Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for president, said Thursday that “the war in Gaza is not a binary issue,” refusing to see a clear moral distinction between Israel and Hamas terrorists.
She delivered remarks after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for 40 minutes (emphasis added):
And I will close with this, then. It is important for the American people to remember the war in Gaza is not a binary issue. However, too often the conversation is binary when the reality is anything but. So I ask my fellow Americans to help encourage efforts to acknowledge the complexity, the nuance, and the history of the region. Let us all condemn terrorism and violence. Let us all do what we can to prevent the suffering of innocent civilians. And let us condemn anti Semitism, Islamophobia, and hate of any kind.
Harris appeared to have conflated the overall Israeli-Palestinian conflict — which is indeed a complex case of two nationalisms claiming the same land, a tragic conflict of “right versus right” — with the fight against Hamas terror.
Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 without provocation and brutally murdered 1200 innocent people, taking over 250 hostages and raping both women and men. Harris acknowledged that in her statement, but refused to draw the conclusion that a fight to eradicate Hamas was therefore a clear-cut and morally justified war of good against evil.
In his remarks on Wednesday to a special joint session of Congress — which Harris skipped — Netanyahu said:
Our world is in upheaval. In the Middle East, Iran’s axis of terror confronts America, Israel and our Arab friends. This is not a clash of civilizations. It’s a clash between barbarism and civilization. It’s a clash between those who glorify death and those who sanctify life.
For the forces of civilization to triumph, America and Israel must stand together. Because when we stand together, something very simple happens. We win. They lose.
And my friends, I came to assure you today of one thing: we will win.
Netanyahu offered a subtle rebuke of Harris, pointing out that Israel had defeated Hamas in the southern Gaza town of Rafah without significant civilian casualties. Harris had warned Israel against entering Rafah because, she warned, there would be significant Palestinian civilian casualties there. “I have studied the maps,” Harris said at the time.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.