Kamala Harris hasn’t had many opportunities to demonstrate what kind of commander in chief she would be if given the chance.
Judging by her reaction to Hamas’s killing of an American hostage, she is not ready for the job, and never will be.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli-American citizen, was one of six hostages executed by Hamas in Gaza this weekend.
The 23-year-old California native and Jerusalem resident was kidnapped from the Nova music festival in southern Israel on October 7.
A young woman, who was huddled with him in a bunker as the terrorists attacked that day, said he protected her by throwing Hamas grenades from his hiding place, before one of the bombs blew off her arm below the elbow.
Kamala Harris hasn’t had many opportunities to demonstrate what kind of commander in chief she would be if given the chance.
The 23-year-old California native and Jerusalem resident was kidnapped from the Nova music festival in southern Israel on October 7.
The IDF believes he was executed along with the others when Israeli forces closed in on their captors.
Two weeks after officially accepting the Democratic Party nomination, this was Harris’ first real foreign policy test.
But here is his tweet from Sunday: “As (President Biden) said, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes… It is long overdue for a ceasefire and a hostage deal. We need to bring the hostages home and end the suffering in Gaza.”
That, of course, is painfully obvious and utterly useless.
In the United States and Israel, everyone wants the hostages to come home, and it doesn’t take a foreign policy genius to realize that peace is always preferable.
But how do we achieve this?
Israel cannot be expected to settle for anything less than the complete destruction of Hamas’s ability to organize another October 7.
But for 11 months, reaching an agreement has been excruciatingly difficult.
And Harris offers no innovative solutions: only banal platitudes and cowardly equivocations.
In March, he threatened “consequences” for Israel if it entered the southern Gaza city of Rafah to try to rescue the hostages.
“We have been clear in multiple conversations and in every way that any major military operation in Rafah would be a huge mistake,” he said.
A young woman, who was huddled with Goldberg-Polin in a bunker as the terrorists attacked that day, said he protected her by throwing Hamas grenades from his hiding place, before one of the bombs blew off her arm below the elbow (seen above in the hostage video released by Hamas on April 24, 2024).
This was his cowardly tweet on Sunday: “As (President Biden) said, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes… It is time for a ceasefire and an agreement on the hostages.”
In late July, she declined to chair Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the U.S. Congress, one of her few responsibilities as vice president.
After meeting privately with the Israeli leader, Harris further insulted him, saying she had warned Netanyahu that she “will not remain silent” about “the dire humanitarian situation” facing the Palestinians.
Just hours before Goldberg-Polin’s body was found this week, sources close to the vice president told the Washington Post that she “might be open to attaching conditions to some aid to Israel.”
He has managed to give anti-Israel activists the impression, in private meetings, that he would support an arms embargo against the Netanyahu government.
Their spokesmen deny it, for now.
But his campaign seems happy to keep winking in that direction.
Now, the White House is reportedly proposing to present Israel and Hamas with a take-it-or-leave-it ceasefire agreement.
And what are they doing to put more pressure on Hamas?
Nothing.
President Biden was asked by reporters on Monday whether he believed Netanyahu had done enough to reach a deal with Hamas to free the captives.
He said no and left without giving any further details.
At least four other U.S. citizens are believed to be alive in Gaza: Edan Alexander, 20; Sagui Dekel-Chen, 35; Omer Neutra, 22; and Keith Siegel, 64.
Three other people are presumed dead, but their bodies have not been recovered.
Perhaps, Mr. President and Madam Vice President, you should demand that Hamas release the hostages immediately and without preconditions?
But Harris and Biden skirt the issue: too frightened by their own internal critics to take sides and too unsure of their own power to wield it with conviction.
Hours before Goldberg-Polin’s body was found this week, sources close to the vice president told the Washington Post that she “might be open to attaching conditions to some aid to Israel.” (Above) Jonathan Polin and Rachel Goldberg, parents of Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin
In March, Harris threatened “consequences” for Israel if it entered the southern Gaza city of Rafah to try to rescue the hostages.
In 1853, an American citizen named Martin Koszta was kidnapped in Türkiye by Austrian agents.
As a result of Koszta’s imprisonment, American Captain Duncan Ingraham threatened to open fire on an Austrian ship in Turkish port if Koszta was not handed over to them immediately.
And behold, he was set free.
Today, the Biden White House is working overtime to portray Harris as a sort of shadow president who advises Biden and makes tough decisions behind the scenes.
The administration is posting photos of her in the Situation Room and adding her name to official reports of Biden’s calls with foreign leaders, including Netanyahu and China’s Xi Jinping.
They are sensitive to the reality that the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee has little foreign policy experience, while the world burns around him.
The only international emergencies he has touched — as “border czar” overseeing the illegal immigration calamity in the United States and as the last person to advise Biden before his calamitous decision to hastily withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan — were unmitigated disasters.
Now, we can add the endless war in Gaza to its resume of fatal failures.