President Joe Biden warned Israel’s leaders on Tuesday that they were losing international support for their war in the Gaza Strip, exposing a widening rift with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who rejected out of hand the American vision for a postwar resolution to the Palestinian conflict.
Biden delivered the blunt assessment of America’s closest ally in the Middle East during a fundraiser in Washington, where he described Netanyahu as the leader of “the most conservative government in Israel’s history” that “doesn’t want a two-state solution” to the country’s long-running dispute with Palestinians.
“I think he has to change, and with this government, this government in Israel is making it very difficult for him to move,” Biden said.
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The president’s remarks came hours after Netanyahu pledged to defy weeks of American pressure to put the Palestinian Authority in charge of Gaza once the fighting ends. Netanyahu ruled out any role there for the group, which now governs Palestinian society in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.