President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, October 9, held their first call in seven weeks, a conversation that comes as Israel expands its ground incursion into Lebanon and considers how to respond to Iran’s recent ballistic missile attack.
Vice President Kamala Harris also joined the 30-minute call, according to the White House.
"It was direct, it was productive," said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who added that the leaders discussed a long list of issues on the call, including Israel's deliberations on how it will respond to Iran.
Netanyahu's office, in the meantime, confirmed that the prime minister had recently spoken with former President Donald Trump. The Republican, who is in the midst of a close White House race against Harris, called Netanyahu last week and "congratulated him on the intense and determined operations that Israel carried out against Hezbollah," according to Netanyahu's office.
The Biden-Netanyahu conversation comes at a moment of Biden's growing frustration with the prime minister and as the growing conflict in the Middle East is adding a layer of complexity to the American election next month.
Netanyahu has repeatedly looked past the Biden administration's calls for cease-fires. They would at least temporarily pause the fighting in Gaza, facilitate the release of some 100 hostages, who have been held by Hamas since the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, and stem the growing conflict between the Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.
The spreading conflict across the Mideast is looming over Harris in the final weeks of the White House campaign.
Some Arab-American voters in closely contested Michigan, and elsewhere, are threatening to withhold their support for the Democrat over their dissatisfaction with the administration's handling of the war in Gaza. Trump has increasingly criticized Harris and Biden for their foreign policy decisions as he makes his case to American voters to return him to the White House.
Biden told reporters last week that he did not know whether Netanyahu was holding up a Mideast peace deal in order to influence the outcome of the US election. "No administration has helped Israel more than I have. None. None. None. And I think Bibi should remember that," he said, referring to the Israeli leader by his nickname. "And whether he’s trying to influence the election, I don’t know, but I’m not counting on that."