Vice President and presumed Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s Jewish community liaison is a fierce advocate of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Iran nuclear deal, a harsh critic of Israeli settlement activity and the US Jerusalem embassy move, and a defender of the Palestinian Authority against efforts to defund it over financial support for terrorism.
Ilan Goldenberg, first reported by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Monday to be Harris’s Jewish community liaison, has extensively detailed his Middle East positions and policies in a catalog of opinion articles, think tank reports, and interviews dating back years.
The new liaison would be shifting positions with the Harris camp from advising her on Middle East issues. Previously, Goldenberg served as Senator Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign adviser, Center for a New American Security Middle East Security Program director, and chief of staff to the special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during President Barack Obama’s administration. Born in Israel and raised in New Jersey, Goldenberg renounced his Israeli citizenship when working with the government and Pentagon on Iran policy.
Defending the Iran deal
Goldenberg has regularly defended the Iran nuclear deal since its development, backing President Joe Biden’s aspirations to return to the deal in 2021. He argued that while the deal was imperfect, it was the best option amid difficult choices, writing in a 2017 Atlantic article that the other options were permitting a nuclear-armed Iran or military strikes.
One of the US’s Middle East objectives, Goldenberg said in a 2015 Senate Judiciary Committee congressional testimony, was to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons. He warned that if Iran would obtain nuclear weapons, it would pursue a more aggressive regional strategy supporting its proxies.
In a 2015 US News comment, he said that it wouldn’t be possible to leave Iran without any nuclear infrastructure because enrichment had become a point of national pride, and the agreement would not eliminate the capability to produce an atomic weapon. The Iran Deal would have instead pushed back the weapons program to the point that it could be easily discovered. Goldenberg assessed that Iranians were unlikely to risk being attacked over betrayal of the agreement.
The agreement “will create a situation in which Iran will be deterred from ever pursuing a bomb because it knows that if it started to dash, it would be caught quickly and attacked,” Goldenberg said in his prepared remarks for the congressional testimony.
He believed that the International Atomic Energy Agency would be able to monitor the Iranian nuclear supply chain to prevent it from using secret facilities and developing alternative development paths.
Goldenberg challenged common criticisms of the bill, such as concerns that relaxed sanctions would allow Iran to increase the funding of its network of terrorist organizations and paramilitary proxies. In his congressional testimony remarks, Goldenberg said that while “some of these funds will go toward terrorism,” most of the released funds would “go toward repairing its economy.”
“It would be irrational for them to now spend all of that money not addressing these core problems but instead funding adventures abroad,” said Goldenberg.
In a 2018 Foreign Policy article, Goldenberg defended the Obama administration for the tens of billions of dollars released to the Iranian regime, noting that the exact sum wasn’t known and it was not a giveaway but Iranian money earned in trade that was inaccessible to the regime because of US sanctions. He dismissed the idea that Iran was on the verge of economic and political collapse prior to the JCPOA but was instead weeks away from being able to produce highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon.
Goldenberg also argued that Iran’s proxies, such as the Houthis, an issue unaddressed by the deal, was a problem -- but not as big as a nuclear Iran. He said it was legitimate for former president Donald Trump’s administration to denounce Iranian support for Yemen’s Ansar Allah, but Obama’s solution was to address a potential Houthi threat to maritime traffic by striking key sites in Yemen and interdicting Iranian arms shipments. The Houthis and ballistic missile development and testing could be addressed through alternate diplomatic avenues without abandoning the JCPOA, the new liaison contended. Nuclear capable missile programs could be dissuaded in a deal in return for permission for a civilian nuclear energy program, Goldenberg wrote in National Interest in 2017. The economic benefits of such an approach would also have economic incentives for Iran.
Goldenberg said in 2017 in National Interest that the JCPOA’s sunset provisions were a “serious limitation of that JCPOA that ought to be addressed.” However, he said the deal’s temporary nature was not a reason to walk away. He told Congress in a 2015 testimony that the Iran Deal should have been drafted for a more extended period of time.
Allegations that Obama did not speak out in support of the 2009 Green Revolution to avoid jeopardizing diplomatic engagement for a deal were dismissed by Goldenberg in a 2018 Foreign Policy article. He argued that Obama had shown that he was willing to confront Iran by revealing the existence of a secret Qoms nuclear facility. He also questioned the practical impact of issuing a statement on the 2009 civil unrest in Iran. Goldenberg also rejected the premise of a 2017 Politico expose that alleged that the Obama administration derailed the Project Cassandra law enforcement campaign against Hezbollah drug trafficking to protect the Iran Deal. Goldenberg claimed there wasn’t enough evidence for law enforcement to move forward with the campaign, and the article didn’t effectively prove the allegation about the administration.
Goldenberg himself fiercely objected to government actions that would jeopardize the Iran Deal. In a 2018 Foreign Affairs article he argued for saving the JCPOA by building on it with snapback sanctions if there were violations to the deal, rather than the Trump administration’s push for reimposing sanctions.
Trump escalated tensions with Iran
Trump’s general Iran policy was a failure that created escalation and increased the chances of war, Goldenberg said in a 2019 Foreign Policy article, going on in Foreign Affairs in 2020 to describe the administration maintaining a “maximum pressure” policy of economic sanctions on Iran.
In contrast to previous presidents, who had been hesitant to respond to Iranian proxies and surrogates, “the Trump administration’s strike on Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani represents the opposite — an unnecessarily provocative approach that almost led to uncontrolled escalation,” Goldenberg said in Defense News in 2020. Instead, Goldenberg said that the US should moderate between the two approaches, emulating Israel’s “War-between-wars” in which it refrained from embarrassing Iran publicly and used military strikes that didn’t kill too many Iranian operatives in Syria. He criticized Trump’s threats to sink Iranian ships harassing US vessels, warning that it could lead to a crisis. He said in National Interest in 2016 that a combination of firm private and public messaging to Iran about maritime activity was the proper path, pointing to the Obama administration’s negotiations to release detained US sailors.
Greater communication with Iran was needed, according to Goldenberg’s writing. In 2016, Goldenberg wrote in War on the Rocks that Trump should cooperate with Iran to fight ISIS in Syria, since “Iranian-supported Shia militias in Syria and Iraq represent a significant portion of the ground forces that are and would be doing the fighting.” He noted that it would be difficult because of moves away from the JCPOA. In Foreign Affairs in 2019, he also called for Trump to make a deal with Russia to replace it in Syria so that it could leave the civil war embroiled state.
Goldenberg advocated for a decreased American footprint in the Middle East, arguing that it could ensure its priorities of preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the spread of terrorist organizations threatening the US, and ensuring the flow of energy products and maritime commerce without relying on military force.
US Policy shouldn’t be “concerned with rolling back Iran’s influence everywhere in the Middle East. While Iran is often portrayed as a boogeyman, it is ultimately a weak, middling power with the GDP of New Jersey but nine times as many residents. It is a problematic actor that needs to be countered, contained, and, when possible, engaged, but making that the centerpiece of US policy in the region is a mistake,” he wrote in a 2020 CNAS report.
In another 2021 report for the think tank on pursuing a “smaller and smarter footprint,” Goldenberg and his team argued that “the United States must be willing to accept more risk in the Middle East while also prioritizing non-military tools” by reducing its regional base network and relocate the majority of significant conventional war assets while keeping special forces and unmanned aerial vehicles.
Goldenberg called for reducing military investment in allied states by training individual counterterrorism units rather than arming national forces and increasing the burden on partners for protecting maritime chokepoints like Bab el-Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz.
“Propping up dictators has entrenched corrupt, ineffective governments. The sale of billions of dollars in weapons has only entrenched the security state in places such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia,” Goldenberg and his team said of US Middle East involvement in a 2020 CNAS report. “Taking sides in the intense competition between different regional blocs has encouraged competition.”
Goldenberg said in his 2015 congressional testimony that the US also had regional interests in the security of its allies, such as Israel, which he said was a “reliable partner who brings significant military and intelligence capabilities to the table in helping pursue our common objectives” and had a deep relationship with America based on a “set of common values and ideals.”
Like with the Iran Deal, Goldenberg’s view of US policymakers needing to make “tough choices” on Middle East issues also made the Palestinian Authority a partner “far from our most reliable or desirable.” However, Goldenberg said that while it was “highly dissatisfying and frustrating,” pushing for reform was better than pushing for its collapse through aggressive pursuit of financial settlements for support of terrorism, which he claimed occurred during different leadership.
Criticizing the Taylor Force Act
In a 2017 Foreign Policy article co-written with ex-US ambassador Daniel Shapiro, Goldenberg criticized the Taylor Force Act, which stopped American economic aid to the PA until it ceased paying stipends to terrorists, comparing the “well-intended” legislation to a “sledgehammer” rather than a “scalpel.”
While Goldenberg and Shapiro acknowledged that the “Palestinian system actually provides more money to those who serve longer sentences” for terrorist attacks in an “abominable practice,” cutting off aid would destabilize the PA. They also noted, qualifying that they weren’t acceptable excuses, that Palestinian culture’s veneration of terrorists prevented political leadership from engaging in reform and the need to help families that lost their primary breadwinner.
The Taylor Force Act didn’t make exceptions for humanitarian assistance, said the writers, who also argued that US aid went through intermediaries like NGOs to help Palestinians and not directly into PA coffers to be earmarked for terrorists.
Goldenberg and his team argued in a 2020 CNAS analysis that the US should instead work with the PA to reform the system by turning it into a basic social welfare system.
In the same item, CNAS called for the resumption of economic assistance to the Palestinian people and funding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). Biden acted in kind in April 2021, restoring $235 million in aid to the Palestinians and UNRWA.
Goldenberg often warned about the threat of the dissolution of the PA in his articles, contending in a 2015 Foreign Policy article that it was Israel’s greatest threat in contrast to Netanyahu’s “obsessive focus on Iran.”
As a member of a peace negotiation team during Obama’s tenure, Goldenberg’s focus has often been the objective of a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians. Goldenberg’s vision of a two-state solution would be based on pre-1967 lines with mutually agreed-upon land swaps, both nations’ capitals in Jerusalem, and a demilitarized Palestinian state.
In his 2015 analysis of the failed 2013-2014 peace negotiations, Goldenberg described problems shared by both the Israelis and Palestinians. The prolonged inconclusive talks had poisoned the atmosphere like divorce proceedings. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Netanyahu were incompatible with one another, and there was a paradoxical incentive structure that made accepting a deal without initial parameters, which also would get stuck because they came with political sacrifice without the benefit of a final deal. However, Goldenberg also saw the US as an imperfect mediator who understood the Israeli perspective better and singled out Israeli settlement activity as toxic for the diplomatic environment.
In a 2020 CNAS report on “A New US Strategy for the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” Goldenberg and his team called for the US to take strong measures against any Israeli settlement activity, evictions, and changes to the status of the Temple Mount.
“The United States must also take early steps to deter Israeli annexation and settlement expansion by expressing unambiguous opposition to both,” said CNAS. “As part of this approach, the United States should make clear that it will not shield Israel from international consequences it might face when it takes actions, such as settlement construction, that are contrary to US policy. “
Goldenberg also called for US actors and Congress to formally recognize a Palestinian state if Israel annexed any sections of the West Bank in a 2020 Washington Post article, arguing that it would prevent the collapse of the PA and boost Palestinian supporters of a two-state solution. In a 2019 Forward article, he said that Israeli considerations for annexing part of the Jordan Valley for security reasons, such as maintaining a permanent presence of high ground so it could repel eastern invaders, was “outdated” thinking and instead proposed a border security system akin to that around Gaza.
“The only force that could seriously threaten Israel with such an attack would be a major army supplied with tanks and tens of thousands of ground troops,” Goldenberg insisted.
Goldenberg, in a 2019 Politico article, called Trump’s recognition of Israeli control of the Golan a “fiasco” that would undermine Arab-Israeli rapprochement efforts and the regional view of the US. Goldenberg also opposed Trump’s move of the US embassy to Jerusalem. While it would reassure Israelis about their place in the world and dismiss the idea that Jerusalem was not and would not be the capital of Israel, Goldenberg said in Politico in 2017 it threatened to stir the pot by not acknowledging Palestinian claims and inciting religious tensions. Goldenberg called to match the move by opening a Palestinian embassy in Jerusalem and recognizing a Palestinian state. In the 2020 CNAS proposal on a new US Middle East strategy, he also called for the reopening of the PLO mission in Washington.
“Donald Trump’s administration has fundamentally undercut the US role in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking by taking a one-sided approach,” said the CNAS report.
Goldenberg wrote in Foreign Affairs in 2021 that Operation Guardian of the Walls indicated that the “old Democratic playbook of unquestioningly supporting Israel has become untenable” because of pro-Palestinian activists and protests, Netanyahu’s closer alignment with Republicans, and progressive ideology.
“Biden has so far pursued a traditional US policy of support for Israel, which still has plenty of backing in the party. Going forward, however, mounting pressure from congressional Democrats to acknowledge the Palestinian perspective will limit his room to maneuver,” Goldenberg assessed.
The position remains relevant during the current Israel-Hamas War, in which Biden has faced intense criticism from anti-Israel activists, which transferred over to Harris’s campaign. According to reports on Wednesday, activists disrupted a Harris campaign fundraiser. Dozens of organizations are set to march against the Democratic National Convention on August 19.
Last Thursday, Goldenberg shared a Harris official’s remarks that she supported Israel’s right to defend itself against Iran and its proxies, did not support an arms embargo on Israel, but would endeavor to protect Gazan civilians.
Yet while the severe sanction of an arms embargo was off the table, and Goldenberg was reluctant to use sanctions against Iran and the Palestinian Authority, Tablet Magazine reported that Goldenberg played a significant role in the US State Department’s move to level sanctions against extremists and radical groups. Trump’s former ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, questioned on Tuesday Goldenberg’s role as a Jewish Liaison when he allegedly prioritized sanctioning Israelis rather than UNRWA, Iran, or the Houthis.
As American Jews have expressed concern about the Democratic Party’s commitments to the Jewish community’s concerns in the wake of the October 7 Massacre, it remains to be seen if Goldenberg’s positions and policies will align with their temperament and guide Harris to restore diplomatic channels to American Jewry. •