Vice President Kamala Harris told CBS News on Friday that she distinguishes between the Israeli government and the Israeli people, as if Israel were not democratic, and as if Israelis disagreed with their government over the war in Gaza.
Harris spoke to CBS News and responded to a question about whether the Biden administration would end military aid to Israel over the death of 30,000 Palestinians. (CBS did not distinguish between terrorists and civilians killed).
“It’s important for us to distinguish or at least not conflate the Israeli government with the Israeli people,” she said.
It was not clear what Harris meant. The idea that one does not conflate a people and their government is usually expressed with regard to autocratic regimes; Israeli voters elected their current government in November 2022.
Moreover, while Netanyahu has faced strong opposition over domestic issues, Israelis broadly support his conduct of the war — and oppose the Biden administration’s vision for the region such as a “two-state solution.” A recent Gallup poll showed that nearly two-thirds of Israelis oppose the creation of a Palestinian state — a reversal from a decade ago.
Not even Americans support the Biden administration’s policies. A recent poll showed that nearly two-thirds of Americans support an Israeli attack on Hamas terrorists in the city of Rafah, which Biden has opposed publicly.
Harris’s confused response reflects an enduring hostility among Democrats toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On Saturday, Biden said he believes Netanyahu is “hurting” Israel more than “helping” it — a bizarre statement about an lay in the middle of a war. Biden snubbed Netanyahu for most of the latter’s first year in office. But as Netanyahu has repeatedly said, opposing his policies on the war means opposing the majority of the Israeli people.
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 recent book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.