Kamala Harris attempts damage control for denying Palestinian genocide

Given the expectation that United States Vice President Kamala Harris will once again run for President in 2024, the Democratic Party has serious questions about her political acumen. Last week, Harris visited George Mason University where, when asked by a student about the US-backed genocide of Palestinians by Israel, she was unable to field the question. Some suggested the query was a "smear of Israel," whereas others aptly noted that the Vice President wavered in her answer and ability to acknowledge the ongoing ethnic genocide. Now, Harris is reportedly in "damage control mode" so as to control the situation, CNN reports.

Following the exchange with the university student, the Vice President's office put out a statement on Monday to "minimize the damage." In the statement, Harris' spokeswoman Symone Sanders explains, "Throughout her career, the Vice President has been unwavering in her commitment to Israel and to Israel's security. While visiting George Mason University to discuss voting rights, a student voiced a personal opinion during a political science class." The Vice President has thus been accused of pandering to pro-Israel groups as the settler nation-state continues to attack and destabilize Palestine. Jewish groups in the US have, however, been appreciative of her response.

"We know Vice President Harris and we know her record on Israel has been consistent and unwavering," stated Halie Soifer, CEO of Jewish Democratic Council of America and former national security adviser to Harris in her Senate office. "At no time did we doubt her support of Israel. We wanted additional context to understand what occurred." Meanwhile, Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, posted on Twitter, "Just spoke with [the Vice President's] office. Glad to hear her confirm she is proud of her record supporting Israel and knows [the] claim it is committing 'ethnic genocide' is patently false. Looking forward to a clearing of the record so there's no ambiguity that what that student said was hateful/wrong."

Those in Palestine and those abroad paying attention to unbiased news, nonetheless, would understand that Greenblatt and Harris have expressed support for a global power engaging in, as the George Mason University student rightly pointed out, ethnic genocide. For instance, during the 1948 Palestinian Nakba, Israel drove 850,000 Palestinians away from their homes, Al Jazeera reports. Today, the nation-state utilizes the same strategies—with military and financial backing from international players such as the US, the United Kingdom, France, and Russia.

Just this summer, Israel expelled dozens of Palestinians from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem. According to international law, the displacement of people in occupied territory is a war crime under the Rome Statute and constitutes ethnic cleansing. The controversy has been described as a microcosm of the Israeli–Palestinian disputes over land since 1948. At the time, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) called on Israel to stop all forced evictions of Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah. Furthermore, Human Rights Watch released a statement noting that the disparate rights between Palestinian and Jewish residents of East Jerusalem "underscore the reality of apartheid that Palestinians in East Jerusalem face." In order to stand on the right side of history, Harris and the Democratic Party must answer the student's question: why does the US continue to back the genocide of Palestinians by Israel?