Last Saturday, Joe Biden issued his harshest criticism yet of Beniamin Netanyahu, saying that the way he is carrying out the Gaza war “harms Israel more than it helps.” 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 them “he is harming Israel more than he is helping it.” “There cannot be another 30,000 Palestinians killed as a result of persecuting” Hamas.
Netanyahu responded yesterday also through an interview with the American 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 points,” Netanyahu said, adding that “I am not following a private policy, it is a policy supported by an overwhelming majority of Israelis (...) They also support my position that we must categorically reject the attempt to impose a Palestinian state on us.”
Last Thursday, after a speech before Congress, microphones captured an informal conversation in which Biden said of the need to increase humanitarian aid to Gaza that Netanyahu "will have to get it through his head." “I want to see a ceasefire,” Biden said, 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 asked about the existence of a “red line” that Israel should not cross in its offensive, in particular a massive offensive in Rafah, in southern Gaza, where they are concentrated. 1.5 million people, 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 am going to cut off 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 US president was threatening to suspend the supply of weapons to Israel except for the Iron Dome anti-aircraft system missiles.
Washington has approved more than one hundred arms sales to Israel since October 7, but the Biden Administration has repeatedly omitted congressional review of this supply.
