U.S. Vice President and presumptive Democratic nominee for the White House Kamala Harris has made “quite a few problematic statements” about the war against the Hamas terror group in recent months, Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Herzog said on Tuesday.
“Overall, her record is positive, and she has often expressed support for the State of Israel and American aid to Israel,” the Israeli diplomat told the Ynet news outlet on Tuesday, ahead of a reported meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Harris scheduled for later this week.
“I think we also saw the influence of the more progressive camp in the Democratic Party, and we saw it more as the political season heated up [in the U.S.],” Herzog said of Harris’s repeated jabs at the Jewish state.
Netanyahu took off on Monday for Washington, where he is seeking to solidify bipartisan support following Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 election amid ongoing conflicts on the Jewish state’s borders.
Harris does not plan to preside over the joint session of Congress that Netanyahu is slated to address on Wednesday. Although it is customary for vice presidents, who preside over the Senate, to attend speeches by foreign leaders, a Harris aide told The New York Times on Monday that the vice president was unable to attend due to a scheduling conflict.
Netanyahu will primarily focus on the threat posed by Iran-backed terrorist groups during meetings in Washington, according to Herzog.
“There is a whole world of issues on the agenda on the bilateral level between Israel and the U.S., which will not wait and cannot wait, and these issues will be discussed during the prime minister’s visit here,” Herzog said.
“The prime minister is coming here at a time when Israel has been in a difficult war already for more than nine months. However, the strategic focus of the visit will be on the Iranian axis,” added the diplomat.
Herzog noted that the outgoing U.S. administration remains “very, very” determined to close a hostages-for-ceasefire-and-terrorists-release agreement between Israel and Hamas as part of Biden’s legacy.
“I think they will continue to focus on this as a high priority,” he explained. “Biden has a strategic interest, and I think also a political one, to promote it [the hostage deal], and this interest has not diminished.”
