WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden warned Tuesday that Israel is losing international support over its “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza, speaking in unusually strong language as the United Nations neared a vote on demanding a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas.
“Israel's security may rest on the United States, but right now it has more than just the United States. It has the European Union, it has Europe, most of the world supports them,” Biden told donors at a fundraiser on Tuesday.
“They're starting to lose that support because of indiscriminate bombings that are happening,” Biden said.
The president said he thought Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu understood, but he wasn't so sure about Israel's war cabinet. Israeli forces carried out punitive attacks across Gaza, crushing Palestinians in their homes as the army pressed ahead with an offensive that officials said could continue for weeks or months.
The president delivered a harsher-than-usual assessment of Israel's decisions since Hamas's Oct. 7 attack and the moves of his conservative government. Biden's top national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, is heading to Israel this week for direct consultations.
Biden also reiterated his warnings that Israel should not make the same mistakes of overreaction that the US made after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Biden told a well-worn story about how decades ago he wrote in a photo with Netanyahu: “Bibi, I don't agree with anything you have to say.” This time, the president added to his retelling of the story: “That remains the case.”
The fundraiser was part of a gathering of Jewish donors, many of whom attended a Hanukkah reception at the White House on Monday evening.
Biden said that when he warned Netanyahu of a loss of international support over the bombings, the Israeli leader had said that the US had “bombed Germany” and dropped the atomic bomb on Japan in World War II.
“That's why all these institutions were created after World War II, to make sure this didn't happen again,” he said. “Don't make the same mistakes we made on 9/11. There is no reason why we had to go to war in Afghanistan. There is no reason why we had to do so many things that we did.”
The UN General Assembly was set to vote on Tuesday on a non-binding resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, days after the US vetoed a similar measure at the UN Security Council. Britain abstained in the vote by 13 to 1, but France and Japan were among those who supported the call for a ceasefire. Only Security Council resolutions are legally binding under the terms of the international body's charter.
Before Biden's remarks at the fundraiser, Netanyahu said in a statement that he appreciated U.S. support and that he had received “full support for the ground invasion and blocking international pressure to stop the war.”
“Yes, there is disagreement about 'the day after Hamas' and I hope we can reach an agreement here too. I would like to clarify my position: I will not allow Israel to repeat Oslo's mistake. Gaza will be neither Hamastan nor Fatahstan.”
Biden specifically called out Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of a far-right Israeli party and the national security minister in Netanyahu's governing coalition, who opposes a two-state solution and has called on Israel to reassert control over the entire West Bank. and Gaza area. Ben-Gvir sits in Israel's security cabinet but is not a member of the country's three-member war cabinet.
Earlier Tuesday, Sullivan said he would speak to Netanyahu about timetables for ending major fighting in Gaza and would convey Biden's thoughts on the matter. He said he would also like to hear from Netanyahu and Israeli officials on the issue.
“The topic of how they view the timetable of this war will certainly be on the agenda of my meetings,” Sullivan said during an appearance at a forum hosted by the Wall Street Journal.
Sullivan suggested that at some point there would be a shift from the intensive Israeli operations of recent weeks to more focused operations to achieve Israeli objectives. He also said he would also speak to Netanyahu about his recent comments that the Israeli military would maintain open-ended security control over Gaza after the war was over.
Sullivan reiterated the Biden administration's position that it does not want Israel to reoccupy Gaza or further shrink its already small territory. The US has repeatedly called for the return of the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority and the resumption of peace talks aimed at establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
“I will have the opportunity to talk to Prime Minister Netanyahu about what exactly he has in mind with that comment, because that could be interpreted in a number of different ways,” Sullivan said. “But the US position on this is clear.”
___ Associated Press writers Will Weissert and Zeke Miller contributed to this report.