Cowardly Kamala has just failed her first test to be president! DAN MCLAUGHLIN says Harris's pathetic response to Hamas's execution of an American should terrify everyone

Kamala Harris hasn't had many chances to show what type of commander-in-chief she'd be if given the opportunity.

Judging by her reaction to the murder of an American hostage by Hamas, she's not ready for the job – and never will be.

Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli-American citizen, was one of six hostages executed by Hamas in Gaza this weekend.

The 23-year-old, a California native living in Jerusalem, was snatched from the Nova music festival in southern Israel on October 7.

A young woman, who huddled with him in a bunker as the terrorists attacked that day, said he protected her by throwing Hamas's grenades out of their hiding place – before one of the bombs blew off his arm below the elbow.

The IDF believes he was executed along with the others as Israeli forces closed in on their captors.

Two weeks since officially accepting the Democratic Party nomination, this was Harris's first real foreign policy test.

But here was her milquetoast tweet on Sunday: 'As [President Biden] said, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes… It is long past time for a ceasefire and hostage deal. We need to bring the hostages home and end the suffering in Gaza.'

That, of course, is painfully obvious – and utterly useless.

Everyone in the U.S. and Israel wants the hostages home. And it doesn't take a foreign policy genius to see that peace is always preferable.

But how do we achieve it?

Israel cannot be expected to settle for anything less than the complete destruction of Hamas's ability to stage another October 7.

Yet, for 11 months, an agreement has been maddeningly elusive.

And Harris offers no breakthrough solutions – only banal platitudes and cowardly equivocation.

In March, she threatened 'consequences' for Israel if it entered the southern Gaza city of Rafah to try to rescue the hostages.

'We have been clear in multiple conversations and in every way that any major military operation in Rafah would be a huge mistake,' she said.

In late July, she refused to preside over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to the US Congress – one of her few responsibilities as vice president.

After meeting with the Israeli leader in private, Harris insulted him further - saying she'd warned Netanyahu that she 'will not be silent' about 'the dire humanitarian situation' facing the Palestinians.

Just hours before Goldberg-Polin's body was found this week, sources close to the Vice President told the Washington Post that she 'could be open to imposing conditions on some aid to Israel.'

She has managed to give anti-Israel activists the impression from private meetings that she would support an arms embargo against Netanyahu's government.

Her spokespeople deny that – for now.

But her campaign appears happy to keep winking in that direction.

Now, the White House reportedly proposes to present Israel and Hamas with a 'take it or leave it' ceasefire deal.

And what are they doing to put more pressure on Hamas?

Nothing.

Reporters asked President Biden on Monday if he thought Netanyahu had done enough to secure a deal with Hamas to release the captives.

He said 'no' and shuffled off without elaborating.

At least four other American citizens are believed to be still held alive in Gaza; Edan Alexander, 20; Sagui Dekel-Chen, 35; Omer Neutra, 22; and Keith Siegel, 64.

Three others are presumed dead. Their bodies have not been recovered.

Maybe, Mr. President and Madame VP, you should demand that Hamas free the hostages immediately without precondition?

But Harris and Biden dodge the issue — too scared of their own domestic critics to take a side and too unsure of their own power to exercise it with conviction.

In 1853, an American citizen named Martin Koszta was abducted in Turkey by Austrian agents.

As a result of Koszta's imprisonment, American captain Duncan Ingraham threatened to open fire on an Austrian ship in the Turkish harbor if Koszta wasn't immediately surrendered to them.

Lo and behold, he was released.

Today, the Biden White House is working overtime to paint Harris as some sort of shadow president advising Biden and making the tough calls behind the scenes.

The administration is releasing photos of her in the Situation Room and adding her name to official reports of Biden's calls with foreign leaders, such as Netanyahu and China's Xi Jinping.

They're sensitive to the reality that the Democratic Party's nominee for president has scant foreign policy experience, as the world burns around them.

The only international emergencies she has touched – as 'border czar' overseeing America's illegal immigration calamity and as the last person to advise Biden before his calamitous decision to hastily yank US forces from Afghanistan – were unmitigated disasters.

Now, we can add the unending war in Gaza to her resume of fatal failures.