White House indicates it does not support conditioning aid to Israel

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is pressed on two American morning news shows about President Joe Biden’s response on Friday to a question about whether he supports growing calls from the far-left wing of the Democratic party to condition aid to Israel based on Jerusalem’s human rights record, particularly in the West Bank.

“That’s a worthwhile thought, but I don’t think if I started off with that we’d have ever gotten to where we are today. We have to take this one piece at a time,” Biden responded.

Sullivan is pressed to clarify whether Biden supports the proposal and he indicates that the president does not.

“President Biden acknowledged the idea, but he went on to say that his approach, which was high-level private diplomacy, has actually generated results,” Sullivan says, pointing to the introduction of humanitarian aid into Gaza, after Israel initially blocked any from entering for the first two weeks of the war; the exit of thousands of foreign nationals from the Strip, the first pause in the fighting, which is currently in its [third] day; and the first major hostage release.

Pressed whether Biden might be willing to support conditioning aid to Israel in the future, Sullivan refuses to answer.

The US president’s response raised some eyebrows, as the Biden administration to date has opposed efforts to condition aid to Israel beyond stipulations that already exist in all security assistance packages, which critics claim are not applied to the Jewish state.