In her first interview as the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris told CNN it was imperative to reach a ceasefire deal in Gaza, but made it clear that she would not alter President Joe Biden’s policy in the region.
However, when pressed on whether she would stop sending weapons to Israel she told Bash, “No, we have to get a deal done, Dana. We have to get a deal done.”
“Adopting an arms embargo against Israel’s assault on Gaza is not only a moral imperative but also a strategic move to defeat Trump and MAGA extremism. It is difficult for the Democratic candidate to champion democracy while arming Netanyahu’s authoritarian regime” reads a recent letter to Harris from the coalition Not Another Bomb.
Recent polling has repeatedly demonstrated that Democratic voters overwhelmingly support the conditioning of U.S. military aid. A Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) survey from March found that 52% of Americans want the U.S. to halt weapons shipments to Israel in order to force a ceasefire. 62% of Biden voters said “The US should stop weapons shipments to Israel until Israel discontinues its attacks on the people of Gaza,” while only 14% disagreed with the statement.
The numbers from a June CBS News poll were even higher, with more than 60% of all voters and almost 80% of Democrats saying the U.S. shouldn’t send Israel weapons.
“The real question should have been, ‘When are you going to start enforcing U.S. law as it relates to arms shipments’ because what we are doing right now, with this United States policy, is in violation of not just international law, but also of American law, “said the Arab Center’s Yousef Munayyer in an interview with Democracy Now in response to the CNN segment. “Vice-President Harris made it clear in other parts of her interview that she wants to be a prosecutor. She wants to enforce the law, but Israel is clearly getting an exception from the Harris campaign.”
unsurprising. good luck in November, I guess 👍
I didn’t expect this at all and am deeply hurt.
I really thought the handpicked second most powerful person in the country would differ significantly in policies from the people who handpicked her.
I have little hope that Biden, Harris, or (obviously) Trump will actually change course on the US’s Israel/Palestine policy—but to be fair, we shouldn’t expect the vice president to openly say she would reverse the current president’s foreign policies even if she intended to.
No I would actually expect a candidate to talk about what they intend, and whatever excuse there’s not to sounds silly.
Exactly. If she wanted to do anything about it she wouldn’t be able to even mention it. If she said anything that isn’t pro Israel, she’d just piss off Israel and a large amount of her own party. Politicians have always been cowards when it comes to Israel and always will be.
Why not? She’s not the Secretary of State and she’s not setting foreign policy like Dick Cheney.
Why must she adhere to Biden’s policies?
How hard is it to field a presidential candidate that is not a senior citizen and who doesn’t wish to remain allies with countries engaged in genocide?
The problem is that the countries engaged in genocide allow the US a foothold in the middle East, so they can basically get away with anything. Losing that means throwing away all the military and strategic advantage in that region.
Tl;dr you may as well wish for a president that wants to demilitarize the US
Honestly, I think it might be a deal breaker for me in November. I’m willing to put up with a lot of meat-brained nonsense, but dead children so out soldiers can have an easier commute to kill more is a nonstarter.
If I do decide not to vote in a few months, and not voting gives Trump the presidency, it’s what we deserve.
80% of her base wants to stop sending weapons to Israel. Where the fuck is democracy?
In history books. This is oligarchy.
You mean 40% of Democrats want to decrease it, while the swing voters she needs to win an election are the most likely to support sending current or greater levels of support.
Quick! show them more of Walz, they like him!
I don’t really understand what weapons our government is sending Isreal. Is it that we just aren’t canceling their contracts with our weapons manufacturers? Or we arent banning exports of weapons?
Our government doesn’t actually make weapons, we give contracts to companies to make them and have limits on who else can buy. Isreal doesn’t need our hand-me-downs.
…
Why?
Seriously! Why!?
I don’t remotely understand this policy, and it seems that pretty much noone would vote for it if they could avoid doing so.
We gotta make AIPAC happy or else they might stop paying for Pelosi’s yacht.
Because our government’s support of Israel furthers US financial interests in the Middle East.
US was saying this over and over and it is finally doing it, which is getting out of Middle East and letting them on their own. This is why there’s also so hard push for EVs.
The policy is to allow selling weapons, not to give them, it is also not what Bibi hopes that US will enter another war and fight on his behalf.
Her husband also made a pledge to, “fight antisemitism” when asked about Israel’s crimes.
Israel is the country equivalent of the US sending an aircraft carrier outside a country it has tenuous relations with yet wants favorable trade. It’s how they cement the Petro-Dollar as the global currency and dominate financial capital.
Ceasing support for Israel risks hurting US profits, so the US has a monetary interest in propping up the genocidal campaign while pretending to push for a ceasefire to appease domestic tensions, however poorly.
Turns out the United States is a vassal state of the Israeli empire.
Actually this is the opposite. Israel wants US involved and start another war on their behalf. US is pissed and saying what it was saying for a while, that it is getting out of Middle East. If Israel wants to fight a war, US won’t block them from purchasing weapons, but they are on their own.
Wtf is this take, don’t even joke
God they’re so stupid.
Israel will not stop until we take away their ability to continue.
When this war ends, Netanyahu will be removed from power for his prior crimes and likely jailed. He doesn’t want that and he’s murdering Palestinians to be sure he never sees the inside of a cell.
I wish we had an actual viable option for ending this war. But my choices right now are vote for the genocide or flee the country because Trump has promised he will make my wife’s life hell day one.
It’s not like she has a choice. The defense contractors call all the shots and they want to keep the arms flowing. We vote for the promise of maybe getting a small piece of that pie to fund healthcare for the elderly, maybe, they’ll increase military spending anyways.
I mean, if it was any other ally surrounded by countries that hate them, I’d understand this policy. If Israel wasn’t lead by a dickhead and their regime, I’d understand this policy. They literally only exist as a country with our support.
But as is stands now, it’s a carrot we should use to leverage peace and, in an ideal world, push for a better coexistence with people they’ve historically shit on. Giving it away for ‘free’ makes little sense aside from fear of losing their support and by extension, the election.
If we didn’t have foreign money, or PACs in general, would this be different? I would imagine it would be, if we could just fix that shitty system.
Does it even matter which party is in power when it comes to this? It’s in America’s geopolitical interest to have a strong Israel to counter the neighboring Arab States, especially Iran. The fate of Palestine is almost a non-issue in that context.
Joe Biden is a mass murderer. We will never forget, never forgive.
I did not think it possible for Democrats to run a worse candidate than 2016 Hillary.
Joe was worse. Not even hardcore liberals could pretend to be excited for him.
While maybe not the original intent, his whole candidacy was based on “I’m not Trump.” That’s not a strategy that can work twice.
