WASHINGTON — Former US Vice President Kamala Harris said President Joe Biden gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “perceived blank check” in the Gaza genocide, adding that his remarks about Palestinians were “inadequate and forced,” “while he could passionately state, ‘I am a Zionist.’”
According to a copy of Harris’ new book obtained by Axios, the former vice president writes in her book “107 Days, “I had pleaded with Joe, when he spoke publicly on this issue, to extend the same empathy he showed to the suffering of Ukrainians to the suffering of innocent Gazan civilians.”
“But he couldn’t do it: While he could passionately state, ‘I am a Zionist,’ his remarks about innocent Palestinians came off as inadequate and forced.”
Harris writes that Biden’s “unpopularity hurt her in 2024,” and that one of the reasons was because of Biden’s “perceived blank check to Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza.”
She says that Netanyahu didn’t care about Biden’s loyalty to Israel. “He wanted [Donald] Trump in the seat opposite him. Not Joe, not me.”
During Biden’s presidency, Biden and Harris spokespeople denied the two had disagreements over Israel’s Gaza genocide.
In 2023, a Politico story headlined “Kamala Harris pushes White House to be more sympathetic toward Palestinians.”
In response, Harris spokesperson said: “There is no daylight between the president and the vice president, nor has there been.”
On the first night of her book tour, Harris distanced herself from Biden’s response to the Israeli genocide. She also condemned Trump for giving the Israeli occupation government “a blank check.”
“What’s happening to the Palestinian people is outrageous and it beaks my heart,” she told a packed New York City performance center on Wednesday night after being interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters.
“Donald Trump has given (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu a blank check to do whatever he wants.”
Harris on Wednesday also referenced her support for New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a Democrat who has also spoken out against the Israeli assault in Gaza.
Outside the venue on Wednesday night, dozens of activists protested on the sidewalk. Inside, a protester from the audience shouter, “Your legacy is genocide. The blood of the Palestinians is on your hands.” Later, another woman said, “This is your fault.”
Harris responded that, as vice president, she first spoke out publicly about starvation in Gaza a year and a half ago. At the time, she said, she took “a lot of heat” from the Biden administration for speaking out on the sensitive issue.
“I understand your concern and how you feel — I think I do,” she told the third protester. “And the reality of it is where we are right now didn’t have to be this way — in terms of the blank check that this president has given.”
The Biden administration has set a record by spending at least $17.9 billion on military aid to Israel in the year following October 7, 2023, according to a report by Brown University’s Costs of War project.
Critics say her calls for ceasefires in Gaza amid a genocide doesn’t change structural policy, such as weapons transfers. Her team also clarified that she does not support an arms embargo on Israel. Harris also avoided to labe the Israeli assault as genocide. — QNN
