Vice President Kamala Harris met privately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Thursday. The meeting lasted about 40 minutes, according to an Israeli government spokesman.
The meeting came a day after Harris skipped Netanyahu’s speech to Congress to attend a sorority luncheon, and after she struggled to condemn violent anti-Israel protests in the streets of Washington, DC, in which American flags were burned.
Netanyahu’s meeting with Harris became necessary after she rapidly emerged this week as a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination after President Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he was dropping out of the presidential race.
Harris’ record on Israel is decidedly mixed. Breitbart News reported earlier this week:
Harris has a mixed record on Israel: Like many other Democratic presidential candidates, she boycotted the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference in 2019 and then met separately with the group.
More recently, she praised the “sentiment” behind anti-Israel protests (while denying their anti-Semitism), warned Israel of the consequences of attacking Hamas in the Gaza town of Rafah — “I have studied the maps,” she infamously said — and bizarrely lamented the loss of “innocent lives” during Israel’s daring rescue of four hostages in the Gaza Strip.
Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, is Jewish and helped lead the Biden administration’s controversial anti-Semitism “strategy,” which included working with anti-Semitic Muslim groups to defend radical criticism of Israel.
Netanyahu is scheduled to meet Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida on Friday.
Joel B. Pollack is executive editor of Breitbart News. Breitbart News Sunday The show airs Sunday nights from 7 to 10 p.m. (4 to 7 p.m. ET) on SiriusXM Patriot. He is the author of “Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” which is available for preorder on Amazon. He also wrote,Trumpian virtue: The lessons and legacy of Donald Trump’s presidency” is available on Audible. He is the 2018 recipient of the Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter. Joel Pollack.
