In remarks delivered after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Harris also said she has an “unwavering commitment to Israel.”
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the US Congress again yesterday.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
He has addressed the Knesset four different times, more than any foreign leader in history. He has been there for a while. Netanyahu’s latest speech, yesterday, included the usual flourishes of the president’s State of the Union address. He told stories about guests in the audience to illustrate and defend Israel’s fight against Hamas.
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PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: For the forces of civilization to prevail, the United States and Israel must stand together.
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INSKEEP: The prime minister is meeting with President Biden at the White House today and also with Vice President Harris. How she approaches Netanyahu matters more now that she’s running for president.
MARTIN: NPR White House correspondent Asma Khalid is here to tell us more about that. Good morning, Asma.
ASMA KHALID, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: So I want to ask you about how you would describe the vice president’s policies on Gaza. I mean, obviously, she’s the vice president, so you would assume that her policies would be in line with the president’s. But what would you say about her approach to this?
KHALID: Well, the substance of what she says is similar to Biden. But she’s different in style and tone. A Harris aide described her as having, quote, “an unwavering commitment to Israel’s security.” I also spoke with an adviser from Harris’s time in the Senate, Halie Soifer, who told me about a recent White House event where she saw the vice president take a real leadership role in condemning the use of sexual violence in the October 7 attacks. But really, Michel, the real difference from Biden is how Harris talks about the people in Gaza. Listen to her comments from last March in Selma, Ala.
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KAMALA HARRIS: What we see every day in Gaza is dire. We see reports of families eating leaves or animal feed, women giving birth to malnourished children with little or no medical care.
KHALID: I’ve talked to a lot of people and they’ve commented that Harris shows a greater level of empathy for the Palestinian people than what they’ve heard publicly from Biden.
MARTIN: Does that affect how voters view you?
KHALID: Well, people I’ve talked to in the Arab-American community say that Harris is not seen as toxic like Biden. I talked to Ruwa Romman. She’s a Democratic state legislator in Georgia, a Palestinian-American, and she put it this way.
RUWA ROMMAN: I can tell you right now that if I, for example, tried to go to a mosque or an Arab community event and urge them to vote for Joe Biden, I would never be invited back. The anger is too deep, and the pain is too deep, even for me. I tell people that. And I think people would at least be open to hearing her out and letting her present her point of view.
KHALID: And some Democrats who voted uncommitted in the primary have told me that they’re willing to give Harris a shot. I mean, to be clear, they’re not saying they’re definitely going to vote for her, but they’re still a possibility. I would also say that Harris was one of the first in the administration to show a less dismissive response to some of the protests here at home.
MARTIN: She’s meeting with the Israeli prime minister today, not Biden. What do you expect from her meeting?
KHALID: What I’m watching is how she’s holding up against the president. You know, she inherited this issue now, and her campaign. And after the October attack that killed over 1,200 people, there are now over 39,000 Palestinians dead. And there’s still no ceasefire. And some people will blame her because she’s part of this administration. She has a really delicate balancing act, where she’s trying not to alienate the pro-Israel people who make up a big part of the Democratic Party, but she’s also trying to win back some of the younger, brown, and black progressive voters that Biden has alienated with some of his decisions on this war.
MARTIN: That’s NPR’s Asma Khalid. Asma, thank you.
KHALID: Nice to talk to you.
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