The Myth of Kamala Harris's Gaza Shift

The vice president has been saying, and doing, the exact same things as her boss.

Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images

Quick—who said the following?

“In Gaza, innocent civilians are suffering the horrors of the war between Hamas and Israel. Too many innocent people have been killed, including thousands of children. Families have fled their homes and seen their communities destroyed. Their pain is immense.”

“It is time for this war to end and end in a way where Israel is secure, all the hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can exercise their right to freedom, dignity, and self-determination.”

“It’s time to begin this new stage, for the hostages to come home, for Israel to be secure, for the suffering to stop.  It’s time for this war to end and for the day after to begin.”

“Innocent Palestinians caught in the middle of all this: men, women, and children killed or displaced in desperate need of water, food, and medicine. It’s a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. That’s why I’ve called for an immediate ceasefire to stop the fighting [and] bring the hostages home.”

“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.”

OK, here are the answers. The first, third, and fourth quotes came from Joe Biden, on June 16, May 31, and May 19, respectively. The second and fifth quotes came from Kamala Harris’s remarks following her meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday.

As these quotes make clear, Harris and Biden have been reading from the same script for months. Their tones are, for all intents and purposes, interchangeable. Many of the words and phrases they use are identical. They represent a verbally united front.

It’s weird, then, to see so much ink spilled over the past few days about Harris’s supposedly tougher approach to Israel. Whatever rhetorical gap that may have existed between herself and Biden has long since vanished. Her comments on Thursday did not show a break with Biden’s policies, or even his language. They showed continuity.

As Caitlin so eloquently wrote yesterday, it is understandable that people are so hungry to seize on any scrap of potentially hopeful news about Harris. We have all been tormented by Joe Biden’s rotting visage and equally rotting politics for far too long, and there is a desperation for change.

But we should not invent change where no change is happening. Harris and Biden have been saying the same things about Gaza for a long time. The idea that she has any meaningful distance when it comes to the genocide is fanciful. Ahead of her meeting with Netanyahu, an aide was keen to point out to NBC that “Harris has been engaged on the Israel-Gaza conflict for the last 10 months…including participating in every call with Netanyahu as well as critical meetings like those with hostage families.” Maybe we should take that aide seriously.

At any rate, we are long, long past the point where we should be giving Harris, or Biden, credit for their words. There are, conservatively, around 39,000 people dead in Gaza. The true death toll is likely far higher. Words don’t matter much in the face of those figures.

Nor do they matter much as long as the United States continues to arm, fund, and support Israel’s genocide. Harris has said nothing about ending that policy. She hasn’t even said anything about reviewing existing policy. She has simply said the same empty things her boss has been saying. And all the while, the U.S.-backed Israeli death machine trundles on.

So rather than clapping about nothing—rather than setting the bar as low as humanly possible—let’s keep our eyes on the prize. An end to military aid, now. Nothing else is good enough.