Kamala Harris ‘pleaded with’ Biden to show sympathy for Palestinians, book reveals
In her new memoir, former Vice President Kamala Harris offers revealing insights into her handling of the war in Gaza, an issue that was featured prominently in the 2024 election.
The book — titled “107 Days” — pulls back the curtain on Harris’s private clashes with former President Joe Biden, her frosty relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and her thoughts on the pro-Palestine protesters who trailed her campaign.
“I had pleaded with Joe, when he spoke publicly on this issue, to extend the same sympathy he showed to the suffering of Ukrainians to the suffering of innocent Gazan civilians,” Harris wrote.
“But he couldn’t do it: while he could passionately state, ‘I am a Zionist,’ his remarks about innocent Palestinians came off as inadequate and forced.”
Harris, whose book goes on sale on Sept. 23, also said Biden’s aides reprimanded her for a speech she gave on Israel’s war against Hamas.
In the address, delivered in Alabama on March 3, 2024, Harris described the situation in Gaza a humanitarian crisis and called for an immediate cease-fire. At the same time, she reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself and urged Hamas to release its hostages.
“It went viral, and the West Wing was displeased,” she wrote. “I was castigated for, apparently, delivering it too well.”
A spokesperson for Biden did not immediately respond Sept. 19 to a McClatchy News request for comment.
In her book, the former vice president goes on to detail her icy rapport with and ambivalence towards Netanyahu, whom she met with on July 25.
She describes him as “disengaged” and unwilling to work toward a permanent cease-fire.
“He wanted Trump in the seat opposite him,” she wrote. “Not Joe, not me. Netanyahu wanted the guy who would acquiesce to his every extreme proposal for the future of Gaza’s inhabitants…”
She also criticized pro-Palestine protesters who showed up at her events, chanting slogans accusing her of supporting “genocide” and saying they would refuse to cast their ballots for her.
“The threat to withhold their vote got to me,” Harris wrote. “It felt reckless. Either Trump or I would be elected. The issue was not binary, but the outcome of this election certainly was.”
She added, “Why weren’t they protesting at Trump rallies?”
In the end, despite her reservations about the way Israel, backed by the U.S., was prosecuting its war in Gaza, Harris did not publicly break from Biden.
In an October 2024 interview on ABC’s “The View” — which subsequently went viral and was amplified by Trump’s campaign — Harris said “there is not a thing that comes to mind” when asked what she would have done differently than Biden.
She expressed regret for this response in the book.
“Over the course of the 107 days, I became increasingly aware that people wanted to know that there was a separation (between her and Biden) and that it was a big issue for them,” Harris wrote. “I just didn’t realize how big.”
Some post-election polls have indeed suggested that Harris’s failure to distance herself from Biden, specifically over the war in Gaza, played a role in her electoral defeat.
In a January 2025 YouGov survey, 29% of Biden 2020 voters who did not cast their ballots for Harris cited “ending Israel’s violence in Gaza” as the main reason, making it the most cited issue, more so than the economy, immigration and abortion.
Since the war in Gaza began after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, more than 65,000 Palestinians in the enclave have been killed, according to Gaza health officials. Much of the population also faces famine and severe hunger, in part due to Israeli restrictions on humanitarian aid, according to the United Nations.
This story was originally published September 19, 2025 at 2:48 PM with the headline "Kamala Harris ‘pleaded with’ Biden to show sympathy for Palestinians, book reveals."