Harris to Jewish voters: ‘All options on the table’ to stop Iran from going nuclear

In pre-election High Holidays call, US vice president says diplomatic solution still preferable to keep Islamic Republic from the bomb, charges Trump won’t stand by Israel

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at the Rawhide Western Town and Event Center in Chandler, Arizona, on October 10, 2024. (Photo by Rebecca Noble/AFP)
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at the Rawhide Western Town and Event Center in Chandler, Arizona, on October 10, 2024. (Photo by Rebecca Noble/AFP)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — In a pre-election High Holidays call with Jewish voters, US 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 former US 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 US administrations: a guarantee that it will back Israel in keeping Iran from going nuclear, including through 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.

Centrifuges line a hall at the Uranium Enrichment Facility in Natanz, Iran, in a still image from a video aired by the Islamic Republic Iran Broadcasting company on April 17, 2021, six days after the hall had been damaged in a mysterious attack. (IRIB via AP)

US 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 US 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 when Iran fired missiles at US 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 US 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 US exit from the agreement, 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.

Then-US president Donald Trump holds up a signed executive order to increase sanctions on Iran, in the Oval Office of the White House, June 24, 2019, in Washington. Trump is accompanied by then-treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin, left, and then-vice president Mike Pence. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

“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’s war on Hamas, which was triggered on October 7, 2023, when its terrorists massacred 1,200 people in Israel and abducted 251 people, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault. At the same time, she called for a ceasefire and for relief for millions of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who have been harmed by the ongoing war.

“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.”

It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.

Family members of Israeli hostages held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza speak to the press after meeting with US Vice President Kamala Harris, outside the White House in Washington, on April 4, 2024. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP)

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 a 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 US House of Representatives, although the Biden administration has launched several 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.”

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report. 

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