Harris skirts question on whether Israel’s Netanyahu is ‘close ally’ of US

US Vice President Kamala Harris has skirted a question on whether Benjamin Netanyahu can be considered a “close ally” of the United States, as critics accuse the Israeli prime minister of stymying Washington’s stated goal of de-escalation in the Middle East.

In an excerpt of an interview with CBS News’s 60 Minutes, which was released on Sunday, Harris was pressed on what the US is doing to get its top ally to end its military offensive in the Gaza Strip and stop its attacks on Lebanon.

Harris, the Democratic candidate in November’s presidential election, said the US has been applying pressure on Israel – as well as on Arab leaders in the region – to reach a Gaza ceasefire deal and would continue to do so.

“The work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel,” she said, without providing details.

Harris was then asked if the United States had a “real, close ally” in Netanyahu.

“I think, with all due respect, the better question is, do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people? And the answer to that question is ‘yes’,” she replied.

The exchange highlights the continued refusal by US President Joe Biden’s administration to change tack and curtail its staunch support for Netanyahu’s government as the Israeli military bombards the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

For months, analysts have accused Netanyahu of holding up a possible Gaza ceasefire agreement for his own political purposes.

Observers also warned that Washington’s failure to pressure Israel to end the Gaza war would push the Middle East towards a wider regional conflict – and rights advocates had urged the Biden administration to impose an arms embargo on the Israeli government.

Washington provides Israel with at least $3.8bn in military aid annually, and Biden has greenlit $14bn in additional assistance to the US ally since Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip began in October of last year.

To date, more than 41,800 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza.

At least 1,100 people also have been killed in Lebanon since the Israeli military – which had been trading fire with Lebanese group Hezbollah across the Israel-Lebanon border for months – recently escalated its bombardment of the country.

Amid the mounting violence, the Biden administration has repeatedly said it favours diplomacy and wants to see a de-escalation. But senior US officials have also said they support Israel’s “right to defend itself”.

“Obviously attacks, targeted attacks on civilians, could not be justified, but Israel does have the right to go after terrorists,” US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters last week, when asked about deadly Israeli bombings in Lebanon.

“They need to take actions to mitigate civilian harm. They’re required to do that under international humanitarian law, in Lebanon as they are anywhere else,” Miller added.

 

But critics say such statements have little effect on the actions of Netanyahu’s right-wing government, as the Biden administration has refused to condition US military and diplomatic support for Israel.

“President Biden has spent a year enabling the Israeli government’s expanding war crimes, violating US laws that require an arms embargo on Israel, and ignoring the majority of Americans who oppose sending more weapons to Israel,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a statement on Sunday.

“Now the entire region is in chaos.”

The Biden administration’s policy has come under renewed criticism as tensions have escalated in recent days between Israel and Iran.

Last week, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel in what it said was an act of retaliation for killings in Lebanon and Gaza, as well as the assassinations of top Hamas, Hezbollah and Iranian leaders.

Netanyahu has said Iran would “pay” for the attack, raising fears that Israel could strike strategic sites in the country such as Iranian nuclear facilities.

Asked by reporters last Wednesday whether he would back an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, Biden said “the answer is ‘no’”.

The US president told reporters that any Israeli response should be “proportional”, without elaborating on what that means exactly.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will host his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant in Washington, DC, on October 9 to “discuss ongoing Middle East security developments”, a Pentagon spokesman said on Sunday.