US criticism of Israel encourages Hamas, Netanyahu says in Fox News interview
Responding to Biden criticism, PM says Israelis united behind war aims and opposition to Palestinian state; not tackling Rafah would be like leaving ‘quarter of the Nazi army in place’
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that perceived disagreements between the US and Israel make it harder to defeat Hamas.
“To the extent that Hamas believes that there’s daylight between us, that doesn’t help,” Netanyahu said in a Fox News interview in the wake of intensified criticism from US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris over the weekend.
Agreement between the two allies, on the other hand, “helps the war effort, and it helps our efforts to achieve victory and obviously the release of the hostages,” he added.
On Saturday, Biden asserted that Netanyahu is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel” with his handling of the war against Hamas.
“You don’t have an issue with me,” said Netanyahu told “Fox and Friends.” “You have an issue with the entire people of Israel. They’re really united as never before, united to destroy Hamas, and ensure that we don’t have another Palestinian terror state like the one that we had in Gaza that could threaten the State of Israel.”
The comments appeared to be a rebuke of White House messaging seemingly telegraphing unhappiness with Netanyahu, while still signaling strong support for Israel, by highlighting gaps between Israelis’ interests and those of their prime minister.
The idea was underlined by Harris, who said Saturday that it was important to avoid conflating the Israeli government and Israeli people.
Netanyahu responded in a similar fashion in an interview on Sunday, telling Politico that if Biden thinks “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,” he claimed. “They are policies supported by the overwhelming majority of Israelis.”
On Monday, Netanyahu maintained that there has been broad agreement between himself and Biden, and they both agree that civilians need to be evacuated from Rafah before an IDF operation there.
“The president and I have agreed that we have to destroy Hamas. We can’t leave a quarter of the Hamas terror army in place, there, in Rafah,” Netanyahu said to Fox. “This would be equivalent to saying, you know, after the Allies fought back, gone through Normandy, went through Germany, and you’d say, well, we’ll leave a quarter of the Nazi army in place and we won’t go into Berlin, the last stronghold.”
He added: “We have agreements on the basic goals, but we also have disagreements. Ultimately, it’s Israel that has to decide.”
Hitting back at Biden’s comment that entering Rafah was a “red line” for him, Netanyahu said that leaving the Hamas forces there intact is “a red line. We can’t let Hamas survive.”
“We are not getting off the gas” in the war on Hamas, he insisted.
In a possible signal to the US president, who is seen as pressuring Israel in order to appeal to progressive voters ahead of the November election, Netanyahu pointed at polling that shows that “82% of Americans support Israel against Hamas.”
Asked about Biden’s hot mic comment at the State of the Union that he and Netanyahu need to have a “come to Jesus” conversation, Netanyahu said he is “not familiar with that term, even though Jesus was born not that far from here.”
“If it means a heart-to-heart conversation, we had that plenty of times in the 40 years I’ve known Joe Biden, and over the 12 or 13 conversations we’ve had over the course of the war,” said Netanyahu.
Netanyahu said Israel is “very close to victory,” and that it “will come sooner the more united we are.”
“One way or the other, we’re going to do it,” he pledged.
A statement from the Prime Minister’s Office distributing Sunday’s Politico interview clip stated explicitly in its title that Netanyahu was responding directly to Biden. The PMO did not distribute clips from the Fox News interview on Monday.
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.”
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 a hard-hitting interview aired 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 [to Israel] so that they don’t have the Iron Dome [missile defense system] to protect them,” but did not pledge to maintain supplies of offensive weaponry.
There have been multiple reports in recent weeks that Biden is fed up with Netanyahu, including that he has referred to the prime minister as an “asshole” 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.”
He has publicly denounced Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition and become increasingly public about his frustration with the Israeli government’s unwillingness to open more land crossings for critically needed aid to make its way into Gaza. In his State of the Union speech, he announced plans to build a temporary port on the Gaza coast to facilitate direct delivery of aid.
The president’s criticisms in the MSNBC interview also reflected intensified frustration following a mass-casualty incident on February 29 in which dozens of Palestinians were killed while trying to collect humanitarian aid in Gaza City, where law and order has collapsed amid desperate conditions.
He is also flummoxed by Netanyahu’s rejection of deals that the US president thinks are a win for Israel, like Saudi normalization in exchange for movement toward a Palestinian state.
The Washington Post reported in February that the US and several Arab partners were preparing a detailed plan for a comprehensive peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians that includes a “firm timeline” for a Palestinian state.
Biden’s vision for the end of the war, rejected by Israel, starts with an extended truce and a hostage deal, followed by Arab stakeholders helping to rehabilitate the Strip, a reformed Palestinian Authority returning to govern the enclave, Saudi Arabia normalizing ties with Israel, the creation of a pathway toward a Palestinian state and the bolstering of broader regional alignment against Iran.
Netanyahu’s government insists fighting cannot end until Hamas is completely destroyed, which necessitates expanding the military operation to Rafah, along Gaza’s border with Egypt. It has also rejected the PA having a role in governing postwar Gaza, noting Ramallah’s lack of condemnation for the October 7 massacre in southern Israel, in which some 1,200 were slaughtered and 253 were kidnapped into Gaza.
Top Biden administration aides warned visiting war cabinet minister Benny Gantz last week that Jerusalem could well end up indefinitely occupying Gaza with no help from the international community if it does not begin advancing a viable alternative to Hamas’s rule.
Despite the increasing visible rift, Biden and members of his administration have continued to insist that Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas and have avoided publicly backing a permanent ceasefire before the terror group is toppled and all the hostages are freed.
Jacob Magid contributed to this report.
