Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris later on Thursday. This will be her first meeting with a world leader since U.S. President Joe Biden announced he was dropping out of the presidential race and since she became the presumptive Democratic nominee.
The meeting could be tense after Harris was absent from Netanyahu's address to the joint session of Congress on Wednesday citing scheduling problems. The prime minister appears to have interpreted her absence as a snub and refrained from mentioning her name even once, in his 52-minute speech.
According to a report in Politico on Tuesday Harris will repeat her commitment to Israel's right to self-defense but will express her hope that the war come to an end soon and the hostages held by Hamas will be freed. She will also express her hope that Palestinian suffering in Gaza will come to an end and that the Palestinian people will enjoy their right to self-determination, respect and freedom.
“Let me just make this clear: The vice president has been and will be a strong supporter of Israel as a secure democratic and Jewish state, and she will always ensure that Israel can defend itself, period. Because that’s who Kamala Harris is,” Doug Emhoff, Harris's Jewish husband said in a call hosted by the Jewish Democratic Council of America and Jewish Women for Kamala.
Still media outlets struggle to pinpoint her positions on Israel, Palestinians and the war. Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee who has been critical of Israel said change was coming. Change is coming to U.S. foreign policy.
“President Biden brought to the White House a lifelong relationship with Bibi Netanyahu and a very mature history on the US-Israel relationship,” Murphy told CNN.
“This certainly seems to be a moment for a reconsideration of the relationship and for some fresh thinking on how to approach an Israeli political landscape that is lurching further to the right than we could have ever imagined,” he said. “I think we would all benefit from getting a fresh set of eyes on this conflict and the way that the United States could try to create a viable Palestinian state.”
"Harris has made quite a few problematic statements in the context of the war in Gaza. I think we also felt the influence of the more progressive camp in the Democratic Party there, and we felt it more as the political season here heated up," Israel's ambassador to Washington, Mike Herzog said. "Is this something that will continue to follow us in the future as well? We will have to see and of course, have a dialogue with her about these things."
The Vice President's office confirmed to Ynet that in their meeting Harris will tell the prime minister that it was time to end the war, return the hostages home and ensure Israel's security.
Her office also said that senior Biden administration officials including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, National Security Spokesperson John Kirby and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will not serve in the Harris administration, if she is elected in November.
Blinken said that the policies of the current administration will remain until the president leave office in January of 2025.