WASHINGTON: The aggressive Israeli bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip is starting to bleed support from the international community because of high civilian casualty numbers, President Joe Biden has said.
“They’re starting to lose that support,” Mr Biden said during a campaign fundraiser in Washington on Tuesday, just hours before he was set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Mr Biden added that he believes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs to shake up the composition of his Likud-led cabinet, which experts have described as the most right-wing and extreme in Israeli history.
“Bibi’s got a tough decision to make,” Mr Biden added, using a nickname for the longtime Israeli leader.
“This is the most conservative government in Israel’s history,” he said before later adding that Mr Netanyahu must “strengthen” and “change” his coalition government to find a two-state solution to the decades-long conflict between Israel and Palestine.
Mr Biden noted that the current makeup of the Israeli government “doesn’t want a two-state solution”.
Mr Netanyahu “has to change this government. This government in Israel is making it very difficult,” Mr Biden said.
“We have an opportunity to begin to unite the region,” he said, according to Reuters. “They still want to do it. But we have to make sure that Bibi understands that he’s got to make some moves to strengthen … you cannot say no Palestinian state … that’s going to be the hard part.”
The president’s comments go further in criticising the Israeli government than he has during public events so far.
Mr Biden said that Israel can’t say no in the future to a Palestinian state as he increases US pressure on Mr Netanyahu and his government amid increasing outrage at the number of civilian deaths in Gaza.
Biden National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is set to travel to Israel for talks with its war cabinet. On Wednesday, the Israeli prime minister said the US backs Israel in its goal of wiping out Hamas and rescuing the remaining hostages.
However, the US and Israeli leaders appear to disagree on what should come after the end of the current hostilities. The US, which has up until now rejected calls for a ceasefire at the UN and greenlit selling thousands of tank shells to the Israelis, now appears to softening in its support as Mr Biden made his most clearly critical comments yet on Tuesday.
While the US has been arguing for the Palestinian Authority to have a leadership role in Gaza after the end of the conflict, the longtime Israeli leader rejected that notion in a video posted to social media before Mr Biden’s remarks.
“There is disagreement about the day after Hamas and I hope that we will reach agreement here as well,” Mr Netanyahu said, according to The New York Times.
“After the great sacrifice of our civilians and our soldiers, I will not allow the entry into Gaza of those who educate for terrorism, support terrorism and finance terrorism,” he added.
“Gaza will be neither Hamastan nor Fatahstan,” the prime minister said in reference to Fatah, the political faction in charge of the Palestinian Authority, which was pushed out of Gaza in 2007 but still has some control in parts of the West Bank.
In October, Mr Biden responded to a question from The Independent saying that Hamas should release the hostages it kidnapped before any ceasefire in the bombardment of Gaza is implemented.
“We should get… We should have a ceasefire, not a ceasefire… we should have these hostages released and then we can talk,” the president said at the time.
Courtesy: independent
