Nancy Pelosi slams Benjamin Netanyahu: Former US speaker says Israeli PM never wanted peace

Former US Speaker Nancy Pelosi has argued Benjamin Netanyahu never believed in peace in the Middle East, saying while the US supported Israel, it doesn’t support the deaths of “so many”.

The Democratic elder, a supporter of Israel, slammed Mr Netanyahu and said the Israeli Prime Minister had never believed in peace in the Middle East and because of him, a two-state solution was not currently viable.

“Not with Netanyahu, no, I don’t think he’s ever believed in peace or a two-state solution,” she told the foreign policy think tank Chatham House in London.

“The US — we’ve always supported Israel, it is our ally, we share values within our national strategic interest.

“We continue to support Israel, but not the deaths of so many, so much collateral.”

She said that the Israelis were “clearly” not taking enough precautions to avoid civilian casualties in its ongoing conflicts in the region.

Israel has continued to defy US and international calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and now Lebanon, saying it wants to destroy Iran’s proxies, the terrorist organisations Hezbollah and Hamas, that oppose Israel’s existence.

Israel’s supporters are increasingly worried that the fighting will lead to an all-out war involving Iran, which has so far limited its direct attacks on Israel to two mass missile assaults.

Ms Pelosi, 84, who has twice served as US Speaker and remains a Democratic Party heavyweight, also sought in her appearance at Chatham House in London, to reassure Indo-Pacific countries that the region is very important to her party’s presidential candidate Kamala Harris after the Vice President nominated Iran and not China as America’s greatest foe.

Ms Harris caused surprise last week when she nominated Iran as the United States’ greatest adversary when asked during a rare interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes.

Asked by The Nightly if Ms Harris’ decision to nominate Iran as the US’s greatest foe constituted another Democratic shift away from Asia, Ms Pelosi said: “No, I don’t think so at all.”

“She was talking about immediate,” Ms Pelosi said.

“And that immediate is what is happening in the Middle East.

“The Indo-Pacific is very important to the United States and very important to Kamala Harris.

“And she has demonstrated that.”

Ms Pelosi said Ms Harris had spent time travelling Asia, attended the APEC summit in San Francisco last year and as a Californian, was attuned to the situation in the Pacific.

Ms Harris has not spelt out how her foreign policy will be different, if at all, from the Biden Administration’s, which has focused on combating Beijing’s technological and manufacturing dominance whilst at the same time sought to reopen dialogue with the Chinese at top military and political levels.

With polling showing the race is a dead heat, Ms Pelosi predicted Ms Harris would win the popular vote on the back of abortion and women’s rights, claiming Republican foe Donald Trump was poised to turn the gender gap into a “gender gulf” if re-elected.

“The turnout is going to be tremendous,” she said.

“Again, it’s all close, we’ll win the popular vote, there is no question about that.”

But due to the Electoral College, Ms Pelosi said it would come down to the seven key states of Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.

“The question is … do we win enough of those states to win the Electoral College,” she said.

Ms Pelosi described Harris as a person of strength, eloquent, good with people and “politically very astute.”

“I’m glad that she’s not putting herself out and saying ‘I should win because I’m a woman’,” she said.

“It will be icing on the cake when she wins, it will be so fabulous and so wonderful but it is not the point.

“The point is she’s the best person for the job.

“She happens to be a woman, she happens to be a woman of colour - glory Hallelujah – but it’s not the reason to vote for her.

“The vote for her is what it means in people’s lives to vote for a Democrat or a Republican in this election.”

Ms Pelosi said democracy was on the ballot in next month’s Presidential election between Ms Harris and former President Trump.

She said the Republican party had “turned into a cult” under Mr Trump, who she refused to refer to by his name.

“It is a close race … I cannot understand it at all,” she said.

Ms Pelosi was directly targeted by MAGA supporters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, when Mr Trump refused to accept the verdict of the American people who voted for Biden.

Her husband Paul was attacked in the Pelosi family home in 2022 by a far-right conspiracy theorist who was hunting for the former Speaker.