WASHINGTON — President Biden said Tuesday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should “change” his approach to the Palestinian issue, warning that Israel was losing support for its military response to the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack.
Biden made the dramatic demand at a fundraiser hours after making a similar comment during a Monday night Hanukkah celebration at the White House.
“Bibi’s got a tough decision to make,” Biden said Tuesday, using the popular nickname for Netanyahu. “This is the most conservative government in Israel’s history.”
The president then said that Israel’s national unity government, which includes some hardline nationalist and Orthodox parties, “doesn’t want a two-state solution” to the long-running Palestinian conflict.
“I think he has to change,” Biden said of Netanyahu, “and with this government, this government in Israel is making it very difficult for him to move.”
Biden’s remarks at fundraisers are not carried on camera and reporters are not allowed to make audio public — meaning further elaboration of what the president meant by “change” was not immediately available.
Netanyahu, 74, began his third stint as Israel’s prime minister last December. He formed a national unity government shortly after the Oct. 7 attacks, in which Hamas terrorists killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel and abducted to Gaza about 250 others.
The new coalition includes one of his leading center-left rivals, Benny Gantz, but another, Yair Lapid, declined to join, citing the continued inclusion of religious parties.
The remarks of some Netanyahu allies have stoked internal criticism of his government.
For example, Knesset member Galit Distal Atbaryan, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, called after Oct. 7 for Israel to “Erase Gaza from the face of the earth.”
Meanwhile, Netanyahu has acknowledged that he objects to the Biden administration’s goal of having the Palestinian Authority control the Gaza Strip after Hamas is defeated there.
“There is a disagreement when it comes to ‘the day after Hamas,’ and I hope we will come to an agreement here, too,” the prime minister said in a statement Monday night. “I want to clarify my position: I will not allow Israel to repeat the mistake of Oslo.”
“It can’t be that, after the enormous sacrifice of our citizens and fighters, we will let into Gaza those who teach terror, support terror, finance terror,” Netanyahu added. “Gaza will not be Hamas-stan nor Fatah-stan.”
The Israeli leader previously suggested that its forces maintain a security presence in the Palestinian enclave for an “indefinite period” after Hamas is defeated.