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Kamala Harris is No Friend to Israel

By HENRY SREBRNIK A mere days after the Democratic Party leaders pushed President Joe Biden out the door, Kamala Harris, until then a virtual nonentity, was suddenly recast by the so-called “legacy media,” acting in complete lock-step, as a wunderkind bringing the politics of “joy” to America. 

That was no surprise. She is a creature of the Democratic Party left and its journalistic enablers, themselves beholden to a woke progressive ideology. And this includes an antipathy – if not worse – to Israel.

For many American Jews, the prospect of Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania as a running mate for Vice President Kamala Harris prompted elation. He was clearly the candidate who could help the party bring back worried Jewish voters. But not so fast! 

Why did Harris go with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a man who can’t deliver a swing state, over a young and glib governor who can? There’s only one reason: Jews are no longer allowed on the Democratic presidential ticket. Shapiro is, after all, a “Zionist,” and that wouldn’t do.

Efforts by left-wing and pro-Palestinian activists to derail Shapiro’s nomination – some called him “Genocide Josh” — worked, and it told us just where Harris stood as she made the first significant choice of her candidacy.

The left attacked Shapiro, considering him too sympathetic to Israel. Heeding their warning, she preferred a bland Minnesota liberal governor who will help her far less. 

Progressive Democrats were elated. CNN senior political commentator Van Jones said “anti-Jewish bias” may have played a part in the selection of Walz and warned that “antisemitism has gotten marbled into this party.”

Remarked Micah Lasher, a New York City Democrat who is running for that state’s legislature, “There was an inescapable sense the selection had been made into a referendum over Israel.” 

We all remember her egregious insult to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he addressed the U.S. Senate July 24, an event Harris boycotted. She instead spoke to the Zeta Phi Beta sorority in Indianapolis. 

“It is unconscionable to see Vice President Kamala Harris shirk her duties as president of the Senate and boycott this historic event,” stated Victoria Coates, vice president of the Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at the Heritage Foundation. “If we can’t stand with Israel now, when can we?”

“I see you. I hear you,” Harris told pro-Hamas demonstrators in Washington during Netanyahu’s visit, as they burned American flags and assaulted police.

On August 7 Harris and Walz met with the leaders of the Uncommitted National Movement in Michigan, a state with a large Arab American population. This is the group that mobilized more than 100,000 people to withhold their votes from President Biden in the Michigan primary last February over his support for Israel. 

Founder Layla Elabed reported that Harris “expressed an openness” to meeting with them to discuss an arms embargo against the Jewish state. “Michigan voters right now want a way to support you, but we can’t do that without a policy change that saves lives in Gaza right now,” she told Harris. “Will you meet with us to talk about an arms embargo?”

Elabed explained that Harris wasn’t agreeing to an arms embargo but was open to discussing one “that will save lives now in Gaza and hopefully get us to a point where we can put our support” behind Harris. At a rally in Arizona August 9, Harris told pro-Palestinian demonstrators that “I respect your voices.” 

Harris’s presidential campaign subsequently stated that she has “prioritized engaging with Arab, Muslim and Palestinian community members and others regarding the war in Gaza.” She herself had maintained that “We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent.”

All this led to pushback among some Israel supporters. “Kamala Harris won’t speak with the press. But she will speak with pro-Hamas radicals and suggest she’s open to a full arms embargo against Israel,” Arkansas Republican senator Tom Cotton stated. “Floating an arms embargo against Israel to pro-Hamas activists is disgraceful,” former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who served in the Trump administration, added. 

“If the group in line with Harris was pro-life and asked for a meeting about banning abortion, she would forcefully say ‘no.’ Don’t tell me it means nothing she said she’s open to an arms embargo on Israel when radical Hamasniks got in line,” declared Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

In an interview with the far-left Nation magazine, “Is Kamala the One?”, published July 8, she had already indicated her sympathy for the young people who had mobilized against the war in Gaza and occupied university campuses across the country. 

“They are showing exactly what the human emotion should be, as a response to Gaza. There are things some of the protesters are saying that I absolutely reject, so I don’t mean to wholesale endorse their points. But we have to navigate it. I understand the emotion behind it.”

The Biden administration has assembled an interagency team tasked with finding Israeli individuals and groups to sanction, in order to weaken if not topple Netanyahu.

The International Economics Directorate at the National Security Council (NSC) leads the effort. Ilan Goldenberg, who has now become Harris’ liaison to the Jewish community, has played a very enthusiastic role.

Goldenberg, who has served as Harris’s adviser on Middle East issues, has been an acerbic critic of both Netanyahu and the Palestinian leadership.

All this demonstrates that Harris is no friend of Israel. To take another example, her Middle East guru, Philip Gordon, who has served as Harris’s foreign policy adviser since she ran for the White House in 2020, sees and hears no evil emanating from Iran.

Republicans are already demanding the vice president answer why Gordon wrote a string of 2020 opinion pieces together with a Pentagon official, Ariane Tabatabai, who was tied last year to an Iranian government-backed initiative tasked with selling the 2015 nuclear deal to the American public.

“Before joining your office, Mr. Gordon co-authored at least three opinion pieces with Ms. Tabatabai blatantly promoting the Iranian regime’s perspective and interests,” Cotton and New York Representative Elise Stefanik wrote Harris on July 31.

Gordon has argued that the easing of economic sanctions could have allowed Iranian businesses and civil society to better integrate internationally and potentially moderate Tehran’s clerics. He was among the most vocal Democratic critics of former President Donald Trump’s 2018 decision to pull the U.S. out of that landmark nuclear agreement.

But critics have maintained that the loosening of sanctions on Iran has provided Tehran with billions of dollars to fund its terror proxies across the Mideast, leading, among other things, to the Hamas and Hezbollah attacks on Israel, as well as providing the Houthis in Yemen with weapons to strangle Red Sea shipping.

Cotton and Stefanik, in their letter to Harris, asked if Gordon and Tabatabai purposefully spread Iranian disinformation to relieve U.S. pressure on Tehran’s theocratic rulers. “Did you request further investigation into Mr. Gordon when Ms. Tabatabai’s connections to the Iranian Foreign Ministry were revealed in September 2023? Did Mr. Gordon admit and report his ties to this individual?” they wrote. Harris did not reply.

Yet there are Jews who have eyes yet cannot see, so wedded are they to the Democrats. It’s become their ersatz religion. Not long ago the Charlottetown Jewish community hosted a mid-summer event on a beautiful day, which included many of the American summer residents. I was talking to an older man from Massachusetts who said he will (as usual) vote for the Democrat.

I suggested that it should be impossible for any Jew to vote for Harris after she went off to a sorority event in Indiana in July when the prime minister of the embattled Jewish state, suffering a traumatic loss last October and fighting for its survival today, spoke to the United States Senate, where she normally serves as presiding officer. Such a slap in the face would not have been administered to any other head of government. 

And not liking Benjamin Netanyahu is no excuse. Would this man not have supported Franklin Roosevelt or Winston Churchill during the Second World War, no matter what he thought of them? Would he have thought Britain and the United States were not worth defending, due to some of their actions during the war? Such excuses really ring hollow. I can understand why Harris favours the Palestinians, both for pragmatic reasons — there are more Muslim votes than Jewish ones — and ideological ones — progressive woke ideology — but do Jews have to go along with this?

(Yes, we know Harris has a Jewish husband. But this is a man who has had little concern with Judaism in his life. His first wife was non-Jewish and neither are his daughters; indeed, one supports anti-Israel protests. A Hollywood entertainment lawyer, he has only now been trotted out as a supposed expert on anti-Semitism, with absolutely no qualifications, so I doubt too many Jews are impressed.) 

“Jews for Kamala are Living in Denial,” wrote American playwright, film director, and screenwriter David Mamet on August 9 on the website UnHerd. “Can one imagine a more appallingly calculated slight? Her absence announced that, under her administration, the United States will abandon Israel. And yet American Jews will support her.” We do live in strange times.

Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.

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Trump: Saudi Expressed Interest in Joining Abraham Accords

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then-US President Donald Trump, and United Arab Emirates (UAE) Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed display their copies of signed agreements as they participate in the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accords, normalizing relations between Israel and some of its Middle East neighbors, in a strategic realignment of Middle Eastern countries against Iran, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, US, Sept. 15, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Tom Brenner

i24 NewsUS President Donald Trump said on Friday that he expected an expansion of the Abraham Accords soon and hopes Saudi Arabia will join the pact that normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and some Arab states.

“I hope to see Saudi Arabia go in, and I hope to see others go in. I think when Saudi Arabia goes in, everybody goes in,” Trump told the Fox Business Network in an interview.

The leader spoke days after overseeing the Gaza ceasefire deal that ended the two-year-long war between Israel and Palestinian jihadists, launched on October 7, 2023 with a slaughter of some 1,200 Israelis in a Hamas-led massacre.

Meanwhile Trump has threatened Hamas following the horrific images from the Gaza Strip, where Hamas executed people suspected as collaborators with Israel, saying, “If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them.”

Hours after the release of the final Israeli hostages under the US-brokered ceasefire, Hamas gunmen executed more than 30 Palestinians accused of treason and collaboration in what security sources and witnesses described as a brutal bid to reassert control over the war-torn Gaza Strip.

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Hamas Aims to Keep Grip on Gaza Security and Can’t Commit to Disarm, Senior Official Says

Hamas senior official Mohammed Nazzal speaks during an interview with Reuters, in Doha, Qatar, October 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

Hamas intends to maintain security control in Gaza during an interim period, a senior Hamas official told Reuters, adding he could not commit to the group disarming – positions that reflect the difficulties facing US plans to secure an end to the war.

Hamas politburo member Mohammed Nazzal also said the group was ready for a ceasefire of up to five years to rebuild devastated Gaza, with guarantees for what happens afterwards depending on Palestinians being given “horizons and hope” for statehood.

Speaking to Reuters in an interview from Doha, where Hamas politicians have long resided, Nazzal defended the group’s crackdown in Gaza, where it carried out public executions on Monday. There were always “exceptional measures” during war and those executed were criminals guilty of killing, he said.

PRESSURE TO DISARM

While Hamas has broadly expressed these views before, the timing of Nazzal’s comments demonstrates the major obstacles obstructing efforts to cement a full end to the war in Gaza, days after the first phase of the ceasefire was agreed.

They point to big gaps between Hamas’ positions and US President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza, ahead of negotiations expected to address Hamas’ weapons and how Gaza is governed.

Asked for comment on Nazzal’s remarks, the Israeli prime minister’s office said Israel was committed to the ceasefire agreement and continued to uphold and fulfil its side of the plan.

“Hamas is supposed to release all hostages in stage 1. It has not. Hamas knows where the bodies of our hostages are. Hamas are to be disarmed under this agreement. No ifs, no buts. They have not. Hamas need to adhere to the 20-point plan. They are running out of time,” it said in a statement to Reuters.

Trump’s September 29 plan called for Hamas to immediately return all hostages before committing to disarmament and ceding governance of Gaza to a technocratic committee overseen by an international transitional body.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supported the plan, saying it would dismantle Hamas’ military capabilities, end its political rule, and ensure that Gaza would never again pose a threat to Israel.

Hamas-led terrorists killed 1,200 people and abducted another 251 during the October 7 attacks on Israel that triggered the war.

Pummeled by Israel in the war, the Palestinian Islamist group is under intense pressure to disarm and surrender control of Gaza or risk a resumption of the conflict.

Asked if Hamas would give up its arms, Nazzal, speaking on Wednesday, said: “I can’t answer with a yes or no. Frankly, it depends on the nature of the project. The disarmament project you’re talking about, what does it mean? To whom will the weapons be handed over?”

He added that issues to be discussed in the next phase of negotiations, including weapons, concerned not only Hamas but other armed Palestinian groups, and would require Palestinians more broadly to reach a position.

Asked for its response to Nazzal’s remarks, the White House directed Reuters to comments by Trump on Thursday.

“We have a commitment from them and I assume they’re going to honor their commitment,” Trump said, noting that Hamas had returned more bodies but without elaborating on the issue of it disarming or its interim presence on the ground.

Nazzal also said the group had no interest in keeping the remaining bodies of deceased hostages seized in the October 7, 2023 attacks.

Hamas has handed over at least nine out of 28 bodies. It was encountering technical problems recovering more, he said, adding that international parties such as Turkey or the US would help search if needed.

A senior Turkish official said last week that Turkey would take part in a joint task force along with Israel, the US, Qatar and Egypt to locate the bodies.

Hamas agreed on October 4 to release the hostages and hand over governance to a technocratic committee, but said other matters needed to be addressed within a wider Palestinian framework. It released all living hostages on Monday.

Nazzal said the phase two negotiations would begin soon.

GOALS OF ELECTIONS, ‘HOPE’ FOR PALESTINIANS

On Tuesday, Trump said he had communicated to Hamas that it must disarm or it would be forced to. Trump has also suggested Hamas was given temporary approval for internal security operations in Gaza, and has endorsed Hamas killing members of gangs.

Noting Trump’s remarks, Nazzal said there was an understanding regarding Hamas’ presence on the ground, without specifying among whom, indicating it was necessary to protect aid trucks from thieves and armed gangs.

“This is a transitional phase. Civilly, there will be a technocratic administration as I said. On the ground, Hamas will be present,” he said. After the transitional phase, there should be elections, he said.

Nazzal said mediators had not discussed with the group an international stabilization force for Gaza, which was proposed in Trump’s ceasefire plan.

Hamas’ founding charter called for the destruction of Israel, although the group’s leaders have at times offered a long-term truce with Israel in return for a viable Palestinian state on all Palestinian territory occupied by Israel in the 1967 war.

Israel regards this position as a ruse.

Nazzal said Hamas had suggested a long-term truce in meetings with US officials, and wanted a truce of at least three to five years to rebuild the Gaza Strip. “The goal isn’t to prepare for a future war.”

Beyond that period, guarantees for the future would require states to “provide horizons and hope for the Palestinian people,” he said.

“The Palestinian people want an independent Palestinian state,” he added.

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Gaza-Egypt Border Crossing Will Remain Closed, Netanyahu Says

Trucks carrying humanitarian aid and fuel line up at the crossing into the Gaza Strip at the Rafah border on the Egypt side, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, in Rafah, Egypt, October 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer

The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt will remain closed until further notice, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday, adding its reopening will depend on Hamas handing over bodies of deceased hostages.

Netanyahu’s statement came shortly after the Palestinian embassy in Egypt announced that the Rafah crossing, the main gateway for Gazans to leave and enter the enclave, would reopen on Monday for entry into Gaza.

Hamas said later on Saturday it will be handing over two more hostage bodies at 10 p.m. local time (1900 GMT), meaning 12 out of 28 bodies will have been handed over to Israel under a US-brokered ceasefire and hostage deal agreed between Israel and Hamas last week.

ISRAEL SAYS HAMAS TOO SLOW TO RETURN BODIES

The dispute over the return of bodies underlines the fragility of the ceasefire and still has the potential to upset the deal along with other major issues that are included in US president Donald Trump’s 20-point plan to end the war.

As part of the deal, Hamas released all 20 living Israeli hostages it had been holding for two years, in return for almost 2,000 Palestinian detainees and convicted prisoners jailed in Israel.

But Israel says that Hamas has been too slow to hand over bodies of deceased hostages it still holds. The terrorist group has so far returned 10 of 28 bodies and says that locating some of the bodies amid the vast destruction in Gaza will take time.

The deal requires Israel to return 360 bodies of Palestinian militants for the deceased Israeli hostages and so far it has handed over 15 bodies in return for each Israeli body it has received.

Rafah has largely been shut since May 2024. The ceasefire deal also includes the ramping up of aid into the enclave, where hundreds of thousands of people were determined in August to be affected by famine, according to the IPC global hunger monitor.

After cutting off all supplies for 11 weeks in March, Israel increased aid into Gaza in July, scaling it up further since the ceasefire.

Around 560 metric tons of food had entered Gaza per day on average since the US-brokered truce, but this was still well below the scale of need, according to the U.N. World Food Program.

Formidable obstacles to Trump’s plan to end the war still remain. Key questions of Hamas disarming and how Gaza will be governed, the make-up of an international “stabilization force” and moves towards the creation of a Palestinian state have yet to be resolved.

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