(HorizonPost.com) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday hit back at President Joe Biden for suggesting that his policies in Gaza were hurting Israel, The Hill reported.
During an interview with MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart that aired on Saturday, President Biden suggested that while Netanyahu was right to defend Israel and target Hamas, his failure to “pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost” was hurting more than helping Israel.
Biden claimed that the Israeli prime minister’s actions were “contrary to what Israel stands for” and suggested that Netanyahu was making “a big mistake.”
Netanyahu fired back at Biden in an interview with Politico the following day, saying that if Biden was suggesting that he was pursuing his “private policies” against the wishes of the majority of the Israeli people and that was hurting Israel’s interests, Biden was “wrong on both counts.”
The prime minister said the majority of Israelis supported the war and insisted that the goal of destroying Hamas was not only his private policy but also the policy supported by the “overwhelming majority” of Israel.
Netanyahu said the Israeli people back the actions the Israeli government has taken to “destroy the remaining terrorist battalions of Hamas.
He added that the Israelis know that if Hamas is not destroyed, there will be a “repetition of the October 7th massacre,” which he said would be “bad for Israel,” the Palestinians, and “for the future of peace in the Middle East.”
Netanyahu also said that the Israeli people supported his opposition to allowing the Palestinian Authority to take over Gaza once Hamas is destroyed, and insisted that the majority of Israelis also agreed with his position that Israel should “resoundingly reject the attempt to ram down our throats a Palestinian state.”
The Biden administration has been pressing Israel not to launch an offensive in the southern city of Rafah where the last of Hamas’ battalions remain.
However, a February survey from the Israel Democracy Institute found that 64.4 percent of Israelis want Israel to expand the military operation to Rafah to pressure Hamas into releasing the hostages.
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