out that there are limitations on what she can say during her campaign: she is running as his Vice President, she is part of his administration, and she is only the candidate due to his support. “She has stressed that Palestinians have a right to freedom and self determination, which is an emphasis we haven’t really heard from Biden, so there are some signs she would be different,” he says.

If there’s one reason to be optimistic that Harris might be better, it’s that Biden is a uniquely bad president when it comes to Palestine. “Don’t forget that his record is the most pro-Israeli of any American politician,” Dr Achcar. “He has not exerted any kind of pressure on Netanyahu – everything Netanyahu has done until now has been done with his full support – and I don’t think that a Harris administration would behave in the same way. Of course, the United States will remain committed to Israel, but Biden’s commitment to goes beyond even the rational interests of the United States – it’s creating a political time bomb in the region. If Trump wins, this will get worse, and we can probably expect a war with Iran. But I can’t imagine Kamala signing up for that.”

Derek Davison, author of the Foreign Exchanges Substack and one of the hosts of American Prestige, a podcast about American policy (both of which I’d highly recommend) takes a more sceptical view of Harris’s position on Gaza. “I grant you that she is in a difficult position because she can’t be seen to break with Biden,” he says. “But there are still ways that you can signal that you’re going to do something differently in these areas, especially when polling suggests there’s a very large constituency in the US that wants an end to this conflict and is willing to consider things like restricting Israeli weapons and putting more pressure on the Israeli government. And she’s done none of that.” 

[Harris] can’t be seen to break with Biden, but there are still ways that you can signal that you’re going to do something differently in these areas

As Davison sees it, Harris seems to be going out of her way to antagonise people who are concerned about Gaza instead of seeking to assuage them: take last week’s decision to send Bill Clinton to Michigan – which has the highest Arab-American population in the US – to talk about Israel’s right to settle “Judea and Samaria” (in other words, the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank) and how it has been “forced” to kill civilians in Gaza. The Uncommitted Movement – a national coalition which aimed to change her stance on Gaza – eventually declined to endorse Harris due to her “unwillingness to shift on unconditional weapons policy” and failure to meet with Palestinian families. Even at the level of rhetoric and gestures, her campaign has largely been terrible.

But Trump could still be worse. “He would take the leash off even more than it has been for Benjamin Netanyahu,” says Davison. There are also reasons to be concerned about what the rebuilding of Gaza would look like under a Trump administration. Jared Kushner – his son-in-law and a senior advisor during his previous term – is already eyeing up Gaza’s potentially “very valuable[…] waterfront property” and advocating for Israel to “move out” its civilian population to being the process of “cleaning it up,” while Trump himself has said that Gaza could be “better than Monaco” if it was “rebuilt the right way”. According to Dr Achcar, a full annexation of Gaza becomes more likely under a Trump presidency.

The future of the strip might not be so garishly dystopian under a Harris presidency, but the destruction wrought so far has been so severe that it looks bleak in either case: the UN recently released a report which estimated that, if the current blockade of Gaza continues, it could take 350 years to rebuild it. “I just don’t see a Harris administration taking firm steps to force the rebuilding of Gaza over Israeli objections,” says Davison. “I’m sympathetic to the argument that the situation can always be worse and, under Trump, the fear is that you would see a full ethnic cleansing and the rebuilding of Gaza as an Israeli resort town – that’s certainly possible. But we’re seeing ethnic cleansing happening right now in Northern Gaza: they are surrounding neighbourhoods, forcing people to leave, keeping aid out, starving people – and the Biden administration has done nothing. Over the last few months, I haven’t seen Kamala demonstrate that she and her administration would be different or how they would be different.”

There are a lot of ways in which the Democratic parties are legitimately “the lesser of two evils”, most significantly on reproductive justice and LGBTQ+ rights. But it’s harder to make that case when it comes to foreign policy, and particularly the question of Palestine. Even the most terrible situation can always get worse, but Gaza is already hell on earth, and every single one of Israel’s atrocities has been carried out with the backing of a Democratic administration.

While Harris on Sunday promised to do “everything in [her] power” to bring the war to an end, this is observably untrue: she has ruled out using any of the considerable leverage which the US has to force Israel’s hand. It seems obscene to invoke Palestine in an effort to cajole people into voting for a politician so directly complicit in the ongoing slaughter of the Palestinian people, but it’s still worthwhile to consider the ways that Harris and Trump might differ in their approach to Palestine, if only so we know what to expect.

While there is no good option at this year’s election when it comes to Gaza, but Trump would probably be worse. For one thing, we could expect an increase in the suppression of the Palestine solidarity movement within the US, which Trump has promised to “set back by 25 or 30 years”. There is already plenty of suppression happening under a Democratic administration, but Trump could escalate this further – earlier this year he threatened to deport foreign pro-Palestine activists, for example. 

If Trump is elected, the policies toward the Middle East will not change substantially. They may be hardened, but hardened with continuity

“If Trump is elected, the policies toward the Middle East will not change substantially. They may be hardened, but hardened with continuity,” Dr Gilbert Achcar, Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at SOAS  and the author of The New Cold War: The United States, Russia and China tells Dazed. He suspects that Harris, rather than just being a continuity candidate, would be more willing to criticise Netanyahu than Biden has been. “She has shown that she doesn’t have much sympathy for him. She was absent from Congress when he came in July and everybody understood what that meant, even if there was a pretext,” he says.”

We haven’t seen much evidence, if any, that Harris is willing to break with Biden at the level of policy, but Dr Achcar points out that there are limitations on what she can say during her campaign: she is running as his Vice President, she is part of his administration, and she is only the candidate due to his support. “She has stressed that Palestinians have a right to freedom and self determination, which is an emphasis we haven’t really heard from Biden, so there are some signs she would be different,” he says.

If there’s one reason to be optimistic that Harris might be better, it’s that Biden is a uniquely bad president when it comes to Palestine. “Don’t forget that his record is the most pro-Israeli of any American politician,” Dr Achcar. “He has not exerted any kind of pressure on Netanyahu – everything Netanyahu has done until now has been done with his full support – and I don’t think that a Harris administration would behave in the same way. Of course, the United States will remain committed to Israel, but Biden’s commitment to goes beyond even the rational interests of the United States – it’s creating a political time bomb in the region. If Trump wins, this will get worse, and we can probably expect a war with Iran. But I can’t imagine Kamala signing up for that.”

Derek Davison, author of the Foreign Exchanges Substack and one of the hosts of American Prestige, a podcast about American policy (both of which I’d highly recommend) takes a more sceptical view of Harris’s position on Gaza. “I grant you that she is in a difficult position because she can’t be seen to break with Biden,” he says. “But there are still ways that you can signal that you’re going to do something differently in these areas, especially when polling suggests there’s a very large constituency in the US that wants an end to this conflict and is willing to consider things like restricting Israeli weapons and putting more pressure on the Israeli government. And she’s done none of that.” 

[Harris] can’t be seen to break with Biden, but there are still ways that you can signal that you’re going to do something differently in these areas

As Davison sees it, Harris seems to be going out of her way to antagonise people who are concerned about Gaza instead of seeking to assuage them: take last week’s decision to send Bill Clinton to Michigan – which has the highest Arab-American population in the US – to talk about Israel’s right to settle “Judea and Samaria” (in other words, the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank) and how it has been “forced” to kill civilians in Gaza. The Uncommitted Movement – a national coalition which aimed to change her stance on Gaza – eventually declined to endorse Harris due to her “unwillingness to shift on unconditional weapons policy” and failure to meet with Palestinian families. Even at the level of rhetoric and gestures, her campaign has largely been terrible.

But Trump could still be worse. “He would take the leash off even more than it has been for Benjamin Netanyahu,” says Davison. There are also reasons to be concerned about what the rebuilding of Gaza would look like under a Trump administration. Jared Kushner – his son-in-law and a senior advisor during his previous term – is already eyeing up Gaza’s potentially “very valuable[…] waterfront property” and advocating for Israel to “move out” its civilian population to being the process of “cleaning it up,” while Trump himself has said that Gaza could be “better than Monaco” if it was “rebuilt the right way”. According to Dr Achcar, a full annexation of Gaza becomes more likely under a Trump presidency.

The future of the strip might not be so garishly dystopian under a Harris presidency, but the destruction wrought so far has been so severe that it looks bleak in either case: the UN recently released a report which estimated that, if the current blockade of Gaza continues, it could take 350 years to rebuild it. “I just don’t see a Harris administration taking firm steps to force the rebuilding of Gaza over Israeli objections,” says Davison. “I’m sympathetic to the argument that the situation can always be worse and, under Trump, the fear is that you would see a full ethnic cleansing and the rebuilding of Gaza as an Israeli resort town – that’s certainly possible. But we’re seeing ethnic cleansing happening right now in Northern Gaza: they are surrounding neighbourhoods, forcing people to leave, keeping aid out, starving people – and the Biden administration has done nothing. Over the last few months, I haven’t seen Kamala demonstrate that she and her administration would be different or how they would be different.”