GREENSBURG, Pa. – Former President Bill Clinton claimed Tuesday that Israeli leaders “don’t care anymore” about peace between the Jewish State and Palestinians and said Vice President Kamala Harris “can’t have” a plan to end the war in the Middle East.
Clinton, 78, was stumping for Harris in western Pennsylvania at the University of Pittsburg-Greensburg when a pro-Palestinian protester interrupted his remarks, demanding an answer from him on what the vice president would do to stop “the genocide” in Gaza and end US military support for Israel.
“That’s a fair question,” the 42nd president responded, before telling a 15-minute-long story about how he fell short of negotiating a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 2000.
When the keffiyeh-wearing protester interrupted the rambling ex-president again, charging in a shaky voice that the majority of the Palestinian children being killed in the current conflict are not “because of Hamas,” Clinton responded, “I agree with some of what you just said.”
“But let me remind you, everybody is assuming that Israel should have just been standing there where they were 20 years ago,” he said, referring to the near peace deal between former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the late PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat.
“Israel changed dramatically,” Clinton argued. “And now the people who have been going in – they don’t care anymore, of this directly.”
“So we’re going to have to build it again,” he added. “That’s all I can tell you.”
The former president signaled his support for a two-state solution, an approach that has been favored by the Harris-Biden administration.
“I think the Palestinians are entitled to a homeland,” Clinton said. “I think what’s happened in the West Bank is wrong, but Hamas always had a different ideology.”
Clinton emphasized that the terror unleashed by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 forced Israel to retaliate like never before.
“They attacked the Kibbutz,” he said of Hamas. “They killed children. It was horrible.”
“Hamas built all the tunnels underground, and they wanted to put Israel in a position of having to kill civilians to defend themselves,” Clinton went on.
“I can’t tell you how many nights since the last October that I’ve had trouble sleeping, because I think about what could have been.”
Clinton also said that the “far right-wingers in Israeli politics” were “happy when Hamas won the election” because the terror group “historically has had very few people who favored a two state solution.”
“Protecting the current government and its policies may make it worse,” he said, criticizing former President Donald Trump’s unequivocal support of Israel.
Clinton admitted to the 250 people at the event that Harris, 60, has no plan for peace in the Middle East but that Pennsylvanians should back her because she is the “most fair-minded” of the candidates.
“The reason you should support Kamala Harris is not because she has a detailed plan – and she can’t have one,” Clinton declared.
“This thing was shattered in a million pieces,” he lamented.
“If I were there, I couldn’t get what I wanted,” Clinton continued, calling lasting peace in the region “the hardest thing in the world.”
“I think we agree on this,” the Harris surrogate told the protester before ending the back and forth, “We can’t kill our way out of this.”
Lipika Mazumdar, an anthropology professor at the University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg and registered independent, attended the event and told The Post that she appreciated Clinton’s speech and the way he handled the protester’s questions.
“At first I thought he was just defending Israel,” Mazumdar said, noting that Clinton then argued in favor of Palestinians having a separate state and that voters will have to decide on character because the problem in the region is intractable.
“There’s nobody who can answer that lady’s question, what Harris will do about it,” she told The Post, explaining that Harris will “hear both Israeli and Palestinian sides instead of catering to Israel’s right.”
Mazumdar said she was almost going to vote uncommitted in Pennsylvania but came around to Harris for the reasons Clinton laid out.
“You have to choose the character. She’s going to do more embracing and hearing all parties’ concerns and including, which Trump will not.”