(Bloomberg) -- Vice President Kamala Harris said she won’t stop pressuring Israel to end its military campaign in the Middle East, emphasizing that the US still has a critical role in the region as the conflict reaches the one-year mark.
“The work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles, which include the need for humanitarian aid, the need for this war to end, the need for a deal to be done, which would release the hostages and create a cease-fire,” Harris said in an excerpt from an interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes.
“And we’re not going to stop in terms of putting that pressure on Israel and in the region, including Arab leaders,” she said.
Critics say that the US has lost influence on its closest regional ally after Israel launched a strike in Beirut in late September that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and prompted a retaliatory strike from Iran, all while seemingly leaving the Biden administration in the dark.
President Joe Biden has said Israel should look for other options rather than pursuing a strike on Iranian oil fields as it’s signaled it might. Israel hasn’t concluded what it will do in terms of a retaliatory strike on Iran, Biden told reporters on Oct. 4.
Harris’ emphasis on a cease-fire follows her Oct. 4 meeting in Michigan with leaders of the Muslim and Arab-American community, a critical voter bloc that has vocally opposed US support for Israel amid the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
Israel launched a military campaign in Hamas-run Gaza after the militant group stormed into Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking others hostage, on Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas is considered a terrorist group by the US and the European Union.
Israeli attacks have killed some 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between fighters and civilians.
Asked if the US still had a close ally in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Harris redirected the question to focus on the relationship between Israeli people and Americans.
“With all due respect, the better question is, do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people? And the answer to that question is yes,” she said.
Still, Harris said it’s “imperative” for the US to do what it can to “allow Israel to defend itself against those kinds of attacks” by Hamas and Hezbollah.
CBS will release the full interview Monday, part of a media blitz by the Harris campaign in the final month before Election Day. Other topics include the economy and immigration, according to CBS.
(Adds other interview topics in last paragraph.)
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