Joe Biden issued his harshest criticism yet of Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, saying that the way he is conducting the Gaza war “harms more than it helps Israel.” The Israeli prime minister replied yesterday that Biden “is wrong”.
In an interview for MSNBC, Biden said that Netanyahu “must pay more attention to the loss of innocent lives due to the actions he is taking” and that with these “he is harming Israel more than he is helping it”. “There can’t be another 30,000 dead Palestinians as a result of persecuting” Hamas.
Netanyahu responded yesterday, also through an interview with the US magazine Politico. “I don’t know exactly what the president meant, but if he meant that I am following a personal policy against the wishes of the majority of Israelis and that I am going against the interests of Israel, then he is wrong on both counts” , Netanyahu said, adding that “I am not following a private policy, it is a policy endorsed by an overwhelming majority of Israelis (…) They also support my position that we must categorically reject the attempt to impose on us a Palestinian State”.
On Thursday, after a speech to Congress, microphones picked up an informal conversation in which Biden said of the need to increase humanitarian aid to Gaza that Netanyahu “will have to get into his head.” “I want to see a cease-fire,” said Biden, specifying that, to begin with, he was referring to a cessation of hostilities for six weeks.
Two days later, during the television interview, Joe Biden was again asked about the existence of a “red line” that Israel should not cross in its offensive, in particular a massive offensive in Rafah, southern Gaza , where 1.5 million people are concentrated, forced precisely by the Israeli army.
Rafah “is a red line,” Biden said, then added, cryptically or at least ambiguously: “But I will never abandon Israel. Israel’s defense is still critical, so there is no red line [by which] I will cut all weapons – for Israel – so that they don’t have the Iron Dome to protect themselves.” In the interview it was not clarified whether the president of the United States was faking it by suspending the supply of weapons to Israel except for the missiles of the Cúpula deFerro anti-aircraft system.
Washington has approved more than a hundred arms sales to Israel since October 7, but the Biden Administration has on several occasions omitted congressional review of this supply.
