Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu responded publicly and directly on Sunday to biting personal criticism from US President Joe Biden the day before, saying in an interview that the US president was “wrong” when asserting that he is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel” with his handling of the war against Hamas.
Responding to Biden’s comments to MSNBC, Netanyahu told Politico, “I don’t know exactly what the president meant, but if he meant by that I’m pursuing private policies against the wish of the majority of Israelis, and that this is hurting the interests of Israel, then he’s wrong on both counts.”
“These are not my private policies only,” Netanyahu continued. “They are policies supported by the overwhelming majority of Israelis.”
The comments appeared to be a direct rebuke of White House messaging seemingly aimed at telegraphing unhappiness with Netanyahu while still signaling strong support for Israel by highlighting gaps between the Israeli people and their prime minister.
The idea was underlined by US Vice President Kamala Harris, who said Saturday that it was important to avoid conflating the Israeli government and Israeli people.
A statement from Netanyahu’s office distributing the interview clip Sunday stated explicitly in its title that Netanyahu was responding directly to Biden. The clip did not include other comments from Netanyahu later published by Politico, in which he vowed to defy international warnings against invading the southern Gazan city of Rafah.
An Israeli official told The Times of Israel on Sunday afternoon that Netanyahu’s decision to grant an interview to Politico was made after Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday in which the president warned that humanitarian aid “cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip,” lamented the fact most of the “more than 30,000 Palestinians” killed in Gaza were not Hamas members, and said “the only real solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “is a two-state solution.”
Netanyahu told Politico that Israelis “say the last thing we should do is install the Palestinian Authority” in Gaza, and that they support his position that “we should resoundingly reject the attempt to ram down our throats a Palestinian state.”
“The majority of Israelis understand that if we don’t do this, what we will have is a repetition of the October 7 massacre, which is bad for Israel, bad for the Palestinians and bad for the future of peace in the Middle East,” Netanyahu said.
The Israeli official said Netanyahu’s office believes Politico is read by Biden and his aides, and was therefore a fitting outlet in which to respond.
In his hard-hitting interview published by MSNBC Saturday, Biden highlighted deep US concerns over civilian deaths in Gaza and called the planned IDF operation in southern Gaza’s Rafah a “red line.” He also said there was no way he was going “to cut off all weapons so that they don’t have the Iron Dome [missile defense system] to protect them,” but without pledging to maintain supplies of offensive weaponry.
Netanyahu also pushed back on that front, telling Politico that “we’ll go there,” referring to Rafah.
“We’re not going to leave. You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is, that October 7 doesn’t happen again. Never happens again,” he said. He added that he didn’t see negotiations for a truce and hostage release deal succeeding, but predicted that fighting would wrap up within two months anyway, the news site reported.
“Maybe six weeks, maybe four,” he said.
There have been multiple reports in recent weeks that Biden is fed up with Netanyahu, including that he has referred to the prime minister with profanity in private on multiple occasions.
Biden has expressed frustration to confidants, according to NBC News, over his “inability to persuade Israel to change its military tactics in Gaza.”
{Matzav.com}