David Brennan
House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi is among the U.S. politicians most in the crosshairs of furious pro-Palestinian activists, as they look to force the American political establishment out of its "ironclad" support for Israel's devastating war on the Gaza Strip.
"I understand, for some people their frustration," Pelosi told Newsweek in an exclusive interview on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference last weekend.
Pelosi's San Francisco home has been repeatedly targeted in recent months. Red paint and fake blood have been splashed around it, while severed pigs' heads have been left displayed outside. Last week, a truckload of manure was dumped on her driveway.
The California lawmaker has accused some protesters of being linked to Russia and China, most notably in a January confrontation outside her home in which she shouted at activists: "Go back to China."
"I don't know that this is all organic," Pelosi said. "Much of it is, much of it is organic and spontaneous and sincere. I respect that. I don't think all of it is."
Nancy Pelosi at the 2024 Munich Security Conference in Germany on February 17, 2024. Pelosi told Newsweek Israel must be "careful" in its war with Hamas in Gaza.JOHANNES SIMON/GETTY IMAGESThe latest news on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Pelosi—like President Joe Biden and the vast majority of prominent U.S. politicians on both sides of the aisle—has been staunch in her backing for Israel's war on Hamas, launched after the October 7 infiltration attack that killed some 1,200 people in Israel and saw more than 240 people taken back into Gaza as hostages.
But the former House speaker told Newsweek she and Biden are being unfairly maligned as disinterested in the plight of the Palestinian people, and as blindly supportive of Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"I'm not a big fan of Netanyahu, as you could just imagine," Pelosi said of the veteran leader, who now heads an emergency war cabinet and is struggling with plummeting approval ratings.
Netanyahu has repeatedly dismissed U.S. calls for restraint in Gaza and the West Bank, and has refused to re-commit to the moribund two-state solution. Pelosi said she is growing "less and less" in favor of Netanyahu, quickly adding: "Well, you can't get less than nothing."
Newsweek has contacted Prime Minister Netanyahu's office by email to request comment.
Nonetheless, Pelosi said she still supports Israel's "right to defend itself." The October Hamas attack, she said, was "barbaric."
Pelosi said she puts her hope in other Israeli leaders, like President Isaac Herzog—who has been criticized for suggesting that Gaza civilians bear collective responsibility for the October attack.
"I love him," she said, recalling a conversation with Herzog the day before. "He said, 'We're almost there.' So, hearing a gentle, lovely, decent person like that say that, I thought well, hopefully they are right."
Israel's response has razed swathes of Gaza, displaced most of the Strip's 2.3 million people, and killed more than 29,000 Palestinians, per figures published by the Associated Press citing the Hamas-led Gaza health ministry. More than 290 Palestinians have also been killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank, with over 3,000 more arrested.
Then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on March 6, 2012. Pelosi told Newsweek she is no fan of the Israeli leader.ALLISON SHELLEY/GETTY IMAGESThe Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation has focused on Gaza's urban centers, with troops searching for the extensive network of militant tunnels, missing hostages, and Hamas leaders. Gaza City and Khan Younis have already been ravaged. Some 235 IDF personnel have been killed in the fighting, while Israel has claimed to have killed 10,000 militants.
The IDF is now poised to attack Rafah, the southern frontier town on the Egyptian border that has become the last refuge for more than 1 million Palestinians fleeing the fighting. The White House and other foreign Israeli allies have urged caution, some even demanding an immediate pause in the fighting.
Rafah has been swamped by internally displaced people, its limited infrastructure now almost buckling under the weight of the war. Fighting there, American volunteer doctors have told Newsweek, would be "catastrophic."
Pelosi, too, expressed her concern. Rafah, she said, "has three to five times the people there because of evacuations and the rest."
"Hamas is a terrorist organization," she added. "Hamas committed barbaric brutality. We sympathize with what happened in Israel, and we want to be careful about what happens—in the high 20,000s of people have been killed in Gaza.
"There has to be that recognition that if you're fighting combatants that's what you do. But you have to be careful."
The effect of Israel's war is playing out in the U.S., too. Biden has struggled to chart a popular response to the crisis, raising fears among Democrats that some voters—especially in younger demographics—will not turn out for him in the November presidential election.
Pelosi put the blame on the GOP. "Right now, one of the concerns that I have is that in holding up the supplemental...we're not able to get the humanitarian assistance," she said of the multi-billion funding package stranded in Congress by partisan politicking.
"People say, 'What are you going to do if Israel does that?' Well, what are we going to do about humanitarian assistance?" Pelosi asked.
"The Republicans are not for that. Now, I was very pleased that so many Republicans senators voted for the full [Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan funding] package, but what some of them have told us since is that they can't be for aid to the Palestinians.
"We're just talking about children and families, it's not about combatants."
Palestinian civil defense service members extinguish a fire following Israeli bombardments east of Rafah in southern Gaza on February 19, 2024. Rafah has served as a refuge for hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians, but... MoreSAID KHATIB/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGESBiden's approval ratings have taken a hit amid Israel's war but protesters' anger, Pelosi argued, is misplaced.
"What bothers me is when they come, they talk about Joe Biden and [call him] 'Genocide Joe.' He's the one who wants to have the humanitarian assistance, the other side is the one that was saying they didn't want to," she said.
"I have been there with him on the two-state solution from the start," Pelosi added.
"Whoever these people are, are taking it out on him. And they don't ever say anything about free the hostages. They don't say anything about Hamas is a terrorist organization. They sympathize with Hamas, some of them...not all."
No comments:
Post a Comment