Kamala Harris says US should have pressured Netanyahu more on Gaza war

More than a year after losing the 2024 presidential election to Donald Trump, the only outright mistake the former vice president cited in explaining her defeat was failing to do more to press Israel on its war in Gaza.

By World Israel News Staff

Former Vice President and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris lamented that she and President Joe Biden did not do more to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to limit his country’s campaign against the Hamas terror organization in the Gaza Strip, citing the failure to do more as the one clear-cut mistake during her unsuccessful presidential bid.

On Tuesday, The New York Times published an interview with Harris more than a year after she lost the 2024 election to Donald Trump.

During the interview, Harris ducked questions regarding whether she would consider running again, saying it was too early to discuss a possible third presidential bid.

When pressed to reflect on mistakes she made or policies she would have handled differently than President Joe Biden prior to the election, Harris struggled to find any substantive decisions to cite as missteps, mentioning the ordering of some of the administration’s priorities.

The only issue Harris mentioned where she felt the administration had failed related to Israel and the war in Gaza.

The White House, Harris said, should have done more to pressure Netanyahu to curb Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, “as it related to innocent Palestinians,” without providing details on how she would have handled the matter differently than President Biden.

The interview was conducted as the former vice president held a high-profile book tour in support of her political memoir documenting her presidential campaign, 107 Days.

In her book, Harris criticized Biden over his response to the war in Gaza, accusing him of failing to show “the same empathy he showed to the suffering of Ukrainians” to “innocent Gazan civilians.”