(Times Of Israel) The perception of tensions in the US-Israel relationship is making it harder for Israel to reach a hostage deal with Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview released on Sunday.
“That perception certainly doesn’t help the hostage situation, certainly doesn’t help stabilize the Middle East,” Netanyahu told host Dan Senor on the Call Me Back podcast, recorded Sunday morning. “It gives succor to Iran and its henchmen. But it means that we have to apply the pressure even more.”
Netanyahu did not comment on the actual state of relations.
Ties between Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden have reached a nadir as the White House holds up the delivery of heavy bombs to Israel, amid warnings that the provision of artillery and other weaponry also could be suspended if Netanyahu moves forward with a widescale operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Israeli troops are expanding their limited incursion into Gaza’s southern border area.
Ties between Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden have reached a nadir as the White House holds up the delivery of heavy bombs to Israel, amid warnings that the provision of artillery and other weaponry also could be suspended if Netanyahu moves forward with a widescale operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Israeli troops are expanding their limited incursion into Gaza’s southern border area.
Netanyahu promised that pressure from allies would not stop him from achieving Israel’s war aims.
“What do you do when you’re faced with such international pressure?” Netanyahu asked rhetorically. “I can say that in Israel’s history, when faced with this kind of pressure, the leaders did what they had to do.”
Repeating a position he has expressed several times in recent days, Netanyahu said he deeply appreciates the support Israel has received from Biden – “but if we have to stand alone, we will do so, because I’m the prime minister of Israel, the one and only Jewish state, and we will not go down.”
Israel “will fight, if necessary, with our fingernails,” he said, a message he conveyed to Biden in their last phone call.
Netanyahu argued on the podcast that “the fate of the world depends on where America goes.” He elaborated: “Does it succumb to this madness, to this mobocracy in those campuses, to this flagrant antisemitism that is sweeping the globe?”
Netanyahu said America’s own global position is being tested as a result of the onslaught against Israel. “These crowds, mobs, in American universities — they burn the Israeli flag and they burn the American flag. They chant: ‘Death to Israel, death to America.’ So we’re fighting a common battle, a battle between civilization and barbarism.”
