By Ron Kampeas
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, U.S. Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota and Democratic vice-presidential nominee, and his wife Gwen Walz during the Democratic National Convention at the United Center. Chicago, August 22, 2024. (Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(JTA) — WASHINGTON — In a pre-election High Holidays call with Jewish voters, Vice President Kamala Harris vowed never to allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, saying she would prefer diplomacy but considers “all options are on the table.”
The call Friday afternoon, just hours before Yom Kippur commenced, was a bid to place herself to the right of her rival for the presidency, Donald Trump, whom she portrayed as feckless about Iran when he was president.
“Make no mistake, as president, I will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend American forces and interests from Iran and Iran-backed terrorists, and I will never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon,” she said. “Diplomacy is my preferred path to that end, but all options are on the table.”
The phrase “all options are on the table” is a familiar one: It was used often by President Barack Obama when he was shaping the 2015 sanctions relief for nuclear rollback deal with Iran.
Using it now, a week after Iran barraged Israel with missiles and Israel is contemplating how to retaliate, amounts to an indication that Harris will provide what Israel has long sought from successive U.S. administrations: a guarantee that it will back Israel in keeping Iran from going nuclear, including though military action.
Israel would need an influx of powerful weapons from the United States to carry out a successful attack on nuclear sites, which are burrowed beneath mountains, according to experts.
President Joe Biden has indicated he would back an Israeli strike in retaliation for Iran’s mass missile attack on Israel earlier this month. But he has also said that hitting Iranian nuclear sites now is not an option, as it would likely escalate war in the region.
Trump, who has made his aversion to U.S. involvement in wars a central plank of his campaign, has not said however whether he would assist Israel in such a strike. His campaign did not return a request for comment.
But Trump has mocked Biden for warning Israel not to attack nuclear sites.
“I mean, to make the statement, ‘Please leave their nuclear alone,’ I would tell you that that’s not the right answer,” Trump said last week at a campaign event. “That was the craziest answer because, you know what? Soon, they’re going to have nuclear weapons. And then you’re going to have problems.”
Harris suggested that Trump would not stand by Israel. She noted that in 2020 he chose not to retaliate after Iran fired missiles at U.S. bases, after Trump ordered a strike that killed a top Iranian military commander. “When Donald Trump was president, he let Iran off the hook after Iran and its proxies attacked U.S. bases and American troops,” she said.
She also faulted Trump for pulling out of the Iran-nuclear deal in 2018, saying it helped spur Iran to get closer than it has ever been to manufacturing a bomb. Israel backed the U.S. exit from the deal, counseling its replacement with maximum pressure to get Iran to divest itself of its nuclear capability. Trump exerted such pressure by restoring and ramping up sanctions, helping to impoverish and isolate the regime, but by the time he left office in 2021, it had resumed and expanded its nuclear program.
“Trump did nothing, and he pulled out of the nuclear deal without any plan, leading to an unconstrained Iranian nuclear program,” Harris said.
Harris also again reasserted her backing for Israel in the war Hamas launched on Oct. 7, 2023, when its terrorists massacred 1,200 people in Israel and abducted more than 250, while calling for a ceasefire and for relief for millions of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who have been harmed by Israel’s retaliation.
“We are not giving up on a ceasefire and hostage deal,” Harris said, a pledge notable because Biden’s White House has tamped down its efforts to end the war. “We cannot, and I will never stop fighting for the release of all the hostages, including, of course, the seven American citizens living and deceased or still held.” There are believed to be 101 hostages remaining in Gaza.
Harris also accused Trump of stoking antisemitism. “Trump has espoused dangerous and hateful antisemitic tropes, creating fear and division,” she said, citing among other things his equivocation after a deadly 2017 Neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Antisemitism and who is better equipped to counter it has become a theme in this campaign. Harris noted that she and Biden were the first to launch strategy to combat antisemitism, shaped by a task force led by her husband, Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish and who also spoke on the call.
Trump and Republicans have said that the Biden-Harris administration has done little to stop the proliferation of campus anti-Israel protests which have at times crossed into antisemitism. Most of the federal pressure for campus reform has come from investigations launched by the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives, although the Biden administration has launched a number of civil rights investigations.
Harris acknowledged Jewish fears about the climate. “I know across the country many Jewish parents and grandparents are worried for their children who are on college campuses, and I know many Jewish students have feared attending class in recent months,” she said.
She upheld speech freedoms on campus, but said universities must ensure safety for Jewish students. “when Israel is singled out because of anti-Jewish hatred, that is antisemitism, and I condemn it,” she said. “Each university must ensure all students and faculty are safe and secure on campus in the United States of America.”