Biden White House Is ‘Perplexed’ That Israel Is Angry After Being Stabbed in the Back

After failing to prevent the U.N. Security Council’s ceasefire resolution from passing, the White House doubled down by accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of trying to manufacture a crisis in Israel-U.S. relations after he canceled a delegation to the White House.

Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Council chairman Tzachi Hanegbi were to visit Washington, but after the United States abstained rather than veto the resolution, Netanyahu canceled the trip.

“It seems like the Prime Minister’s Office is choosing to create a perception of daylight here when they don’t need to do that,” White House National Security Council John Kirby said in a press briefing. “We’re kind of perplexed by this. It’s a non-binding resolution, so there’s no impact at all on Israel’s ability to continue to go after Hamas.”

They’re perplexed? Do they really have no clue why Israel would react this way to the Biden administration stabbing it in the back?

For our VIPs: It’s Your Move, Jewish Democrats

“The Prime Minister’s Office seems to be indicating through public statements that we’ve somehow changed here. We haven’t,” Kirby added.

The White House can’t be this dumb.

From the Times of Israel:

Netanyahu said the US abstention marked a divergence from Washington’s policy linking a ceasefire to Hamas releasing the hostages it abducted on October 7, but US officials asserted that this wasn’t their interpretation of the resolution and that their position in favor of that conditionality has not changed. 

[…]

A second US official briefing a small group of reporters added that Biden aides had been in touch with their Israeli counterparts in the days and hours leading to the vote, explaining that it would not amount to a change in the US approach. The official said Israeli officials understood this but that Netanyahu decided to present things differently.

The official said that the US worked to ensure that the resolution’s demands for a ceasefire and hostage release would be part of the same paragraph after they initially were separated, to dispel the notion that the two aren’t linked with each other. However, the text does not condition the ceasefire demand on the release of the hostages.

Netanyahu, who called the U.S. abstention a “clear retreat” from its previous position since the beginning of the war, had warned the United States that it would cancel the delegation’s visit if the U.S. abstained.

After the second US official said Netanyahu’s decision to cancel the delegation was likely motivated by domestic Israeli politics, Kirby was pressed on whether Biden is not influenced by his own domestic politics.

The White House spokesman rejected the idea out-right, saying Biden’s decisions regarding the Israel-Hamas war are based strictly on national security concerns.

Kirby added that Netanyahu is wrong to claim that the US abstention will give Hamas hope that it can secure a ceasefire through means other than a hostage release. The second US official noted that the US looked into whether an adopted Security Council resolution might impact the hostage talks and determined that it would not.

Again, how dumb is the White House if they’re expecting us to believe that his recent flip-flopping on the Israel-Hamas war isn’t because he’s trying to save his election? Biden has been under pressure from the antisemitic wing of the party for months. He is also behind in all the battleground states, including Michigan, where his public support for Israel has likely hurt his standing the most. Biden can’t hope to win the election without Michigan, and a political calculation has clearly been made. 

Related: Joe Biden Just Made Us a Terror-Sponsoring Nation

Biden would throw Israel under the bus in the hopes of saving his election, and relations with Israel could be forever damaged as a result.