Biden blasted as ‘sociopath’ for saying Netanyahu prolonging war for personal reasons

The president later said he “didn’t think” the prime minister was playing politics with the war.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

U.S. President Joe Biden was blasted as a “sociopath” Tuesday for saying that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was prolonging the Israel-Hamas war for personal reasons.

In a Time magazine interview published earlier in the day, when asked if Netanyahu is continuing the war for his own political self-preservation, he answered, ”I’m not going to comment on that. There is every reason for people to draw that conclusion.”

He followed that by pointing to “an internal domestic dispute” Netanyahu had been facing earlier in 2023 over “wanting to change the court,” referring to the judicial reform plans his government had been pushing in the face of massive public protest.

In the same interview, he also said it was “uncertain” if the IDF has committed war crimes in Gaza.

The blowback from American conservative media and GOP politicians was harsh, and immediate.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz called it “a disgusting lie” and called on Democrats to “denounce Biden’s slander.”

“Israel says they are going into Raffah to get their hostages back,” The Spectator editor Stephen L. Miller posted on X. “Biden tells Israel to wait, sends Blinken to work with Qatar and Egypt. Builds a broken pier in Gaza. Israel agrees. Biden now accuses Israel of prolonging a war it didn’t start. Straight up incompetent evil. An actual Political sociopath.”

The IDF had been steadily destroying Hamas’ military battalions after the Iranian proxy’s October 7 invasion of Israel and massacre of 1,200 people, moving from north to south in the Gaza Strip.

The army could have entered the terrorists’ last stronghold of Rafah on the Gaza-Egypt border some two months earlier than it did in May, due to global pressure led by Washington over concern for the need to evacuate over a million Gazan civilians who had fled to the town from the battle sites.

As Israeli forces gradually moved in to Rafah, they facilitated the demanded evacuation in less than two weeks.

Fox News contributor Guy Benson derided the president’s remark by pointing to Biden’s own, electoral considerations.

“Biden has been incoherently pressuring Israel not to finish the job for months & ‘there is every reason for people’ to draw the conclusion that it’s been for Biden’s own political self-preservation. How soon will Biden demand Israel not defend itself against the attacks in the north?” he wrote on X.

Hezbollah, Iran’s largest terror proxy, has been firing rockets and UAVs on Israel since the war began, in support of Hamas. The IDF has responded with pinpoint airstrikes on the terrorist group’s sites in Lebanon.

The government has not followed through on threats to go all out against Hezbollah even though tens of thousands of border residents have been sitting in hotels for months due to the aerial peril, trapped in a situation they say is untenable.

Jerusalem also criticized Biden’s words.

When asked for Israel’s take on the president’s comment, government spokesman David Mencer said it was “outside the diplomatic norms of every right-thinking country” to talk that way about a country’s prime minister.

In the evening, Biden appeared to walk back the incendiary statement.

When a reporter asked during a press briefing whether Netanyahu was “playing politics with the war”, he answered, “I don’t think so. He’s trying to work out a serious problem he has.” He then walked away from the podium, taking no further questions.

Biden had the interview several days before announcing the newest Israeli ceasefire-for-hostages proposal, which he backed wholeheartedly, praising the “very generous” terms the Netanyahu government was offering to Hamas.

Benjamin NetanyahuHezbollahIsrael-Hamas warJoe Biden