Foreign politicians don’t have to pretend to take Biden seriously. From Kyle Anzalone at antiwar.com:
The Israeli leader responded to President Joe Biden’s remarks that he was “harming” Israel, claiming his war is popular and the fighting would continue for up to six weeks.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit back at President Joe Biden after the American leader criticized the onslaught in Gaza. Netanyahu said he would order an attack on Rafah, and insisted his policies are popular among Israelis. While Biden said attacking Rafah was a “red line,” he restated that the US would never stop sending Israel weapons for “self-defense.”
In an interview with MSNBC on Saturday, Biden accused Netanyahu of “hurting Israel,” while Axios reported the White House was becoming “frustrated” with the PM’s “ungratefulness.”
Biden told MSNBC that if Israel attacked Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, it would cross a “red line” for Washington, but nonetheless added that he would also supply the weapons Israel needs for self-defense.
Tel Aviv claims its military actions in Gaza are a defensive response to the Hamas attack on October 7. “We’ll go there. 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,” Netanyahu told Politico in an interview published on Sunday.
In five months, Israel has killed at least 31,000 Palestinians, about two-thirds women and children, and destroyed most of the infrastructure in the Strip. In the process, Israeli forces have displaced most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million and triggered a humanitarian catastrophe that is nearing outright famine.
