Vice President Kamala Harris said last week she "will not be silent" amid "images of dead children" in the Middle East. That desire to speak out apparently does not apply to Israeli children.
Harris, the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee, is yet to personally comment on the Hezbollah strike that killed 12 Israeli children on Saturday. That strike marked the deadliest single attack on the Jewish state since Hamas's Oct. 7 terror spree.
Since then, Harris has commented on a number of other topics, including the U.S. Olympic basketball team, the drag queen reality show RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, the Venezuelan election, and her campaign's fundraising haul. She has not addressed the strike beyond a statement her national security adviser, Phil Gordon, issued in her name. That statement called for a "diplomatic solution" to Hezbollah.
Harris's silence comes less than a week after she held a meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and subsequently called for a ceasefire in Gaza.
"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," Harris said. "We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and I will not be silent."
Harris's failure to address the Hezbollah strike prompted criticism from Republicans.
"It's been almost 2 days and we still have not heard directly from VP Kamala Harris regarding the horrific Hezbollah attack in northern Israel that killed innocent children playing soccer," the Republican Jewish Coalition said. "Running and hiding from your anti-Israel Democrat base isn't leadership, it's pathetic."