Harris Greets Netanyahu by Berating Him About “Innocent…Dead Children” in Gaza

Plus, Republicans target PLO martyr payments

If Prime Minister Netanyahu thinks Donald Trump will win in November, he doesn’t have much incentive to act fast on a dramatic diplomatic deal; he’ll get better treatment from President Trump than from President Biden. But if it’s a Harris presidency on the horizon, then the calculus changes; she’ll be tougher on Israel than Biden, her comments yesterday afternoon after meeting with Netanyahu signaled. 

Harris expressed support for the existence of Israel, for its security, and for its people. But she also publicly slammed the visiting Israeli leader with this language, which is harsh:

I also expressed with the prime minister my serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians. And I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there, with over 2 million people facing high levels of food insecurity, and half a million people facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity. What has happened in Gaza over the past 9 months is devastating. 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.

It is time for this war to end….and the Palestinian people can exercise their right to freedom, dignity, and self-determination.

That comes  just a day after Netanyahu told Congress, “don’t be fooled when the blood libels against the Jewish State come from people who wear fancy silk robes and speak in lofty tones about law and Justice,” and said “The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has shamefully accused Israel of deliberately starving the people of Gaza. This is utter complete nonsense. It’s a complete fabrication. Israel has enabled more than 40,000 aid trucks to enter Gaza. That’s half a million tons of food, and that’s more than 3,000 calories for every man, woman and child in Gaza. If there are Palestinians in Gaza who aren't getting enough food, it’s not because Israel is blocking it, it’s because Hamas is stealing it.”

Also, Netanyahu had told Congress, “The ICC prosecutor accuses Israel of deliberately targeting civilians. What in God's green earth is he talking about? The IDF has dropped millions of flyers, sent millions of text messages, made hundreds of thousands of phone calls to get Palestinian civilians out of harm’s way. But at the same time, Hamas does everything in its power to put Palestinian civilians in harm's way. They fire rockets from schools, from hospitals, from mosques. They even shoot their own people when they try to leave the war zone. A senior Hamas official Fathi Hamad boasted — Listen to this — He boasted that Palestinian women and children excel at being human shields. His words: ‘excel at being human shields.’ What monstrous evil. For Israel, every civilian death is a tragedy. For Hamas, it's a strategy. They actually want Palestinian civilians to die, so that Israel will be smeared in the international media and be pressured to end the war before it’s won.”

By blaming Netanyahu rather than Hamas for the humanitarian situation in Gaza and for the civilian casualties, it sure sounded like Harris had fallen for what Netanyahu calls “Hamas’s con job.” Or, at least, she thought Netanyahu’s speech needed a public rebuttal.

A White House “readout” of the Harris-Netanyahu meeting said, “The Vice President expressed concern regarding civilian casualties and discussed the need to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The Vice President also expressed her concern about actions that undermine stability and security in the West Bank, such as extremist settler violence and settlement expansion.”

Netanyahu is hardly the only actor in all this, and he is also eager, regardless of the American politics, to get Israeli hostages out of  Gaza as rapidly as possible, and to get Israelis back into their homes in northern Israel. But to the extent that Netanyahu has any discretion about the timing of other issues—a deal with Saudi Arabia, relations with the Palestinians, the future of Gaza—the more it looks like a Harris administration might be coming, the more it makes sense for Netanyahu to get the best deal he can now with Biden. It’s complicated, because to the extent that any diplomatic breakthroughs boost the Biden-Harris administration, they increase the chances that Netanyahu or his successor winds up having to deal with President Harris rather than with President Trump. But if it looks like a Harris administration is coming regardless, don’t be surprised to see the Israelis take some dramatic steps—anything from bombing Iran to bombing Lebanon—before she takes control.

Republicans aim at PLO finances: Senator Tim Scott and Senator Tom Cotton are introducing the PLO and PA Terror Payments Accountability Act, which would impose economic penalties on financial institutions and people that help the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian Authority provide payments to terrorists and their families. 

Ten other Republican senators also backed the bill, including Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, and John Cornyn.

A Tim Scott press release quotes the senator saying: “For years, the Palestinian Authority has incentivized brutal attacks against Israelis—and even American citizens—through its horrific ‘pay for slay’ policies. Strong words and failed negotiations aren’t enough to stop these acts of terror....We need to actually use the authorities at our disposal to impose real economic pain against those who support and facilitate so-called ‘martyr payments.”

Similar legislation, the Taylor Force Act, was enacted in 2018, but this new bill would go further.

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