Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday urged Arizona students to distinguish between Palestinian civilians caught in conflict and terrorist militants in Hamas after students pulled her into a campus fracas that is overlapping with President Biden’s visit to Israel.
Ms. Harris conspicuously avoided the Middle East situation during campus stops in South Carolina and Nevada last week and again focused on gun violence, LGBT rights and voting rights at the outset of her speech at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.
But a student tied the suffering among migrants at the U.S. southern border to Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel is attempting to root out Hamas terrorists who stormed the Jewish state and killed over 1,400 people, including 30 Americans.
“I know y’all saw the news, today Israel bombed the last Christian hospital in Gaza, killing over 500 doctors, children and refugees,” a student identified as Jonathan Otero said. “Why take away the life of the children in Gaza and at the border, which ultimately takes away the right of education?”
References to Palestinians drew cheers and hoots of approval from students, forcing Ms. Harris to confront the topic that is dominating the news but had remained out of view in her campaign-style college tour.
Ms. Harris said Israelis and Palestinians both “deserve peace, deserve self-determination and deserve safety.”
“I am deeply, deeply affected — as I think we all are — by what we have seen in terms of the loss of life and the violence that has occurred, when first of all a terrorist organization, Hamas, struck Israel in the way that it did,” she said. “I think it is important to recognize, also, the distinction between a terrorist organization, Hamas, and the Palestinian people, and civilians and they should not be conflated.”
Students could be heard shouting at each other after Ms. Harris finished her answer, but the conversation swiftly pivoted back to domestic issues.
Ms. Harris is leaning into the Israeli-Hamas situation off-campus. “The president and I take very seriously our commitment to Israel,” she said at a South Carolina airport before a campus visit.
Yet Ms. Harris tries to avoid the topic on her “Fight for our Freedoms” tour of colleges.
Critics say that Ms. Harris, who is in the spotlight given Mr. Biden’s advanced age, should be countering college students’ open hostility to Israel.
“It’s an opportunity to push back against some of the unambiguously antisemitic voices that have been heard on some campuses in the United States, where some students and student organizations and faculty members have either been silent or justified or celebrated Hamas’s attack on Israel civilians,” said Jonathan Schachter, a senior fellow with Hudson Institute’s Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East.
Ms. Harris’ outreach to young voters comes as the Democratic Party suffers a rift between younger, pro-Palestinian voters and traditional pro-Israel liberals, a schism thrown into harsh relief by Hamas’ bloody Oct. 7 attack on Israelis.
Pro-Palestinian student groups at major U.S. universities, notably Harvard, issued statements blaming Israel for the attack. Student rallies in support of “free Palestine” and against the Israeli “colonization” and “occupation.”
Students for Justice in Palestine sent out a template for a “National Day of Resistance” on Oct. 12 featuring a paraglider, a reference to the terrorists who descended on Israeli concert-goers from the sky.
The Biden administration and most Democratic officeholders have decried the attack on Israel, a longtime U.S. ally, but years of anti-Israel activism on campuses appears to be driving a sea change among younger Democrats.
A Gallup poll released in March found that for the first time, more Democrats sympathize with the Palestinians than with Israel, with support highest among older voters and lowest among Millennials.
Some political analysts say Ms. Harris has an opportunity to do more.
Bianca Adair, director of the Intelligence Studies Program at Catholic University, said Ms. Harris “has an opportunity to serve as a moral compass on the Oct. 7 attack on Israel in her tour of universities.”
“She should condemn without reservation the atrocities committed by Hamas and stress that Hamas is a terrorist organization as a matter of U.S. foreign policy,” Ms. Adair said “Moreover, she should condemn antisemitism as hate speech without ambiguity. Doing so does not detract from the important goals of the U.S. seeking to protect innocent Palestinians just as the U.S. defends innocent Israelis.”
