Vice President Kamala Harris met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in private Thursday and followed it with a strikingly forceful call on his government to get a cease-fire deal done and ease the suffering of civilians in Gaza.
Harris, as she works to define herself as her party’s new likely nominee, did not diverge from Biden administration policy except perhaps in the directness of her message.
“Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters,” she said.
Harris, standing in front of a row of American flags, delivered on-camera remarks soon after the meeting ended. She told reporters that she had a “frank” conversation with Netanyahu.
The vice president said a two-state solution is the only path to ensure it remains a “secure, Jewish and democratic state,” while providing Palestinians with the “freedom” they “deserve.”
She pleaded with Americans to understand the complexity of the foreign policy issue, urging them to condemn acts of hate, antisemitism, Islamophobia and violence, a day after some protesters burned American flags and voiced support for Hamas in Washington
She addressed head-on the Democratic unrest that has been facing the Biden administration for months.
“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 said. “So to everyone who has been calling for a cease-fire, and to everyone who has been calling for peace, I see you and I hear you. Let’s get the deal done so we can get a cease-fire to end the war. Let’s bring the hostages home, and let’s provide much-needed relief to the Palestinian people.”
The substance of the vice president’s remarks didn’t diverge from President Joe Biden’s past comments, but her delivery was notable and offered the clearest picture of Harris’ views on the conflict to date.
Just days into her young campaign for president, Harris faces the political challenge of defining herself on one of the country’s most fraught foreign policy issues, while continuing to serve under Biden as he works to finalize a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas.
It remains unclear if and how the vice president might try to distance herself from Biden’s Israel-Gaza policy, though there has been some daylight between the two leaders in the past. In December, Harris told administration officials, including the president, that she wanted the White House to show more public concern for the humanitarian devastation in Gaza — Biden sharpened his public criticism of Israel in the months after. And she also argued at the time that the administration needed to begin making “day after” plans for how to handle the aftermath of the war.
Biden met with Netanyahu ahead of Harris’ meeting, urging the Israeli prime minister to secure a cease-fire deal in Gaza — and the Israeli leader committed to hostages’ families that he would step up negotiations with Hamas. They held their high-stakes meeting in the Oval Office on Thursday, the leaders’ first meeting since October and after months of growing frustration in the White House about Netanyahu’s approach to the war.
No longer worried about his political future after ending his reelection bid, Biden pledged to take a tougher tone with Netanyahu — with whom he has frequently clashed — to reach an agreement with Hamas to free the group’s hostages and end the fighting that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.
The slow pace of negotiations has angered both Biden and the families of the hostages still being held in Gaza. After the president and prime minister met for 90 minutes, they then spent another hour with the families of Americans still being held captive by Hamas — and the anguished loved one said they felt some new hope.
“After the meeting we feel more optimistic than we have at any point since the previous hostage deal last November,” said Jonathan Dekel-Chen, the father of Sagy Chen, told reporters. “Biden and Netanyahu pledged that they understand that time should not be wasted and that the current deal on the table should be completed with as few changes as possible.”
“With each passing day bringing our loved ones back alive becomes less likely,” he said.
Dekel-Chen stressed that the families told Biden and Netanyahu that a deal must be concluded to return all the hostages and end the suffering in Gaza. The families said that Netanyahu denied he was slow-walking the negotiations for his own political benefit and vowed to send a new proposal to Hamas in the coming days.
The war started when Hamas surged across the border on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s invasion of Gaza, including many civilians.
After bowing out of the presidential race, Biden vowed to make a cease-fire deal a centerpiece of his remaining time in office. National Security spokesman John Kirby, who spoke to reporters as the men met, said that the president believed “strongly that it was time to get a hostage deal in place.”
“The president is reaffirming to Prime Minister Netanyahu that we need to get there and we need to get there soon,” Kirby said. “There are gaps that remain. But we believe that they are of a nature that can be closed, and we can achieve a deal. But it will require, as it always does, some leadership, some compromise, and some effort to get there.”
U.S. officials have said that negotiations in the region would resume next week and that a deal could be struck before long.
Netanyahu is also slated to visit Trump at the Republican nominee’s Mar-a-Lago estate on Friday.
