At first glance, Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign choice of Ilan Goldenberg as its liaison to the Jewish community seems like a pro-Israel choice. Still, a closer look reveals that the appointment is symptomatic of an extreme anti-Israel/pro-Hamas agenda. 

His campaign duties will include representing the campaign to Jewish communities, answering questions about the candidate’s policies on Israel and other issues of Jewish concern, and otherwise taking the lead in making the campaign’s case to Jewish voters, including organizing events in Jewish communities.

Goldenberg, 47, was born in Jerusalem and grew up in New Jersey, where he attended Jewish day school and his family belonged to a Conservative synagogue. He renounced his Israeli citizenship to work in the US government.  He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University and is fluent in Hebrew and Arabic.

While this seems to check all the right boxes, a closer look reveals some disturbing details. He led the Obama administration’s negotiating team during the failed 2013-2014 Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. After his time on the negotiating team, Goldenberg worked at the Center for a New American Security and was an advisor at the Israel Policy Forum, both of which support the establishment of a Palestinian state inside Israel’s borders. Indeed, he envisioned Israel retreating entirely to the pre-1967 borders.

He has consistently been a strong critic of Prime Minister Netanyahu. 

Goldenberg supported Obama’s abstention of the anti-Israel Security Council Resolution 2334, declaring the Jewish settlements in “Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem” to be illegal. 

He opposed the Taylor Force Act, which legally mandated ending U.S. economic assistance to the PA if it continued its pay-for-slay program, which paid stipends to terrorists in an Israeli jail and the families of dead terrorists.

He supported restoring funding to UNRWA after it had been proven that many of its employees in Gaza were active Hamas terrorists who participated in the October 7 atrocities.

Goldenberg was a strong advocate for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran deal, which greenlit the Iranian nuclear program and revitalized the Islamist regime’s economy. At the start of the Biden administration in 2021, Goldenberg argued for the U.S. to rejoin the 2015 deal before negotiating a “longer and stronger” deal with Iran. 

He has also been a proponent of Biden’s sanctions on Israeli settlers in Judea and Samaria. 

He was also critical of President Trump’s decision to manifest the Jerusalem Embassy Act by moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, tweeting that he envisioned a Palestinian embassy in the Palestinian capital in Jerusalem. He also opposed President Trump’s recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

In a 2018 Haaretz essay titled “Will Israel Be Forced to Invade and Reoccupy Gaza?” Goldenberg advocated for a Hamas government in Gaza as a long-term solution, reasoning that “Hamas would retain some of its military capabilities.”

“With every crisis, the humanitarian situation in Gaza worsens. There will come a moment when basic order collapses altogether, or Israel is forced to invade and retake Gaza,” he wrote. “The only way to avoid this terrible outcome in the long-term is a sustainable political arrangement that should include both a long-term ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that includes major economic opening of Gaza combined with a Palestinian reconciliation deal between Fatah and Hamas that slowly brings the Palestinian Authority back into Gaza.”

Israeli journalist Caroline Glick slammed the appointment tweeting, “What does it say about Harris that she chose a man for this critical position who rejects the values, interests and convictions of 90% of American Jews?”.

Breitbart summed up the ramifications of the appointment, describing Goldenberg as “anti-Israel, pro-Iran, pro-Hamas.”

“The Goldenberg pick suggests that Kamala Harris will take a hostile approach to the Israel and the Israeli government, and that Jews who support Israel — the vast majority — will not be represented in her administration.”