Amid growing calls for President Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris, the leading candidate to succeed him, spoke to the media in defense of the controversial anti-Israel protests that rocked college campuses in the spring.
“They show exactly what human emotion should be in response to Gaza.” Harris told The Nation: The article, published on Monday, focuses on Harris’ potential replacement for Biden in the presidential race: “Some of the protesters hold views that I absolutely reject, so I’m not going to fully endorse their arguments, but we have to get past it. I understand the sentiment behind it.”
2023-24 College YearAgitators and student demonstrators flooded university campuses across the country to protest the Israeli war, and incidents of anti-Semitism soared, with Jewish students publicly stating that they did not feel safe on some campuses.
On the Columbia University campus, for example, protesters occupied the school’s Hamilton Hall building, while UCLA, Harvard, Yale and other universities worked to remove student camps where protesters gathered to demand that the elite schools completely divest from Israel.
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Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally in Las Vegas on June 28, 2024. (Bizayev Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Harris added in the interview that she had asked her staff about the situation in Gaza, including what people were eating and whether women had access to sanitary products, amid the war with Israel that has escalated since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
“I love cooking, so I told my team, ‘You can’t cook with flour if you don’t have clean water,’ and then I ask questions like, ‘What are people actually eating now? I’m hearing about animal feed and grass.’ That’s how I look at it,” she said.
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“Similarly, I’ve been asking for a while now what are women in Gaza doing about hygiene. Do they have sanitary napkins? These are issues that make people feel uncomfortable, especially when it comes to sanitary napkins.”
An anti-Israel protester holds a flag on the roof of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University, Tuesday, April 30, 2024, in New York City. (Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Israel has been a target of attack for the Democratic Party since October, with the party’s progressive wing, including members of the Squad, coming under fire from the Jewish community and conservatives for not taking a tougher stance against Hamas.
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Notably, late last year, media and White House sources reported that Harris urged Biden and his administration to get “tougher” against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the war escalated, and argued that the White House needed to be more sympathetic to the Palestinians.
Student protesters gather inside a camp on the Columbia University campus in New York City, Monday, April 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Stephen Jeremiah)
Harris’ comments come amid growing calls from Democrats for Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race following his disastrous debate defeat against former President Trump. Harris is seen as the leading and most natural successor to the presidency if Biden were to drop out of the race.
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President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris wave to the crowd as they stand onstage during the Reproductive Freedom Campaign Rally at George Mason University on January 23, 2024 in Manassas, Virginia. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Conservatives have been raising the alarm about President Biden’s deteriorating mental health since the 2020 election, citing his multiple public gaffes, but Democrats have now joined in their concerns about the president’s advanced age and mental health at 81 years old.
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According to Olivia Nuzzi, President Biden’s disastrous debate performance “changed the calculation of how open people will be” about his perceived issues. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images | Andrew Caballero Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images | Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
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In his first media interview since his debate speech, Biden vowed to continue his campaign. The argument is simply He called it a “bad episode” and is determined to win reelection.
Fox News Digital reached out to Harris’ office about her comments about anti-Israel protesters but did not immediately receive a response.
