Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with United States President Joe Biden in Tel Aviv, October 18, 2023. (Avi Ohayon/GPO)
Undercover recording of White House national security official suggests Biden holding back on criticism of Israel until after presidential election.
By World Israel News Staff
President Joe Biden has limited his public criticisms of Israel during the war against Hamas thus far, but is planning to confront the Jewish state more openly after this November’s presidential election, a White House official revealed in an undercover recording.
On Tuesday, the conservative activist group Project Veritas released footage from a recording taking during a conversation between an investigative journalist working undercover and Sterlin Waters, a policy advisor for the National Security Council.
Waters said that Biden faces a “conundrum” on Israel, with political pressure ahead of the 2024 election preventing him from overtly criticizing Israel.
“There’s a huge, powerful Jewish influence in Republican and Democrat politics and the administration is definitely facing a conundrum of … being as active as some of the more progressive democratic liberal factions … and losing the next administration because of that.”
President Biden is currently trailing his predecessor and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, former president Donald Trump, both in the national race and in polling of key battleground states, including in head-to-head matchups as well as surveys which include third-party candidates such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, and Jill Stein.
The president has faced criticism both from supporters of Israel and critics of the Jewish state, with Arab-American activists in key swing states such as Michigan campaigning for Democrats to withhold their vote from Biden in November.
Should Biden defeat Trump and win reelection, however, Waters said the president would be free to confront Israel more forcefully than he has during his first term.
“If Biden won again he could be much more forthright about saying ‘No’ [to Israel],” stating that the administration would have more freedom to tell Israel ‘you’re not going to continue to lie, and bomb, and kill all these kids without facing serious consequences.’”
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