United States President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that Israel is losing support over its “indiscriminate” bombing of Gaza and that Benjamin Netanyahu should change, exposing a new rift in relations with the Israeli prime minister.
Joe Biden s words, made to donors to his 2024 re-election campaign, were his most critical to date of Netanyahu’s handling of Israel’s war in Gaza. They are a stark contrast to his literal and political embrace of the Israeli leader days after Hamas militants’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.
Biden said Netanyahu must “change,” adding that “this government in Israel is making it very difficult.”
He also said that ultimately Israel “can’t say no” to a Palestinian state, which Israeli hardliners oppose.
Biden said: “We have an opportunity to begin to unite the region … and they still want to do it. But we have to make sure that Bibi (Netanyahu) understands that he’s got to make some moves … You cannot say no Palestinian state.”
Netanyahu also said in Tuesday’s statement he would “not allow Israel to repeat the mistake of Oslo,” the 1990s peace accords that established the Palestinian Authority (PA) as part of negotiations for the creation of a potential Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
Washington has said it envisions an eventual return by the PA to Gaza, which Hamas seized from the West Bank-based body in 2007.
“I will not allow the entry into Gaza of those who educate terrorism, support terrorism, and finance terrorism,” Netanyahu said. The PA denies such allegations.
Biden has expressed strong support for Israel’s military operation against Hamas militants in Gaza but he and his team have expressed growing concern about the death of Palestinian civilians.
Biden plans to meet on Wednesday at the White House with family members of Americans taken hostage by Hamas during its Oct. 7 attack in which 1,200 people were killed, a White House official said.
Sullivan said on Tuesday that during his visit to Israel, he will discuss with Israeli officials their timetable for the war in Gaza.
“Israel’s security can rest on the United States, but right now it has more than the United States. It has the European Union, it has Europe, it has most of the world … But they’re starting to lose that support by indiscriminate bombing that takes place,” Joe Biden stated.
Biden’s remarks opened a new window into his blunt private conversations with Netanyahu, with whom he has had deep disagreements for decades.Joe Biden alluded to a private conversation in which the Israeli leader said: “‘You carpet-bombed Germany, you dropped the atom bomb, a lot of civilians died.'”
Biden, who often speaks off the cuff at his fundraising events, appeared at a Washington hotel with about a hundred people, including a number of Jewish attendees. He was introduced by a longtime leader within the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobby.
President Joe Biden’s sharp comments coincided with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan preparing to travel to Israel for talks with the Israeli war cabinet.
Netanyahu said in a statement on Tuesday that Israel had received “full support” from the United States for its ground incursion into Gaza and that Washington had blocked “international pressure to stop the war.”