Pathetic Kamala Harris makes excuses to Palestine protestors in Southbank

Activists disrupted a Kamala Harris event last night, calling out the former US presidential hopeful for her complicity in Israel’s genocide of the people of Palestine.

Outside London’s Southbank Centre, watched by a contingent of cops, around 30 protesters waved Palestinian flags and chanted “Kamala Harris is not welcome here”. They displayed banners bearing the words “Genocide enablers are war criminals” and “Stop starving Gaza!”.

‘I’m not president right now’

Harris took the stage alongside author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at Southbank last night to promote her new campaign memoir, ‘107 Days’. However, within minutes hecklers started to interrupt the Democrat ex-VP. One protester held up a banner reading “Harris you have blood on your hands”.

Pro-Palestine protesters and hecklers have dogged the ‘107 Days’ tour from its outset. Whilst still in the States, Harris responded on multiple occasions with variations on:

I’m not president right now, there’s nothing I can do.

Between Biden’s campaign in 2020 and Harris’ election bid in 2024, support for the Democrats dropped by almost a third. Polling conducted by the Institute of Middle East Understanding and YouGov suggested that this was because of Biden-Harris’ support for Israel.

Regarding the lack of support for Harris, 29% of former-Biden-voters gave “ending Israel’s violence in Gaza” as their reason. That one issue came out ahead of the economy, immigration, healthcare, and abortion.

‘Not a binary issue’

At last night’s event, Harris stated:

I understand the passion and the emotion and the feeling based on everything that has happened in Gaza. I understand everything behind the protesters.

She then claimed that her administration could have done things differently, and should have made more public statements. At this, a protester stood up and began shouting at the ex-VP. Security guards also dragged away a second banner-waving activist.

Adichie later questioned Harris about her administration’s support for Israel as part of her interview. Harris stated:

I did not have the final say on that at all and if I had this would have been different.

However, in her book itself, Harris wrote:

The war in Gaza is not a binary issue, but too often the conversation about it is. I wanted to acknowledge the complexity, nuance and history of the region, but it seemed very few people had the appetite for that or the willingness to hold two tragic narratives in their mind at the same time, to grieve for human suffering both Israeli and Palestinian.

‘A court will decide’

On 16 September 2025, a UN commission declared that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. It followed a long line of other human rights organisations, aid workers and citizens of both Palestine and Israel who said the same.

However, Harris has thus far refused to name Israel’s actions for what they are. In a 12 October interview, when asked if Israel was committing genocide, Harris remained equivocal:

Listen, it is a term of law that a court will decide. But I will tell you that when you look at the number of children that have been killed, the number of innocent civilians that have been killed, the refusal to give aid and support, we should all step back and ask this question and be honest about it, yeah.

In her attempts to play both sides, remain neutral, acknowledge “nuance”, Harris is failing to acknowledge something that is not nuanced, something that is plainly obvious. Israel is committing genocide. Biden’s government, and her alongside it, supported that genocide.

Harris has already lost one election because of her government’s pathetic refusal to stand against Israel with its full weight. As ‘107 Days’ shows, she has profoundly failed to learn that lesson.

It’s a lesson that goes the same for all politicians who attempt to remain ‘palatably centrist’ – in the face of profound injustice, neutrality is not neutral, it is not palatable, and it is not acceptable.

As the protests plaguing her book tour show, people are not willing to let that injustice stand.

Featured image via the Canary