Vice President Kamala Harris has expressed mixed views on Israel over the last several years, an issue that is sure to be highlighted as she takes over at the top of the Democratic ticket at the same time as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington.
Harris has often been an advocate for Jewish causes and frequently supported the U.S. alliance with Israel since joining the Senate in 2017, but cracks in the now-vice president’s support for the Jewish state have started to show amid the country’s monthslong invasion of neighboring Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks.
Shortly after taking office in 2017, Harris and husband Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, traveled to Israel. The trip was the third for Harris, according to a report from the Times of Israel, but the first for her husband, highlighting the importance of the country to a senator who had spent much of her upbringing around the Jewish community.
That same year, Harris made one of her first speeches as a senator to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the report notes, where the freshman senator boasted that she had introduced a resolution condemning the United Nations Security Council’s resolution that condemned Israel.
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Vice President Kamala Harris declined to preside over a joint address of Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Getty Images)
“I believe that a resolution to this conflict cannot be imposed. It must be agreed upon by the parties themselves. Peace can only come through a reconciliation of differences and that can only happen at the negotiating table,” Harris said during the speech. “I believe that when any organization delegitimizes Israel, we must stand up and speak out for Israel to be treated equally.”
Harris’ friendly relationship with Israel and the Jewish community continued after the election of President Biden, with the vice president encouraging her husband to be the first to install mezuzahs, which are inscribed with verses from the Torah, at the vice presidential residence.
Emhoff has since gone on to chair the Biden administration’s task force to combat antisemitism, a cause those close to Harris say the vice president has been deeply involved in.
However, supporters of Israel worry that the now-Democratic nominee’s support for the Jewish state has started to wane, arguing that Harris has seemingly distanced herself slightly from Biden since the conflict in Gaza began.
In March, Harris became the first administration official to call for an “immediate ceasefire” in the conflict. Later that month, during an interview with ABC News, Harris became the first administration official to warn that there could be “consequences” if the country went ahead with a planned invasion of Rafah.
“We have been clear in multiple conversations and in every way that any major military operation in Rafah would be a huge mistake,” she told the outlet.
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That interview also highlighted a potentially fraying relationship between Harris and Netanyahu, with the vice president dodging questions about whether the Israeli prime minister was an “obstacle to peace.”
“I believe that we have got to continue to enforce what we know to be and should be the priorities in terms of what is happening in Gaza,” Harris said in response. “We’ve been very clear that far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. We have been very clear that Israel and the Israeli people and Palestinians are entitled to an equal amount of security and dignity.”
Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at West Allis Central High School during her first campaign rally in Milwaukee on July 23, 2024. (KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
The ABC News interview came after the vice president raised eyebrows earlier in the month for meeting with Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s wartime cabinet and a longtime rival of Netanyahu. According to a White House readout of the meeting, Harris “expressed her deep concern about the humanitarian conditions in Gaza.”
According to a report from The Associated Press, Gantz made the trip despite objections from Netanyahu.
Harris has also seemingly showed sympathy for the anti-Israel student protests that broke out across the country earlier this year, despite many Jewish students complaining that the demonstrations were antisemitic.
“They are showing exactly what the human emotion should be, as a response to Gaza,” Harris said in an interview with The Nation earlier this month. “There are things some of the protesters are saying that I absolutely reject, so I don’t mean to wholesale endorse their points. But we have to navigate it. I understand the emotion behind it.”
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Critics have taken note of the subtle shift, arguing that Harris has staked out a stance less supportive of Israel than Biden.
“Biden made many mistakes regarding Israel, but he is miles ahead of Harris in terms of support for Israel,” former Trump administration Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said during an interview with the Jerusalem Post. “She is on the fringe of the progressive wing of the party, which sympathizes more with the Palestinian cause.”
The evolution of Harris’ position on Israel comes amid a backdrop of Netanyahu’s visit and the vice president’s sudden ascent to the Democratic nominee for president. On Tuesday, it was revealed that Harris would not preside over Netanyahu’s joint address to Congress on Wednesday, instead opting to honor a longstanding commitment to attend the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Grand Boule in Indianapolis.
Vice President Kamala Harris called her husband in a fit of rage after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade earlier this year. (Reuters/Hannah Beier)
The vice president would typically reside over a joint address, but Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin has been tapped to fill the role in the absence of Harris.
An aide to Harris stressed that the vice president’s decision not to preside over the address should not be taken as a change of her stance on Israel, according to a Fox News Digital report Tuesday, with the aide noting that the vice president plans to meet with Netanyahu at the White House this week in a separate meeting from Biden’s.
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The aide added Harris is expected to reiterate her stance that Israel has a right to defend itself and once again condemn the Oct. 7, 2023 attack against Israeli civilians, but will also stress the need for Israel to help improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Nevertheless, Harris’ decision to skip the event elicited immediate backlash, with one Israeli official telling the Telegraph that the vice president is “unable to distinguish between good and evil” and that declining to preside over the address is “not a way to treat an ally.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video message on Wednesday, slamming the ongoing anti-Israel protests at American college campuses. (Office of Israels Prime Minister)
The decision was also condemned by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, according to a report in the New York Post, who accused the vice president of abandoning an American ally.
“It is outrageous to me and inexcusable that Kamala Harris is boycotting Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech,” Johnson, who will preside over the address with Cardin, said. “The idea that Democrats are making political calculations when our ally is in such dire straits, fighting for its very survival… is unconscionable to us.”
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The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.