Kamala Harris Hasn’t Broken From Joe Biden On Gaza. But Skeptics Of The War Watch Her Rise With Hope.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday made her first major statement on the war in Gaza since she became the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee — affirming that she wants to see conditions improve for Palestinians, while still backing the current U.S. approach of simultaneously arming Israel and seeking a cease-fire.

Harris Israel should do more to minimize Palestinian deaths. For a March speech, she personally inserted descriptions of “inhumane” conditions in Gaza, according to the Post, and said Israel had “no excuses” for restricting aid. White House staff watered down that address, according to NBC News. (Kirsten Allen, Harris’ communications director, told NBC the report was “inaccurate.”)

In that speech, Harris called for an “immediate cease-fire” in what was cast as “some of the administration’s most forceful public remarks to date” and as “some of the strongest made by a senior U.S. official” about Palestinian lives.

But she was describing the administration’s policy at the time, as it attempted to secure a temporary truce.

The episode reflects how wishful thinking and a public hunger for an administration shift have sometimes ignored a basic reality: When it comes to the fundamentals of U.S. policy, Harris has been aligned with Biden since Oct. 7.

She is a long-standing supporter of billions in military aid to Israel from the U.S., and she has not publicly challenged the president’s decisions to advance additional weaponry to the country, including by bypassing oversight from Congress, despite widespread concerns about how American bombs and other equipment will be used.

Nor has Harris weighed in on whether she believes the excessive civilian death toll she has often referenced violates international law, even amid an International Court of Justice case over “plausible” genocide in Gaza and a debate at the International Criminal Court over arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas leaders. Separately, it’s unclear what she makes of lawmakers, former officials and human rights groups arguing that continued American backing for Israel breaks a U.S. law against providing weapons to a government barring the delivery of American humanitarian aid.

And Harris has not joined other Democrats who have called for halting or rethinking American weapons shipments. In the coming weeks, the administration plans to unveil an $18 billion package of additional arms for Israel, the largest since Oct. 7.

To some, Harris’ alignment with Biden’s policy so far means it’s hard to see her as any different.

Her staff members often present “the same talking point: Kamala cares about the vulnerable, the unprotected,” said a second U.S. official who has worked with Harris’ team.

The official expressed skepticism about her concern for Palestinians affecting policy. “I don’t know if it’s really based on reality,” they said. On Gaza, the Harris team doesn’t “have strong leadership.”

Spokespeople for the vice president and the White House National Security Council did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Advocates for a different U.S. strategy for the war in Gaza and the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict openly hope they can push Harris in a new direction. Some point to personal reasons why she may be more attuned to Palestinians’ experience.

The vice president is close to her pastor, Amos Brown, whom she consulted last weekend as Biden passed the baton to her in the 2024 election. Per The Washington Post, Brown directly asked Harris in February to help Palestinians, arguing their struggle resonates with that of Black Americans. Black churches have broadly been important centers of support for Democratic candidates, and amid the war, more than 1,000 Black pastors have called for a cease-fire. The move showed “a recognition within the Black church that their role [in conversations about the war] is as important as any other voter bloc,” said Khader from the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, who is Black and Palestinian.

And Harris, unlike Biden, “does not have a long-term personal relationship with Netanyahu,” noted Sarah Harrison, an analyst at the Crisis Group think tank. That history is widely understood to have contributed to the president’s reluctance to break more fully with his Israeli counterpart.

“She is listening to the next generation in a way that President Biden did not,” Harrison said, pointing to “young, progressive women” close to Harris who have expressed solidarity with Palestinians, notably niece Meena Harris and stepdaughter Ella Emhoff.

Harrison, who has criticized the Biden administration’s Gaza approach, is realistic about where Harris stands: “She is still going to work within the parameters the Democratic Party has set on foreign policy. She’s not one who tends to rock the boat.”

But a Harris presidency could put extra pressure on achieving goals like establishing a Palestinian state living alongside Israel and holding violators of international law accountable, Harrison said.

“She could set a different tone” for government officials, argued Harrison, who previously worked on laws covering weapons transfers at the Pentagon. That might encourage them to, for instance, apply the same human rights standards to Israel that the U.S. does to other countries receiving American arms.

Matt Duss of the Center for International Policy think tank recently argued Harris could even as a candidate embrace moves like restoring U.S. funding for UNRWA, the United Nations agency serving Palestinians. (Biden suspended the funding after Israeli allegations that workers with the agency were involved in the Oct. 7 attack, for which an independent review said Israel has yet to provide sufficient proof. The U.S. is now the only country to have rescinded funding that has not since reversed the move; lawmakers from both major parties this spring voted to write a one-year ban into American law.)

Closer to home, Harris has the chance to unburden herself from Biden’s Middle East agenda in ways that reap political benefits.

For instance, the president putting a U.S.-Israel-Saudi Arabia deal as his top goal in the region may have made his team wary of criticizing the Saudis. But that meant a major line of attack against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was left on the table. Biden “should be bashing Trump over his business ties with Saudi Arabia,” said Stephen Miles, the president of the progressive advocacy group Win Without War. “They should be talking about corruption. But that’s not what they’re doing.”

As she tries to rally support, Gaza will be key for the vice president’s approach to some deeply disillusioned groups of Democratic voters, from students to Arab Americans. For some, simply having a set of new faces to deal with may inspire some hope.

“President Biden’s team has failed to substantively engage with the policy demands of our Uncommitted movement,” said Abbas Alawieh, an organizer with the “uncommitted” movement, in which tens of thousands of Democrats denied Biden their primary votes in opposition to his Gaza policy. Biden has repeatedly directed aides to reach out to Alawieh and others in his coalition but has not altered U.S. policy on Gaza in response.

“We’re hoping that Vice President Harris takes a different approach, listening to voters’ concerns and engaging seriously with our demand for an arms embargo that saves lives and helps achieve a cease-fire and a release of all hostages and detainees,” Alawieh added.

With fighting, deaths and U.S. involvement in the war ongoing, those seeking change are tracking Harris’ moves now, not just her promises for when she may be in the Oval Office — and the final say on shifts that could boost her candidacy remains with the president.

“We are clear on how dangerous Trump is, and that’s part of why we need Biden and Harris to change course immediately,” Alawieh said.

Arguing that “it’s never fair to judge a vice president based on the president they serve,” Miles told HuffPost that “the work to end the suffering in Gaza cannot wait for another half a year.”

“The person who can do the most, right now, to secure a cease-fire, release the hostages, and set the stage for a sustainable peace is and remains President Joe Biden,” he continued.