Harris asks Americans not to see the war in Gaza through a 'binary lens'

Transcript

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

Vice President Kamala Harris met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday. Afterwards, she reiterated her support for Israel, but she also had some frank words.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

She said it's time for the war in Gaza to end. She said that Israel has the right to defend itself, but that the fight against Hamas has been devastating.

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VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time - we cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent.

MARTÍNEZ: NPR White House correspondent Asma Khalid was in the room. What did you make of those remarks?

ASMA KHALID, BYLINE: Well, A, what we saw amounted to the first foreign policy speech of Harris's campaign, and it's also the most forceful statement that she has made on Gaza since she's become the likely Democratic nominee. You know, this war and how President Biden has handled it has been a divisive issue for Democrats, and we talked about this yesterday on the show, but some Democrats were curious to know whether Vice President Harris would act differently than Biden if she were to be elected president, and yesterday, we heard her speak directly to those who have disagreed with the administration's actions at one point.

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HARRIS: And as I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done. So to everyone who has been calling for a cease-fire and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you, and I hear you. Let's get the deal done, so we can get a cease-fire to end the war. Let's bring the hostages home, and let's provide much-needed relief to the Palestinian people.

KHALID: This all came a couple of hours after President Biden also met Israel's prime minister, and it's noteworthy to me that it was the vice president, not the president, who delivered on-camera remarks after the Israeli leader's visit.

MARTÍNEZ: So is all this a new thing for Harris? I mean, you've been listening to her speak about this for months now. Has anything changed?

KHALID: Well, the substance of what she said was similar to what she has said in the past and what we've heard from Biden - the same policies - but her tone was different. She tried to show the complexity of the situation, asking Americans not to see the war in Gaza through a binary lens, and there was this moment where she recited out loud, one by one, the names of Americans being held hostage by Hamas. She was also more direct than Biden in the empathy she expressed for Palestinian civilians, using some words, you know, that this administration has not used before. I think what was noticeable was that collectively, this speech felt like one of the first times that we heard the vice president speak on foreign policy more in her own voice, rather than just as an emissary for Biden.

MARTÍNEZ: Now, you've been talking, Asma, to people this week about what they want to hear from Kamala Harris on this issue. How do her remarks square with their expectations?

KHALID: I spoke to a number of people on the left of the Democratic Party who have been disappointed with how Biden has handled this war, and I'll note that these interviews were largely before the vice president's remarks, but one common theme was that they wanted to know if Harris would offer a different message than Biden. In this race, she has to speak to multiple parts of the Democratic Party at once. She's trying to win back some of the Democratic voters who felt alienated by how Biden has handled the war, but she also does not want to alienate supporters of Israel, who make up a key part of the party. And to that point, we saw a sign yesterday of this, when she issued a statement condemning protesters in Washington, D.C., for spray-painting pro-Hamas slogans on a monument during protests.

MARTÍNEZ: NPR White House correspondent Asma Khalid, thank you very much.

KHALID: Good to speak with you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.