April 10 (UPI) — U.S. President Joe Biden criticized Israel President Benjamin Netanyahu‘s handling of his country’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza, saying he wanted to see an immediate cease-fire.
Biden told the Spanish language Univision in an interview broadcast late Tuesday that he disagreed with Netanyahu’s whole approach from failing to protect international aid workers operating in the Gaza strip to his reluctance to sign onto a cease-fire to allow humanitarian aid into the war zone.
“I think what he’s doing is a mistake. I don’t agree with his approach,” the president said when asked if he thought Netanyahu was more concerned with his political survival than the national interest of Israelis.
Calling the April 1 targeting of a convoy of World Central Kitchen vehicles by Israel Defense Forces in which seven aid workers were killed “outrageous,” Biden said he was calling “for the Israelis to just call for a cease-fire, allow for the next six, eight weeks total access to all food and medicine going into the country.”
“I’ve spoken with everyone from the Saudis to the Jordanians to the Egyptians. They’re prepared to move in. They’re prepared to move this food in. And I think there’s no excuse to not provide for the medical and the food needs of those people,” he said. “It should be done now.”
Biden has become increasingly vocal in his public rebukes of Netanyahu in lock-step with a rapidly rising chorus of voices, both nationally and internationally, speaking out against the way Israel is conducting itself in the conflict.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer‘s, D-N.Y., March 14 speech on the floor of the upper house saying Netanyahu’s coalition “no longer fits the needs of Israel after Oct. 7” and calling for fresh elections, won the support of Biden, who called it “serious” and “good”
Schumer also attacked Netanyahu for permitting “his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel” and blunt signaling of his disdain for all suggestions of a two-state solution, saying his positions didn’t not align with U.S. policy.
However, Biden has also come under fire for failing to follow up with concrete steps, such as restricting the supply of U.S. arms to Israel, flows of which are continuing.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. was among three dozen Democratic party representatives who penned a letter to Biden last week urging him to withhold weapons from Israel if it failed to “sufficiently mitigate harm to innocent civilians in Gaza, including aid workers.”