Vice President Kamala Harris has been telling colleagues in the administration that she wants the White House to show more concern publicly for the humanitarian damage in Gaza, where Israel is locked in a bloody and prolonged battle with Hamas, according to three people familiar with Harris’ comments.
President Joe Biden is among the officials Harris has urged to show more sensitivity to Palestinian civilians, these people said.
In internal conversations about the war in Gaza, Harris has argued that it is time to start making “day after” plans for how to handle the wreckage of the war once the fighting ends, one senior administration official said.
One person close to the vice president’s office said she believes the United States should be “tougher” on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; she has called for being “more forceful at seeking a long-term peace and two-state solution,” this person said.
The people characterizing Harris’s role and comments from the vice president and her team were granted anonymity in order to discuss private conversations.
Harris’ private push to shape the White House message about the war reflects the extent to which Democrats — even the top two officials in the country — are struggling to walk a careful line about the Israel-Hamas war, amid a gruesome conflict that has rattled the Democratic political coalition down to the local level.
It also underscores the delicacy of the tight political partnership that Harris has developed with Biden, despite some longstanding differences in perspective on various issues. She has long been more attuned to criticism from the left than her more moderate running mate, and more determined to align herself with younger and more progressive constituencies in the Democratic Party.
Kirsten Allen, Harris’ press secretary, said “there is no daylight between the president and the vice president, nor has there been” and that the two are aligned and “have been clear: Israel has a right and responsibility to defend itself; humanitarian aid must be allowed to flow into Gaza; innocent civilians must be protected; and the United States remains committed to a two-state solution.”
Beyond that, she added, “I would caution the media about citing anonymous sources in the ‘orbit’ about sensitive national security conversations between the president and vice president that take place in the Oval Office.”
In the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, which left more than a thousand civilians dead and hundreds more kidnapped as hostages, Harris urged Biden to make sure he condemned Islamophobia at the same time as he spoke out against anti-Semitism. The Washington Post reported last month that Harris “suggested” Biden add a line denouncing Islamophobia in his Oct. 10 speech on the outbreak of war.
Since then, Biden, Harris and other administration officials have grown increasingly willing to criticize Israel’s approach to battling Hamas, including this week when the president issued a stark warning to the Israeli government about the potential political consequences of its ferocious military offensive.
The president condemned what he called “indiscriminate bombing” — a criticism he’s previously leveled — and called on the hardline Netanyahu government to “change” its methods.
Harris was not the first or only administration official to publicly stress the importance of humanitarian harm, but her words as vice president carried extra weight to pro-Palestinian activists and others watching.
In recent weeks, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have also rebuked Israel for the toll of its military operation on ordinary Palestinians, with Austin cautioning that Israel risked a “strategic defeat” if it continued incurring such heavy civilian casualties. Harris herself has become more forceful in her rhetoric over time. In early November, she said the U.S. would not “create any conditions on the support” it offered Israel in the war. Since then, parts of the Democratic base have grown more skeptical of Israel’s approach to the war and international sympathy for the embattled nation has appeared to fray.
More recently, Harris has spoken out about Israel’s military tactics in stern terms. After meeting in Dubai with leaders from Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, Harris reiterated that Israel had a right to defend itself — but added that “it matters how” Israel goes about that task.
The United States is unequivocal: International humanitarian law must be respected. Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering, and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating. It is truly heartbreaking.”
After those comments in Dubai, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, told reporters at the White House that there was no difference between how Harris and the president assessed the war and its impact on civilians.
