By Norman Solomon
Time is running out for Kamala Harris to distance herself from U.S. policies that enable Israel to continue with mass murder and genocide in Gaza. Polling shows that a pivot toward moral decency would improve her chances of defeating Donald Trump. But during her CNN interview Thursday night, Harris remained in lockstep with President Biden’s unconditional arming of Israel.
Two weeks ago, YouGov pollsters released findings in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania, three swing states now on a razor’s edge between Harris and Trump. “In Pennsylvania, 34 percent of respondents said they would be more likely to vote for the Democratic nominee if the nominee vowed to withhold weapons to Israel, compared to 7 percent who said they would be less likely. The rest said it would make no difference,” the new journalism site Zeteo reported.
Results in the two other states were similar. “In Arizona, 35 percent said they’d be more likely, while 5 percent would be less likely. And in Georgia, 39 percent said they’d be more likely, also compared to 5 percent who would be less likely.”
But on CNN, Harris stuck to echoing Biden’s rhetoric -- calling for a ceasefire while dodging the reality that the U.S. government could force one by implementing an arms embargo on Israel.
Huge U.S. shipments of weapons and bombs to Israel keep allowing it to massacre and starve civilians of all ages while violating federal statutes as well as international law. Days ago, Biden approved sending arms to Israel worth upwards of $20 billion. The transfers were called “sales,” but as policy analyst Stephen Semler pointed out, “most if not all of this matériel is paid for by U.S. taxpayers -- Israel uses much of the military aid Congress approves for it effectively as a gift card to buy U.S.-made weapons.”
Just listening to Harris during her CNN interview, you’d be clueless about the realities that the UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, spelled out in a statement midway through August: “The people of Gaza are now grieving 40,000 Palestinian lives lost, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Most of the dead are women and children. This unimaginable situation is overwhelmingly due to recurring failures by the Israeli Defense Forces to comply with the rules of war. On average, about 130 people have been killed every day in Gaza over the past 10 months. The scale of the Israeli military’s destruction of homes, hospitals, schools and places of worship is deeply shocking.”
Notably, Harris gave no indication of the number of Palestinian lives lost -- while she did say that 1,200 Israelis, including “many young people,” lost their lives on October 7. That most of the Palestinians who died were children and women went unmentioned.
While the vice president said that Israelis were “massacred,” she relied on passive voice to say only that too many Palestinians “have been killed.”
After recording the interview, I transcribed it in full:
CNN’S Dana Bash: “President Biden has tried unsuccessfully to end the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. He’s been doing it for months and months along with you. Would you do anything differently, for example would you withhold some U.S. weapons shipments to Israel? That’s what a lot of people on the progressive left want you to do.”
Harris: “Let me be very clear. I am unequivocal and unwavering in my commitment to Israel’s defense and its ability to defend itself, and that’s not gonna change. But let’s take a step back. October 7. Twelve hundred people are massacred, many young people who are simply attending a music festival. Women were horribly raped. As I said then I say today, Israel had a right, has a right to defend itself. We would. And how it does so matters. Far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed, and we have got to get a deal done. We were in Doha, we have to get a deal done, this war must end --”
Bash: “And in the meantime --“
Harris: “And we must get a deal that is about getting the hostages out. I’ve met with the families of the American hostages. Let’s get the hostages out. Let’s get the ceasefire done.”
Bash: “But no change in policy? In terms of arms and so forth.”
Harris: “No. We have to get a deal done. Dana, we have to get a deal done. When you look at the significance of this to the families, to the people who are living in that region, a deal is not only the right thing to do to end this war, but will unlock so much of what must happen next. I remain committed, since I’ve been on October 8, to what we must do to work toward a two-state solution, where Israel is secure and in equal measure the Palestinians have security and self-determination and dignity.”
When I heard Harris say “I remain committed,” I felt sure that the phrase “two-state solution” could not be far behind. For U.S. politicians and pundits, it has become a handy slogan to assert virtuous intent -- rendered more and more absurd as Israel’s terroristic ethnic cleansing persists in Gaza and escalates in the occupied West Bank. And as genocide continues to gain momentum.
There is every reason to believe that Donald Trump -- who said this summer that the president should let Israel “finish the job” -- would be even worse than Biden as an accomplice to Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian people. But that’s no reason to evade the unconscionable complicity of President Biden in the daily mass atrocities.
A suction tube of euphemisms and evasion has captured many a partisan mind. And so it was from the podium of the Democratic National Convention, when the usually admirable Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez descended into making the groundless claim that Harris “is working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bringing the hostages home.”
In sharp contrast, with horrors in Gaza continuing, fellow Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib has never taken the easy way out. As she has done countless times since last fall, on Thursday she sent out a truthful and disturbing message.
“Palestinian Americans feel invisible, with our trauma and pain unseen and ignored by both Democrats and Republicans,” Tlaib wrote. “We want action to stop the horrific massacres of our families and polling shows that, regardless of political party, the majority of Americans are with us. . . . Yet, even after over 600 weapons shipments since October, including fighter jets, high explosive mortars, and more, the Biden administration has approved another $20 billion in weapons for the Israeli military to commit well-documented war crimes and continue to murder Palestinian children and civilians.”
And Tlaib wrote: “An arms embargo to stop the genocide is not just the moral, just, and right thing to do. It is also good politics.”
Whether Kamala Harris will ever really get the message is unclear.
Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His latest book, "War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine" (The New Press), was published in paperback with a new afterword about the Gaza war in autumn 2024.