Vice President Kamala Harris said Thursday evening she would not approach the Israel-Hamas war in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza significantly differently than President Joe Biden, who has, with one exception, refused to impose additional conditions on U.S. aid or weapon sales to Israel.
In her first interview as the Democratic presidential nominee, CNN’s Dana Bash asked Harris whether she would do anything differently than Biden regarding Gaza, including by withholding weapons shipments, as pro-Palestinian advocates have been demanding. Harris’ national security adviser, Phil Gordon, said earlier this month that Harris opposes an “arms embargo on Israel,” but Harris had yet to address the matter directly herself.
“Let me be very clear, I’m unequivocal and unwavering in my commitment to Israel’s defense and its ability to defend itself, and that’s not going to change,” Harris began her reply, suggesting conditioning military aid was off the table.
Harris then reiterated a version of her remarks on the topic at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago exactly a week earlier: that Israel must not again endure an attack of the kind Hamas perpetrated on Oct. 7, and that Palestinians have a right to “security and self-determination and dignity.”
Like Biden, Harris implied, gently, that Israel has not done enough to protect Palestinian civilians.
“As I said then, I say today, Israel had a right, has a right, to defend itself,” Harris said. “We would, and how it does so matters. Far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed, and we have got to get a deal done.”
When Bash followed up to ask again whether there would be a change in policy “in terms of arms and so forth,” Harris quickly said there would not be.
“No ― we have to get a deal done. We have to get a deal done. When you look at the significance of this to the families, to the people who are living in that region,” Harris said. “A deal is not only the right thing to do to end this war, but will unlock so much of what must happen next.”
“I remain committed, since I’ve been on Oct. 8, to what we must do to work toward a two-state solution where Israel is secure, and in equal measure, the Palestinians have security and self-determination and dignity,” she continued.
Harris’ comments come as pro-Palestinian activists, once hopeful about her replacement of Biden as Democratic nominee, seek some kind of tangible evidence that she might impose concrete consequences on Israel or otherwise take a tougher line against the U.S. ally than Biden has. They have thus far come up empty-handed with Democrats refusing to grant activists’ demand for a Palestinian American speaker at the Chicago convention, even as the party featured the parents of hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen captured by Hamas.
Harris’ Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, who has taken to using “Palestinian” as a slur, claims to have told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a late July visit to Mar-a-Lago to “get [the war] over with” by winning. He has also faulted Biden for calling for an immediate cease-fire that he said “would only give Hamas time to regroup.”
The Israel-Hamas war, which has, on multiple occasions, threatened to spark a full-scale regional war, is perhaps the greatest foreign policy challenge of Biden’s presidency and will no doubt dog Harris in some form should she take his place in the White House.
After Hamas launched its unprecedented terror attack on Israel, killing nearly 1,200 Israelis, the majority of whom were civilians, Israel responded with a ferocious invasion that has killed some 40,000 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians. Israel has justified the scale of the casualties in Gaza ― as well as the displacement of nearly all of the region’s inhabitants, and a food, water and public health crisis ― on the grounds that Hamas, a guerrilla group, uses a vast network of underground tunnels underneath Gaza’s civilian population.
But numerous human rights groups, diplomats and foreign governments with histories of supporting Israel argue that the right-wing Israeli government has violated the laws of war and committed atrocities. What’s more, many observers suspect Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been reluctant to make the compromises necessary to achieve a cease-fire because prolonging the war is the only way to prevent his coalition government from collapsing or otherwise undermining his political career.
Disapproving of certain Israeli policies, Biden resorted to admonishing Netanyahu in private and public. In an historic step, Biden withheld a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs that U.S. officials believe Israel had been using inappropriately in densely populated areas. He also threatened to withhold more weapons if Israel launched a full-scale invasion of Rafah, a city in southern Gaza.
But Israel proceeded with an invasion of Rafah and continues to engage in military operations across Gaza, albeit at a less lethal pace than in the first three months of the war. That has only escalated calls by Americans sympathetic to the Palestinian cause for the U.S. to either embargo all arms shipments to Israel, or condition weapon transfers on changes in Israeli policy. Biden signed a foreign aid bill in late April allotting $26 billion in military and humanitarian aid to Israel and Gaza, but individual weapons transfers and sales are still subject to White House approval.
Meanwhile, some 100 Israeli hostages remain captives of Hamas in Gaza. Talks for a cease-fire that includes their release continue between the U.S., Qatar, Egypt, Israel and Hamas.