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      Trump calls Harris remarks on Gaza war ‘disrespectful’ as he meets Netanyahu

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      Donald Trump has called Kamala Harris’s statement on the Gaza war “disrespectful” before a meeting with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Florida to discuss the conflict.Harris, the US vice-president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, had seemed to mark a change of tone on the Israel-Gaza war on Thursday after her own meeting with Netanyahu, when she declared she would “not be silent” about the suffering of Palestinians.Trump criticised Harris on Friday before his meeting at his Mar-a-Lago home, calling her remarks “disrespectful” as he targeted her over an issue that has split the Democratic party.“They weren’t very nice pertaining to Israel,” Trump said. “I actually don’t know how a person who is Jewish could vote for her, but that’s up to them.”Right-wing Israeli politicians attacked Harris and anonymous officials have suggested the remarks could make it more difficult to conclude a ceasefire deal.“I think to the extent that Hamas understands there’s no daylight between Israel and the United States, that expedites the deal,” said Netanyahu to reporters at his meeting with Trump. “And I would hope that those comments don’t change that.”A Harris aide rejected a report in the Times of Israel that a senior official had said that Harris’ criticism would hinder the conclusion of a deal.“I don’t know what they’re talking about,” a Harris aide told CNN.Photographs showed Trump warmly greeting Netanyahu, who is concluding a one-week visit to the US that has been marked by large protests against the war. People stood along the route used by Netanyahu’s motorcade to visit Trump, holding up signs that read: “Ceasefire now” and “Convicted fellon [sic] invites a war criminal”.View image in fullscreenBefore the meeting, Netanyahu said he believed military pressure on Hamas had created “movement” in ceasefire talks, and that he would send a team to an upcoming round of negotiations in Rome. “Time will tell if we’re closer to a ceasefire deal,” he said.The meeting is their first since Trump left the White House in 2020. The men have had a strained relationship in the past after Netanyahu congratulated Joe Biden on his victory in the 2020 election, a vote that Trump has claimed, without evidence, was manipulated. “Bibi could have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake,” Trump said at the time. “Fuck him.”On Friday, the two appeared to have reconciled. “We’ve always had a good relationship,” Trump told reporters before the meeting.The two were political allies in the past. Trump largely gave Netanyahu carte blanche during his first term in office, ADD moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. . He told Fox News this week that Israel should finish the war and bring back the hostages “fast”. “They are getting decimated with this publicity, and you know Israel is not very good at public relations,” Trump told the broadcaster.Harris has tried to thread the needle of continuing the Biden administration’s policy of support for Israel while assuaging growing anger among Democrats about the humanitarian toll of the conflict that has killed 39,000 Palestinians. Nearly half the Democrats in Congress skipped Netanyahu’s speech in the House of Representatives, and dozens openly said they were boycotting it because of the war.Harris met Netanyahu on Thursday at the White House shortly after the prime minister had sat down with Joe Biden. The separate meetings highlighted how the presumptive Democratic nominee has become increasingly independent since launching her presidential campaign.At the same time, aides tried to play down the potential for change between Biden and Harris on Israel. “[Biden’s] and [Harris’s] message to PM Netanyahu was the same: it’s time to get the hostage and ceasefire deal done,” wrote Phil Gordon, Harris’s national security adviser.Harris called the meeting “frank and constructive”, and said “Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters”. She indicated that she would not halt military aid to Israel because she would “always ensure that Israel is able to defend itself”.But she went further than other administration officials in criticising how Israel has prosecuted the war in Gaza, bolstering hopes she may, at least rhetorically, give more voice to the humanitarian concerns of Palestinians.She said she had expressed her “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”.“What has happened in Gaza over the past nine 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.”Harris did not say how Netanyahu responded to the Biden administration’s offer of a three-part ceasefire that would begin with a withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces from population centres and some hostages being released. She did not take questions from reporters following the remarks.“There has been hopeful movement in the talks to secure an agreement on this deal,” Harris said. “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 ceasefire and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you and I hear you.”The Democratic mayor of Dearborn, Abdullah Hammoud, said in an interview with Michigan public radio: “Many of us are waiting to see what policy platform Harris puts forward.” Hammoud has been outspoken on Gaza in a state where 13.2% voted “uncommitted” in this year’s Democratic primary in a protest against Biden’s policy towards Israel.“In the conversations that we have had I have found her to be sympathetic and empathetic,” he said. “I’ve found her to be someone that wants to listen … obviously there’s much that remains to be seen.”A senior administration official said before the meetings with Biden and Harris that the “framework of the deal is basically there” but that there are “some very serious implementation issues that still have to be resolved”.“There are some things we need from Hamas, and there are some things we need from the Israeli side, and I think you’ll see that play out here over the course of the coming week,” the official said. 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      Harris navigates Netanyahu visit and stance on Israel – podcast

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      Kamala Harris enjoyed a brief period of excitement as Democrats rallied behind her presidential bid ahead of November’s election. Only a few days in, however, she is being asked questions over her stance on Israel and the war in Gaza.
      With fewer than 100 days left, Joan Greve speaks to the former adviser to Barack Obama and co-host of Pod Save The World, Ben Rhodes, about the state of play for November 2024

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

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      Harris navigates Netanyahu visit – podcast

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      Kamala Harris enjoyed a brief period of excitement as Democrats rallied behind her presidential bid ahead of November’s election. Only a few days in, however, she is being asked questions over her stance on Israel and the war in Gaza.
      With fewer than 100 days left, Joan Greve speaks to the former adviser to Barack Obama and co-host of Pod Save The World, Ben Rhodes, about the state of play for November 2024

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

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      Netanyahu is presiding over a sharp decline in the US’s pro-Israel consensus

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      Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before a joint session of the House and Senate may look like a political victory: the prime minister of a foreign country speaking before Congress, only interrupted by multiple standing ovations. But the political events serving as a backdrop for the speech reveal Netanyahu’s political career, and the bipartisan pro-Israel consensus in the US, in sharp decline.At home in Israel, it’s virtually unthinkable that Netanyahu could have found such a supportive audience. A staggering 72% of Israelis want him to resign over failures that permitted the 7 October attacks by Hamas to succeed.And 72% of Israelis also support a deal to release hostages over the destruction of Hamas. Despite saying he is doing everything he can to “bring all our hostages home”, Netanyahu appeared to outright reject a hostage deal in his speech to Congress, declaring Israel “must retain overriding security control [in Gaza] to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel”, a war goal the Israeli military says is unachievable and terms to which Hamas will not agree.Indeed, blatant falsehoods were scattered throughout his speech. He claimed “practically no civilians were killed in Rafah” (daily reporting shows women and children dead from Israeli air strikes on Rafah and surrounding areas), downplayed the role of Israel in creating famine conditions for much of Gaza’s population, and claimed that Israel helps “keep American boots off the ground while protecting our shared interests in the Middle East”, conveniently omitting the 4,492 US service members who died in the Iraq war, a war Netanyahu lobbied Congress to undertake in 2002.While the speech was Netanyahu’s fourth address to Congress, the political landscape in Washington has shifted beneath his feet, creating a far less welcoming American public than the applause might suggest. Around half of House and Senate Democrats boycotted the speech while thousands of protesters demonstrated outside the Capitol building, revealing the steep drop in support for Israel’s war on Gaza over the past nine months.Before Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, 38% of voters said they were less likely to vote for him due to his handling of the war on Gaza. “Many core constituencies – including independents, swing state likely voters, and Democratic party activists – are angry at Biden’s unqualified support for the Israeli assault on Gaza,” said a report from the Century Foundation, the thinktank that commissioned the poll.While sentiments towards Israel are warmer within the Republican party – Israeli flags were visible on the floor of the Republican convention last week and Republican members of Congress led many of the standing ovations for Netanyahu’s speech – that support has increasingly coincided with hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions to Republicans by the world’s richest Israeli, Israeli-US dual national Miriam Adelson, who alongside her late husband, Sheldon Adelson, topped the list of Republican donors since the late 2000s, raising questions about whether support for Israel is an issue of deep concern to the Republican base or simply a transaction required for campaign contributions.The election wins of Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky and Representative Thomas Massie, a Republican from West Virginia (both Republican critics of US aid to Israel), suggest an appetite, or at least an acceptance, of a more balanced US-Israel relationship within Republican voters.Netanyahu’s trip to Washington, planned before Biden ended his campaign for re-election, is now set against the political uncertainty of how Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, will approach the relationship with Israel. The administration of which she is still a part of bled dangerous levels of support from its own base, particularly in vital swing states like Michigan, where 100,000 Arab and Muslim voters expressed their dissatisfaction with Biden’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza by submitting “uncommitted” ballots in their Democratic primary.Pressure is building on the vice-president to distance herself from Biden’s “bearhug” strategy of Netanyahu and utilize the leverage the US holds over Israel: threatening to turn off the spigot of munitions necessary for Israel’s war to drag on.The speech may have looked like a victory for an embattled Israeli prime minister but the real test of Netanyahu’s political gambit will only become clear as Harris sets the foreign policy agenda for her presidential campaign.If the boycott of the speech by Democrats, polling showing dissatisfaction with ongoing support for the war on Gaza, and protesters outside the Capitol were any sign of the political tides within the Democratic party, Harris may conclude that the time has come for greater daylight between the US and Netanyahu, distancing the US from the nearly 40,000 casualties suffered by Palestinians in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli military, and a conditioning of US military aid to Israel on an end to the war on Gaza and Israeli participation in a deal to release hostages held by Hamas. Such a move would cast Netanyahu’s speech as a symbolic, and highly visible, breaking point in the bipartisan US support he has enjoyed for his entire political career.

      Eli Clifton is a senior advisor at the Quincy Institute and investigative journalist at large at Responsible Statecraft More

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      Israel and Hamas closer than ever to ceasefire deal, White House says

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      White House officials said Israel and Hamas were “closer now than we’ve been before” to reaching a ceasefire deal as Benjamin Netanyahu met Joe Biden on Thursday to discuss an end to the nine-month conflict in Gaza.The talks at the White House came amid unprecedented political turmoil in the US and domestic pressure on the Israeli prime minster to rescue the dozens of hostages still being held captive after Hamas’s 7 October attack. Netanyahu was also expected to meet the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, who is likely to replace Biden as the Democratic candidate for November’s election.“We’ve got a lot to talk about,” Biden said when he welcomed Netanyahu to the Oval Office. “From a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish-American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel,” Netanyahu told Biden at the start of their meeting.The president thanked Netanyahu and noted that his first meeting with an Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, was in 1973, soon after he was elected to the Senate.Biden was expected to put pressure on Netanyahu to commit to at least the first stage of a three-part deal that would see some hostages released in exchange for a temporary ceasefire. A senior administration official said that a framework for the deal had been agreed upon but that “serious implementation issues … still had to be resolved.“I don’t expect the meeting to be a yes or no,” the official said. “It’s a kind of like, ‘How do we close these final gaps?’”At a press conference while the two leaders were meeting, the White House national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said gaps in the ceasefire deal could be overcome. “We need to get there soon,” he said. “We are closer now than we’ve been before. Both sides have to make compromises.”The State Department spokesperson, Matt Miller, said: “I think the message from the American side in that meeting will be that we need to get this deal over the line.”More than 39,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed in the conflict, and the international criminal court has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The US does not recognise the court’s jurisdiction.Harris was expected to meet Netanyahu separately as she began her late campaign to challenge Donald Trump in November’s presidential vote. The vice-president must prove her mettle as a negotiator in one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.She has spoken forcefully about the need for a ceasefire and about the plight of Palestinian civilians in the conflict, and there is a possibility that she could win back some Democratic voters who believe that the Biden administration has done too little to end the conflict or limit sales of arms to Israel.Harris – the presiding officer of the Senate – did not attend Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday but released a careful statement saying that her absence should not be interpreted as a boycott of the event.A senior administration official told the Associated Press there was “no daylight between the president and vice-president” on Israel.On Thursday, Harris issued a statement forcefully condemning pro-Palestine protesters who had demonstrated against Netanyahu’s speech in Washington.She said: “Yesterday, at Union Station in Washington DC we saw despicable acts by unpatriotic protesters and dangerous hate-fuelled rhetoric.“I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organisation Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the state of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation.”The vice-president added: “I condemn the burning of the American flag. That flag is a symbol of our highest ideals as a nation and represents the promise of America. It should never be desecrated in that way.“I support the right to peacefully protest, but let’s be clear: antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation.”Netanyahu is also scheduled to meet Trump on Friday at his residence in Mar-a-Lago. The two men have had a strained relationship since Netanyahu congratulated Biden on his victory in the 2020 elections, a vote that, Trump has claimed without evidence, was manipulated.Netanyahu promised “total victory” in the Gaza war in a raucous speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, saying that there were “intensive” efforts to bring the hostages home but giving little detail about how that would be achieved.About 40 Democratic lawmakers – including the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi – boycotted the speech, and only half of congressional Democrats attended.“Benjamin Netanyahu’s presentation in the House Chamber today was by far the worst presentation of any foreign dignitary invited and honored with the privilege of addressing the Congress of the United States,” Pelosi wrote on X.Thousands protested on the streets of the capital, with both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli groups saying Netanyahu was using the conflict as cover for his own political problems at home.He did not mention the word “ceasefire” or the negotiations with Hamas once during the speech, instead he called for expedited deliveries of US arms to “help us finish the job faster”.“I will not rest until all their loved ones are home,” said Netanyahu during the speech. “All of them. As we speak, we’re actively engaged in intensive efforts to secure their release, and I’m confident that these efforts can succeed. Some of them are taking place right now. I want to thank President Biden for his tireless efforts on behalf of the hostages and for his efforts to the hostage families as well.”It is unclear whether Biden’s recent decision to end his presidential campaign will allow him to use greater leverage to convince Netanyahu to sign on to a deal.“The framework of the deal is basically there,” said a senior administration official. “There are some very serious implementation issues that still have to be resolved, and I don’t want to discount the difficulty of those … There are some things we need from Hamas, and there are some things we need from the Israeli side, and I think you’ll see that play out here over the course of the coming week.” More

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      Amid chaos of US politics, Netanyahu finally gets attention he craves in Washington

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      On his third day in Washington, Benjamin Netanyahu finally got the attention he so desperately wanted in the US capital.Republicans and their guests in the House chamber stamped their feet and whistled as a joint session was gaveled into order, while the Democrat lawmakers who chose not to boycott someone whom colleagues had called a “war criminal” looked on in sullen silence. In a 56-minute speech punctuated with 50 rounds of applause, the Israeli prime minister dashed hopes of a quick end to the war in Gaza and dispensed red meat to the Republican faithful, blasting anti-war protest culture and vowing to fight until “total victory”.For two days, Netanyahu had mostly been ignored at the Watergate hotel, passed over for the spectacle of a US political cycle averaging a West Wing season finale a week. Joe Biden had dropped out of the presidential race amid rumours of his cognitive decline, endorsing the vice-president, Kamala Harris, weeks before the convention and reinvigorating the Democratic party overnight. A bullet had grazed Donald Trump’s ear in an assassination attempt just 11 days ago, sparking comparisons to the resurrection of Lazarus and Jesus Christ. America has been living decades in just weeks; was there even room on the cable TV schedule for Netanyahu to deliver another incendiary speech?But the House speaker, Mike Johnson, a Republican, had put Netanyahu on the schedule on 24 July and neither the US political tumult nor Biden’s bout of Covid-19, nor a requested international criminal court warrant accusing him of “crimes against humanity” would deter Israel’s prime minister from coming to Washington to make his case before Congress for a record fourth time (once more than Winston Churchill).So when he had his moment, Netanyahu stood up to give a speech filled with verve but absolutely devoid of details: when and how Israel’s war in Gaza would come to an end and the 120 remaining hostages kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October would be brought home.There was a vague reference to a “civilian administration run by Palestinians who do not seek to destroy Israel” after his “total victory”, a “vision for Gaza” that said the strip of land would be “demilitarised and deradicalised”. But Netanyahu gave no vision of how to get there, besides more of the same, which has already left an estimated 39,000 Palestinians dead on top of the 1,200 Israelis killed by Hamas on 7 October.This was not a speech declaring a ceasefire, a word that was not uttered once by Netanyahu, despite weeks of negotiations with Hamas and the Biden administration’s insistence that a “framework” had already been agreed. Shortly after the speech, a senior administration official conceded there may still be some “very serious implementation issues that still have to be resolved”.On the streets outside the Capitol, police deployed teargas and pepper spray as protests descended into melees so confused that anti-Netanyahu protesters from different factions ended up clashing angrily with one another.Despite the violence, pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters voiced frustration with the Israeli prime minister and a war that had killed thousands with no resolution in sight.View image in fullscreenJessica Pliska, a pro-Palestinian protester who carried a sign calling Netanyahu “Satanyahu”, said she drove 11 hours from Michigan to demonstrate against his address. “I feel disappointed in our government. The fact that the person perpetrating these war crimes is invited to our Congress is insidious.“I think it’s wonderful that people are boycotting,” she said. “I think it shows a moral imperative among the masses to come out and protest, not only here in the streets but in Congress as well.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSeveral blocks away, Brad Young, a dual US-Israeli citizen from North Carolina, said he was “very much in favour of the Israeli right to exist but [I] believe that the government in place right now is corrupt and not acting in the best interests of Israel or of anyone in the region. It’s outrageous that Bibi [Netanyahu] is here and speaking to Congress when he should be focused on sealing the deal and bringing the hostages home.”When he finally took the rostrum on Thursday, Netanyahu quickly waded knee-deep into the American culture wars that have divided the US ahead of the presidential elections. At times it can feel that US politics has become the world’s politics, particularly when foreign leaders curry favour with Donald Trump and parrot his politics before the vote.Netanyahu used his hour to lambast woke culture and the pro-Palestinian protest movement, echoing the Republican talking points of the moment. Somewhere between calling protesters “Iran’s useful idiots” and saying those holding signs reading “gays for Gaza” might as well call themselves “chickens for KFC”, the Israeli prime minister brought up the North Carolina frat boys who surrounded the US flag during a pro-Palestinian protest at the campus of Chapel Hill UNC.“USA! USA! USA!” his backers in the hall chanted, their shouts echoing off the walls. Netanyahu would be at home at a football match or a stump speech, but his remarks in Congress on Wednesday gave little sign that this war is any closer to coming to an end. More