US president\u2019s remarks about PM\u2019s role in conflict draw heavily critical response from Israeli government.
\nJoe Biden has said that there is \u201cevery reason\u201d to draw the conclusion that Benjamin Netanyahu is prolonging the war in Gaza for his own political self-preservation.
\nBiden made the remarks about the Israeli prime minister in an interview with Time magazine published on Tuesday morning, drawing a sharp response from the Israeli government, which accused the US president of straying from diplomatic norms.
\nNetanyahu\u2019s popularity plummeted after the 7 October attack by Hamas, which exposed serious flaws in Israeli security. Most political observers say Netanyahu would lose elections if they were held now, and would be forced into opposition, facing court hearings on corruption charges. But elections have been put off until the war is over, or at least until major military operations are deemed to have been completed.
\nTime asked Biden whether he believed Netanyahu was \u201cprolonging the war for his own political self-preservation\u201d.
\n\u201cI\u2019m not going to comment on that,\u201d the president said in response, but added: \u201cThere is every reason for people to draw that conclusion.\u201d
\nHe went to discuss some of the internal political problems Netanyahu was facing before the war.
\nAsked if he wanted to clarify Biden\u2019s response, the US national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, said: \u201cI think the president was very clear in his answer on that, and we\u2019ll let the prime minister speak to his own politics. The president was referencing what many critics have said.\u201d
\nIn response, the Israeli government spokesperson, David Mencer, said Biden\u2019s remarks about Netanyahu and Israeli politics were \u201coutside the diplomatic norms of every right-thinking country\u201d.
\nOver the course of a wide-ranging interview, Biden was also asked about the allegations, under investigation by the international criminal court (ICC) and the international court of justice (ICJ), that Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza. The president gave an ambivalent response.
\n\u201cThe answer is it\u2019s uncertain and has been investigated by the Israelis themselves,\u201d he said. \u201cThe ICC is something that we don\u2019t recognise. But one thing is certain: the people in Gaza, the Palestinians, have suffered greatly, for lack of food, water, medicine, etc. And a lot of innocent people have been killed.\u201d
\nBiden pointed out that Hamas also held responsibility for the bloodshed in Israel and Gaza.
\nAsked specifically if Israel was using \u201cstarvation of civilians as a method of warfare\u201d, a charge being pursued by the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan.
\n\u201cNo, I don\u2019t think that,\u201d Biden said. But he then said: \u201cI think they\u2019ve engaged in activity that is inappropriate.\u201d
\nBiden said that when he visited Israel in the wake of the 7 October attack, he told Netanyahu\u2019s government: \u201cDon\u2019t make the same mistake we did going after [Osama] bin Laden. The idea of occupying Afghanistan, the idea that you had nuclear arsenals in Iraq, that were \u2026 simply not true. And it led to endless wars. Don\u2019t make the mistakes we made.\u201d
\nBut Biden concluded by saying the Israelis were indeed \u201cmaking that mistake\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US president\u2019s remarks about PM\u2019s role in conflict draw heavily critical response from Israeli government. Joe Biden has said that there is \u201cevery reason\u201d to draw the conclusion that Benjamin Netanyahu is prolonging the war in Gaza for his own political self-preservation. Biden made the remarks about the Israeli prime minister in an interview with …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24084"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24089,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24084\/revisions\/24089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}