Vice President Kamala Harris, in remarks Thursday after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said that while she held an “unwavering commitment to Israel,” she “will not be silent” about the humanitarian toll in Gaza.
“I’ve said it many times, but it bears repeating: Israel has a right to defend itself and how it does so matters,” Harris said. But, she said, she discussed with Netanyahu her “serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians.”
In her remarks, Harris reiterated the deal proposed by Biden that would ultimately lead to a permanent end to the fighting, the release of all Israeli hostages by Hamas, and a complete Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza. Earlier Thursday, John Kirby, the NSC spokesman, said “gaps … remain” in the negotiations but “we believe that they are of a nature that they can be closed.”
Harris said she told Netanyahu “it is time to get this deal done.”
Netanyahu met earlier in the day with President Biden at the White House. His visit comes at a critical moment in American politics: with four months to the election, the White House is eager to secure a cease-fire deal to end Israel’s war with Hamas, which began last October with the militant group’s attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people.
Israel’s response has killed 39,000 Palestinians, a significant proportion of them civilians, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
Harris, who is now the likely Democratic presidential nominee, inherits this war as she attempts to maintain a delicate balancing act in a race where one misplaced word on the conflict can cost her support in key states that Democrats need to keep the White House.
“Let us all condemn terrorism and violence. Let us all do what we can to prevent the suffering of innocent civilians,” Harris said Thursday. “And let us condemn anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and hate of any kind.”
She is maintaining the administration’s support of Israel and trying to not alienate supporters of the Jewish state, who make up a key Democratic constituency. But she is also expressing sympathy for Palestinian civilians killed in the conflict and trying to win back some of the young, progressive, Black and Brown voters whom Biden alienated with his response to the war.
“What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating,” she said Thursday. “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.”
Harris and the humanitarian cost of the conflict
As Biden’s vice president, Harris has remained in lockstep with the president on policy, including his steadfast commitment to the security of Israel.
But there have been other times where the vice president has differed in tone, particularly in describing what she has called the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza.
In both public and private, Harris is seen to show a greater understanding and empathy for Palestinians, multiple people told NPR. And they say she’s also shown greater empathy for protesters demonstrating against Israel’s military operation.
“If you look at her public remarks about Gaza as vice president, unlike Biden, she really did manage to convey a much greater empathy and sympathy for the suffering of Palestinians,” said Aaron David Miller, a longtime Middle East expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
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