Former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday faulted both the Biden and Trump administrations for not applying enough American pressure to restrain Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. She said Washington should have used its leverage “sooner and more forcefully.”
Speaking at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul, South Korea, Harris said the United States had failed to respond adequately to what she described as the Israeli government’s “horrific conduct” during the Gaza war. She criticized the current administration for giving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “blank check,” while also saying her own administration should have taken stronger action earlier.
The Republican Jewish Coalition said Harris’s comments were “unsurprising,” pointing to her decision not to attend Netanyahu’s 2024 address to Congress and her opposition to legislation aimed at the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
The group also took aim at Harris’s call for Israel to halt its military operations in Rafah, where the Israel Defense Forces later located and rescued hostages. It further criticized her for agreeing with a student in 2021 who accused Israel of committing “ethnic genocide.”
Warren Kinsella, an attorney and author who worked on Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign, said after her remarks that he was “ashamed to have worked with her.”