Jake Tapper Reports Biden Admin Wants to Avoid ‘Public Spat’ With Netanyahu: They Believe It Would ‘Reduce American Influence’
CNN’s Jake Tapper reported on Tuesday that the Biden administration is being very deliberate to avoid a “public spat” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The White House readout of President Joe Biden’s Monday call with Netanyahu said that he “expressed his support for a ceasefire,” but Tapper noted that Biden did “not directly address” the ongoing violence when asked earlier today.
Biden test-drove a Ford electric truck Tuesday, and when one reporter asked if they could pose a quick question about Israel, he responded, “No you can’t. Not unless you get in front of the car as I step on it. I’m only teasing.”
Tapper reported there’s a reason the White House has been engaged in what they’re calling “quiet, intensive diplomacy”:
Sources tell me that much of what we’re seeing and not seeing from the White House has to do with lessons learned by Biden and his team from the tense relationship between then-President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the belief that having a public spat with Netanyahu actually would mean reducing American influence with him, particularly since Netanyahu is in the middle of a domestic political crisis and would in all likelihood welcome any opportunity to portray himself as defending his people from both Hamas rockets and international scolding, showing that toughness and independence from American meddling just reinforces his brand domestically. That’s the theory. And White House officials believe, my sources tell me, that poking Netanyahu with congressional floor speeches or U.N. Security Council resolutions will not move Netanyahu at all.
He added that the White House believes the best way Biden can “try to convince the Israeli military to pull back is by doing so entirely behind the scenes and keeping the pressure entirely private.”
Kaitlan Collins then reported on how Biden’s trip to the Ford plant was overshadowed by the ongoing violence, including an exchange Biden had with Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. An aide for Tlaib said the exchange included her telling the president that “the White House must do far more to protect Palestinian lives, dignity, and human rights.”
Collins noted Biden’s response to a question about Israel earlier and added, “He said he was joking there, but this is something that President Biden has continuously been asked about in recent days. He hasn’t really spoken about it at length, which I think does speak to just how delicate these talks are.”
You can watch above, via CNN.
