The Memo: Harris heads to Michigan, the epicenter of anger over Israel, Gaza and Lebanon
Vice President Harris is headed to Detroit on Tuesday for the first of several Michigan appearances this week. She will be in Grand Rapids and Lansing on Friday and back in Detroit on Saturday.
Her visits come as events in the Middle East careen even further out of control. This month alone, Israel has invaded Lebanon and, according to aid agencies, begun to choke off humanitarian aid to northern Gaza.
An Israeli strike on a Gaza hospital complex in the early hours of Monday local time killed at least four people and hospitalized many more with severe burns after tents were set ablaze. Horrific images — shocking even by the standards of a brutal year since the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023 — were widely shared on social media.
Israel contended that a Hamas command center adjacent to the hospital was the target of the attack.
The confluence of events in the Middle East complicates the political calculus for Harris in a state that has the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the nation. More than 200,000 Arab Americans live in Michigan.
In a statement on social media Sunday night, Harris acknowledged United Nations reports that no food had entered northern Gaza in almost two weeks, said Israel “must urgently do more to facilitate the flow of aid to those in need,” and asserted “International humanitarian law must be respected.”
But Harris has ruled out stopping U.S. military aid to Israel — the main demand of progressive voices within her party. Such aid has totaled almost $18 billion in the last year alone, according to a recent study from Brown University.
She has........
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