Harris navigates Biden and Netanyahu as she considers her stance on Israel

Four days into the most consequential week of Kamala Harris’ political life, she has to confront the most fraught foreign policy issue facing the country by looking directly into the eyes of an Israeli prime minister who decided not to even give her a passing name check in his address to Congress Wednesday afternoon.

Four days into the most consequential week of Kamala Harris’ political life, she has to confront the most fraught foreign policy issue facing the country by looking directly into the eyes of an Israeli prime minister who decided not to even give her a passing name check in his address to Congress Wednesday afternoon. Up until now, Harris has been defined by working for President Joe Biden, arguably the most explicitly pro-Israel American president, even though his relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu has frayed. But now that she’s the presumptive Democratic nominee, Harris has to define what kind of president she wants to be — on this and every other issue, while Biden remains at the White House trying to nail down a Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal and with some around him thinking that restarting the normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia could be a top legacy project for the remainder of his term. Harris didn’t preside over Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on Wednesday, instead choosing to stick with a pre-scheduled trip to a sorority event in Indiana, as antisemitic protests erupted near the US Capitol where fences were put up like in the days following the January 6, 2021, riot. On Thursday, she’s set to welcome Netanyahu to her ceremonial office in the Old Executive Office Building. But articulating a clear position on Israel will take more than that, according to CNN’s conversations with two dozen former and current aides, members of Congress and other political players. “We don’t have enough evidence,” said Richard Haass, the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations and official in George W. Bush’s State Department, when asked to evaluate Harris’ position on Israel vis-à-vis Biden. “Anyone who says they can answer is not very helpful. You can’t judge a person when they’re vice president.” Even several people who have talked with Harris in depth about Israeli policy responded to CNN’s questions — on whether, for example, she would have done the same as Biden in sending some and halting other weapons to Israel — with a series of extended pauses and insistences that it’s impossible to judge hypotheticals.