Vice presidential address: Kamala Harris speaks to a crowd in New York July 22. Credit: Photocuts / Shutterstock
Kamala Harris vows she will be more vocal about the ongoing conflict between Israel and Gaza as US president.
Kamala Harris expressed a nuanced view of the conflict, defending Israel’s right to defend itself as well as expressing concern about the civilian cost of Israel’s tactics.
“Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters. What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating, ” said Harris, the presumptive Democratic Party candidate to run against Trump. “The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time, We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent,”
These statements have given the world a clearer view of Harris’s stance on the ongoing conflict to date, and while her statements advocating for the plight of Gazans have attracted backlash from those across the aisle and within her own party, she has also advocated positions taken by Biden’s government, such as “ironclad support” and “unwavering commitment” to Israel.
Friendly fire
Detractors of Harris on the left find these views antithetical, and Harris’s former national security advisor during her time as a senator, Halie Soifer, illustrates how there may be more in common with Biden’s pro-Israel views than radical Democrats would like to see.
“She and President Biden are in lockstep when it comes to Israel. There is no daylight between them to be found,” said Halie Soifer, who was Harris’ national security adviser when she was a senator.
Netanyahu’s speech
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, made a recent trip to Washington and gave a nearly hour-long address to Congress on July 24, in which he took a forceful stance against detractors of his, including Iran and the International Criminal Court. In his address, he referred to anti-Israel protestors as “Iran’s useful idiots” and went on to further renounce the protestors, saying, “The outrageous slanders that paint Israel as racist and genocidal are meant to delegitimize Israel, to demonise the Jewish state, and to demonise Jews everywhere,”
Kamala not in attendance
Kamala Harris did not attend the speech, and while she did not boycott the event like several other Democrats, she instead attended an address to address a sorority in Indiana on how black female voters can get more involved in November’s election. Harris, however, met later that week with Netanyahu about the relationship between the two countries going forward.
“As I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done,” she said. “So to everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire, and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you and I hear you.” said Harris
