Vice President Kamala Harris said Wednesday that she supported the Biden-Harris administration’s threat to Israel over humanitarian conditions for Palestinians in Gaza — though she denied it warned of an arms embargo.
As Breitbart News reported, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued a threat of cutting off arms earlier this week in a letter to Israeli officials. The letter was leaked and the Biden-Harris administration confirmed the threat. It caused an outcry, including protest from former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren, who said that the threat by the administration “casts doubts on America’s dependability as an ally and its commitment to defend the Free World.”
Nevertheless, Harris is on board, according to comments she made Wednesday to journalists, as reported by the Times of Israel: “Asked by reporters about the Biden administration’s letter to Israel conditioning continued US military assistance on Jerusalem addressing the Gaza humanitarian crisis, Vice President Kamala Harris says the letter speaks for itself.”
In Harris’s exchange with reporters, however, she denied that the letter threatened an arms embargo:
Harris has previously said she was open to discussing an arms embargo, though her campaign later walked that back.
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 Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
