‘Not Dictating Terms’: WH Spox Makes Clear on Fox News That Biden Admin Is Not ‘At Odds’ With Israel Over Hamas War

White House spokesman John Kirby made clear on Fox News Friday that the Biden administration is not breaking with Israel in its war against Hamas, nor is it pressuring Israel directly to change tactics in the war.

Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum introduced the interview by saying that “the United States and Israel appear to be growing odds over what the future holds for the region and how to fight this war.”

She then played a clip of President Joe Biden saying yesterday to reporters, “I want them to be focused on how to save civilian lives, not stop going after Hamas, but be more careful.”

“You hear the president there with that admonishment. Be more careful to the IDF,” MacCallum said to Kirby, kicking off the interview.

“I wouldn’t call it an admonishment, Martha,” Kirby replied, adding:

This is a consistent message that we’ve been having with our Israeli counterparts now for many weeks, their understanding, their need and right and responsibility to go after Hamas and these leaders that perpetrated this terrible attack on the 7th of October. At the same time, like any modern military, doing what they can to reduce civilian casualties and to try to minimize any damage to civilian infrastructure, both can be done. Both are important. And as you heard the president say, we’re continuing to urge both.

“So but I’m hearing Jake Sullivan also talked about how we’re now in the middle of the high intensity phase. There’s going to be a transition to another phase in this war that will be more targeted. I haven’t heard that from Israeli leadership in terms of making that shift. So tell me about where you know, where the divide is between the White House and where Israel is at this point on the focus and whether or not we’ve we’ve given $10 billion to Israel over the last several years. So if this isn’t carried out the way that the White House wants it to be and isn’t more careful, might that change?” MacCallum followed up.

“We aren’t dictating terms to the Israelis. They will fight the way that they feel they need to protect their people and their country,” Kirby replied, adding:

We’re not legislating terms with them on how they do that. However, we have talked to them about their plans, their plans to do a transition, a phase transition to lower intensity operations. They should speak to that. When that’s going to happen, how that’s going to happen, what that’s going to look like. But that’s something that they have talked to us about there, about their intentions. I think you can understand why we wouldn’t want to telegraph too much information about those plans, lest Hamas can figure out, you know, where things are going for them. We don’t want to violate their operational security. We’ve talked to them about what that transition is going to look like.

Jake was asking some tough questions about sort of what they’re thinking of in terms of not just timing, but size and scale and scope. But ultimately, these are decisions the Israeli Defense Forces have got to make. They’ve got to do what they believe is in their best interest to protect their people.

Watch the full clip above via Fox News.