Donald Trump has called Kamala Harris’s statement on the Gaza war “disrespectful” before a meeting with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Florida to discuss the conflict.
Harris, the US vice-president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, had seemed to mark a change of tone on the Israel-Gaza war on Thursday after her own meeting with Netanyahu, when she declared she would “not be silent” about the suffering of Palestinians.
Trump criticised Harris on Friday before his meeting at his Mar-a-Lago home, calling her remarks “disrespectful” as he targeted her over an issue that has split the Democratic party.
“They weren’t very nice pertaining to Israel,” Trump said. “I actually don’t know how a person who is Jewish could vote for her, but that’s up to them.”
Photographs showed Trump warmly greeting Netanyahu, who is concluding a one-week visit to the US that has been marked by large protests against the war. People stood along the route used by Netanyahu’s motorcade to visit Trump, holding up signs that read: “Ceasefire now” and “Convicted fellon [sic] invites a war criminal”.
Before the meeting, Netanyahu said he believed military pressure on Hamas had created “movement” in ceasefire talks, and that he would send a team to an upcoming round of negotiations in Rome. “Time will tell if we’re closer to a ceasefire deal,” he said.
The meeting is their first since Trump left the White House in 2020. The men have had a strained relationship in the past after Netanyahu congratulated Joe Biden on his victory in the 2020 election, a vote that Trump has claimed, without evidence, was manipulated. “Bibi could have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake,” Trump said at the time. “Fuck him.”
On Friday, the two appeared to have reconciled. “We’ve always had a good relationship,” Trump told reporters before the meeting.
The two were political allies in the past. Trump largely gave Netanyahu carte blanche during his first term in office. He told Fox News this week that Israel should finish the war and bring back the hostages “fast”. “They are getting decimated with this publicity, and you know Israel is not very good at public relations,” Trump told the broadcaster.
Harris has tried to thread the needle of continuing the Biden administration’s policy of support for Israel while assuaging growing anger among Democrats about the humanitarian toll of the conflict that has killed 39,000 Palestinians. Nearly half the Democrats in Congress skipped Netanyahu’s speech in the House of Representatives, and dozens openly said they were boycotting it because of the war.
Harris met Netanyahu on Thursday at the White House shortly after the prime minister had sat down with Joe Biden. The separate meetings highlighted how the presumptive Democratic nominee has become increasingly independent since launching her presidential campaign.
At the same time, aides tried to play down the potential for change between Biden and Harris on Israel. “[Biden’s] and [Harris’s] message to PM Netanyahu was the same: it’s time to get the hostage and ceasefire deal done,” wrote Phil Gordon, Harris’s national security adviser.
Harris called the meeting “frank and constructive”, and said “Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters”. She indicated that she would not halt military aid to Israel because she would “always ensure that Israel is able to defend itself”.
But she went further than other administration officials in criticising how Israel has prosecuted the war in Gaza, bolstering hopes she may, at least rhetorically, give more voice to the humanitarian concerns of Palestinians.
She said she had expressed her “serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians, and I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there”.
“What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating – the images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. 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.”
Harris did not say how Netanyahu responded to the Biden administration’s offer of a three-part ceasefire that would begin with a withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces from population centres and some hostages being released. She did not take questions from reporters following the remarks.
“There has been hopeful movement in the talks to secure an agreement on this deal,” Harris said. “And as I just told prime minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done. So, to everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you and I hear you.”
The Democratic mayor of Dearborn, Abdullah Hammoud, said in an interview with Michigan public radio: “Many of us are waiting to see what policy platform Harris puts forward.” Hammoud has been outspoken on Gaza in a state where 13.2% voted “uncommitted” in this year’s Democratic primary in a protest against Biden’s policy towards Israel.
“In the conversations that we have had I have found her to be sympathetic and empathetic,” he said. “I’ve found her to be someone that wants to listen … obviously there’s much that remains to be seen.”
A senior administration official said before the meetings with Biden and Harris that the “framework of the deal is basically there” but that there are “some very serious implementation issues that still have to be resolved”.
“There are some things we need from Hamas, and there are some things we need from the Israeli side, and I think you’ll see that play out here over the course of the coming week,” the official said.