Vice President Kamala Harris will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House at some point during his visit to the U.S., which began on Monday. President Joe Biden, who has tested positive for coronavirus, is unlikely to make the meeting.
Harris has emerged as the likely successor to Biden on the Democratic Party’s presidential ticket in 2024, after the president announced Sunday that he would not continue as the candidate, though he will serve the rest of his term.
The Times of Israel reported:
US Vice President and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week at the White House, her office reiterates as the premier’s separate sit-down with US President Joe Biden is in jeopardy due to the latter’s bout with COVID-19.
Harris’s office and National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said last week that the vice president would meet Netanyahu when he was in town. In a statement, Harris’s office is now offering more information regarding the meeting, but does not however announce a time for the sit-down.
The statement attributed to a Harris aide says the vice president will use the meeting with Netanyahu to convey “her view that it is time for the war to end in a way in which Israel is secure, all hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza ends and the Palestinian people can enjoy their right to dignity, freedom, and self-determination.”
As Breitbart News reported Monday, Harris declined to preside over Netanyahu’s address to a special joint session of Congress at 2:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
Harris has a mixed record on Israel. She, like most of the other Democratic presidential candidates, boycotted the conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in 2019, then met separately with the group.
More recently, she praised the “emotion” behind anti-Israel protests (while rejecting their antisemitism). She warned Israel of consequences if it attacked Hamas in the town of Rafah in Gaza — “I have studied the maps,” she infamously declared — and bizarrely mourned the loss of “innocent lives” in Israel’s daring rescue of four hostages in Gaza.
One of those rescued hostages, Noa Argamani, will be accompanying Netanyahu on his U.S. visit, along with her father.
Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, is Jewish, and helped lead the Biden administration’s controversial antisemitism “strategy” — which included working with an antisemitic Muslim group to protect extreme criticism of Israel.
Netanyahu is reportedly seeking a meeting with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump this week as well.
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.
