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Israeli Ambassador to U.S. Warns Against Dark Predictions on U.S.-Israel Relations

(Times of Israel) Jacob Magid - Several U.S. officials leaked to American news outlets over the past week that President Biden has privately used expletives to describe Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Last week, Biden issued a memo setting new conditions for U.S. military aid, which the White House acknowledged was crafted in consultation with congressional lawmakers who have called for restricting assistance to Israel. Senior U.S. officials also said there was anger over Netanyahu's thwarting of U.S. postwar plans. However, "The president understands that the relationship goes beyond any one prime minister and that allowing the relationship to fall apart would not be in the U.S. national security interest," said one senior U.S. official. A second official said the president "continues to believe" that excessively litigating disagreements out in the open will not be effective with Netanyahu. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog told Israel's Channel 11 on Wednesday, Biden "maintains a critical dialogue with us that has quite a few questions about how we are conducting the war and the direction in which we are taking it. I do not foresee an end of [U.S.] aid. I don't expect the U.S. to try to force a ceasefire on us in Gaza. I want to warn against all these dark predictions." A third senior administration official said Sunday that Netanyahu's overarching war aim of dismantling Hamas and the need to operate in its last-remaining stronghold in Rafah is shared by the entire war cabinet, the majority of the Israeli public, as well as the Biden administration, even though the U.S. is clear about the need to simultaneously protect Palestinian civilians.
2024-02-16 00:00:00
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