Biden said on Friday he didn’t know whether the Israeli leader was holding up a Mideast peace deal to influence the US election.
President Joe Biden had terse words for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday:
“No administration has helped Israel more than I have. None. None. None. And I think Bibi should remember that,” he said, referring to the Israeli leader by his nickname. “And whether he’s trying to influence the election, I don’t know, but I’m not counting on that.”
Biden, in a rare appearance in the White House press briefing room, was responding to comments made by one of his allies, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who told CNN this week that he was concerned Netanyahu had little interest in a peace deal in part because of U.S. politics.
“I don’t think you have to be a hopeless cynic to read some of Israel’s actions, some of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s actions, as connected to the American election,” Murphy said.
Biden and Netanyahu have long managed a complicated relationship, but they’re running out of space to manoeuvre as their views on the Gaza war diverge and their political futures hang in the balance.
For Biden, a diplomatic deal would help resolve a deep divide among Democrats over the war and shore up support for Vice President Kamala Harris, making one less conflict for her to manage should she win next month. Netanyahu has his own political concerns closer to home: His far-right coalition would abandon him if he stopped the war, and he could lose power and have to face his own legal problems. And Israel has been decimating Hezbollah’s leadership, so there is little incentive to stop now.
Biden has long pushed for a diplomatic deal, and he and his aides have indicated several times over the past few months that such an agreement was close. But it never seems to materialise, and in some cases, Netanyahu has publicly resisted the prospect while U.S. and Israeli officials continue to talk in private about eking out a deal.
Just last week, the U.S., France and other allies jointly called for an immediate 21-day Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire, and expected Israel to welcome if not fully endorse the plan. Instead, Netanyahu publicly rejected it, telling leaders gathered for the U.N. General Assembly that Israel would “continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are met.”
Israel has pressed forward on two fronts, killing top Hezbollah leaders and pursuing a ground incursion into Lebanon and conducting strikes in Gaza that killed dozens, including children. And the nation has vowed to retaliate for Iran’s ballistic missile attack this week.
Oil price fears
Oil prices have risen 8% in a week as concerns mounted that Israel would hit Iranian oil facilities as payback for its barrage of missiles on Friday.
Iran supplies the world with around 4% of its oil, or almost 4 million barrels of oil a day.
A surge in petrol prices so close to the election would be a blow to Kamala Harris, and her campaign to get her elected.
Biden said there had been no decision yet on what type of response there would be toward Iran, though “I think if I were in their shoes, I’d be thinking about other alternatives than striking oil fields.”
And he pushed back against the idea that he was seeking a meeting with Netanyahu to discuss the response to Iran. He isn’t, he said.
“I’m assuming when they make a decision on how they’re going to respond, we will then have a discussion,” he said.
Investment bank Goldman Sachs warned on Friday that the price of crude oil could jump by $20 if Israel was to hit Iran’s oil fields and infrastructure.
Netanyahu has grown increasingly resistant to Biden’s public charm offensives and private pleading, prompting the president’s more assertive pushback. And Biden has in turn publicly held up delivery of heavy bombs to Israel and increasingly voiced concerns over an all-out war in the Middle East.
Despite their long acquaintanceship, the two are not close or particularly friendly. When Biden was visiting Israel as vice president under Barack Obama, he and other U.S. officials were taken aback by an Israeli government announcement of new Jewish settlements in the West Bank, something the administration strongly opposed.
Nevertheless, Biden has remained consistent in his support for Israel’s defence and security. In the aftermath of the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, he hugged Netanyahu on the tarmac of the airport in Tel Aviv. Since then, with few exceptions, Biden has supported ongoing and enhanced U.S. arms transfers to Israel while at the same time cautioning the Israelis to be careful in their responses to avoid civilian casualties.
“The Israelis have every right to respond to the vicious attacks on them, not just from the Iranians, but from everyone from Hezbollah to Houthis,” Biden said Friday. “But the fact is that they have to be very much more careful about dealing with civilian casualties.”
Biden has also ordered the U.S. military to step up its profile in the region to protect Israel from attacks by Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen and Iran itself. In April, and again earlier this week, the U.S. was a leading player in shooting down missiles fired by Iran into Israel.
Trump says Israel should attack Iran’s nuclear sites
Also on Friday, US presidential candidate Donald Trump told an election campaign rally in North Carolina that Israel should attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The comments came after President Biden was asked on Wednesday whether the US would support Israel if it attacked them, to which he said: “The answer is no.”
“They asked him, what do you think about Iran, would you hit Iran? And he goes, ‘As long as they don’t hit the nuclear stuff.’ That’s the thing you want to hit, right?” Trump told a a crowd of supporters in Fayetteville, near a major US military base.
Whilst in office Trump has a close relationship with Netanyahu
While president, Trump initiated policy changes that Netanyahu applauded, including recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, moving the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv, recognising Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and rescinding a decades-old U.S. legal determination that Jewish settlements in the West Bank were inconsistent with international law.
