The administration of US President Joe Biden has stopped considering Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “productive partner” who can be influenced “at least in private.” The newspaper writes about this on February 11 The Washington Post citing their sources.
According to media reports, this was caused by growing disagreements between the Israeli leadership and the White House administration.
Netanyahu's mounting frustration has led some Biden aides to urge him to criticize the prime minister more openly [Израиля] due to the military operation being carried out in Gaza,” the newspaper notes.
The publication emphasizes that in recent days the United States has expressed dissatisfaction with the unwillingness of the Israeli authorities to make concessions for the release of hostages held by the Palestinian Hamas movement. They also criticized the plans of the Israeli army to attack the city of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip. At the same time, Biden is not yet going to limit assistance to Israel, nor to set conditions for its provision.
“Although many of his allies insist that even a dramatic change in rhetoric will not have a significant impact until the United States begins to impose conditions on its support for Israel,” the newspaper notes.
Before this, on February 9, Biden's deputy national security adviser John Feiner said that the White House administration's approach to resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict contained a number of errors. Thus, he acknowledged the “mistakes” of the US authorities at the beginning of the escalation of the conflict between Israel and Palestine and noted that Washington should have quickly condemned the harsh statements of Israeli officials against the residents of the Gaza Strip.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted at a press conference in Tel Aviv on February 7 that civilians were still dying in the Gaza Strip and there were still too many casualties. He emphasized that the rhetoric of some officials in the Israeli administration contributes to the further escalation of the conflict.
On the same day, Hamas, through Qatar, transmitted to the Israeli intelligence service Mossad its response to the proposal for a truce in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages. Prime Minister Netanyahu's website said officials were carefully studying the response. Blinken later noted that the document was being studied in the United States at the same time, and they were confident that a deal was possible.
The head of the Hamas politburo, Ismail Haniyeh, said on January 30 that he was given a proposal for a truce in Gaza and the leadership of the movement was called to Cairo (the capital of Egypt) to discuss the provisions of the deal.
The situation in the Middle East escalated on the morning of October 7, when Hamas subjected Israeli territory to massive rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, and also invaded border areas in the south of the country and took hostages. That same day, Israel began retaliating against targets in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinians are seeking to return the borders between the two countries to the lines that existed before the 1967 Six-Day War. Palestine wants to create its own state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and make East Jerusalem its capital. Israel refuses these conditions.
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