US president’s remarks to Time magazine about PM’s role in conflict draw heavily critical response from Israeli government

Joe Biden has said that there is “every reason” to draw the conclusion that Benjamin Netanyahu is prolonging the war in Gaza for his own political self-preservation.

Biden made the remarks about the Israeli prime minister in an interview with Time magazine published on Tuesday morning, drawing a sharp response from the Israeli government, which accused the US president of straying from diplomatic norms.

Netanyahu’s popularity plummeted after the 7 October attack by Hamas, which exposed serious flaws in Israeli security. Most political observers say Netanyahu would lose elections if they were held now, and would be forced into opposition, facing court hearings on corruption charges. But elections have been put off until the war is over, or at least until major military operations are deemed to have been completed.

Time asked Biden whether he believed Netanyahu was “prolonging the war for his own political self-preservation”.

“I’m not going to comment on that,” the president said in response, but added: “There is every reason for people to draw that conclusion.”

  • @LifeInMultipleChoice
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    1123 days ago

    Now what would be comical (not actually comical) is to see Congress declare war for the first time since world war 2. They can do so without the presidents approval I believe, and can fund it against the presidents wishes. Now… The president can just tell the troops not to go to war though, showing how broken that system is.

    No war, the president can send troops. War, the president can not send troops.
    So the other representatives don’t matter to awfully much when it comes to starting wars. Now ending them on the other hand … Congress holds that with the funding part.

    • Lung
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      220 days ago

      Well not really @ last part bc the president can declare an emergency for ~any reason and appropriate funds. Yaaay demoncracy

      Generally, us presidents fall into the do whatever they want, “move fast and break shit” philosophy. And as the world’s arms dealers, the USA has every reason to be involved in every conflict. That’s our greatest national industry

      • @LifeInMultipleChoice
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        15 days ago

        Emergencies can only exist for 6 months and then have to be voted for termination by Congress. So say Prump pulled a Trutin, if the rest of the house/Senate weren’t bought and paid for that war would be over “years” ago now and congress could impeach the president if he tried to act like it was another emergency, followed by the Senate voting to oust them.

        All the mechanisms are there, tainted and charred.

        We need an age of restoration to clean it all off and update everything to fit with modern times.

        ““Jefferson states that each new generation has a right to choose for itself “the form of government it believes most promotive of its own happiness.” That every 20 years, the state constitution should be handed off to the next generation to amend and repair as they see fit””

        So a bit controversial but I’d say that would point at older generations not supposed to be holding legislational positions/powers. If we up the age to fit lifespan from 20 to 30 years, then take the average age of the writers/powers at be during that time it would place a retirement age for legislative members at maybe 60-65.

        Being that our supreme Court is somehow altering legislation at this point that would say 4 or 5 out of those 9 would have to retire immediately. The average age of senators is 64, so ~50 there, and a significant chunk of Congress.

        Get out the steel woal and start cleaning the rust of this jalopy.

        • Lung
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          220 days ago

          Cool info, thanks

    • @Maggoty
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      123 days ago

      Yeah it’s not a great system and the war powers act was only ever a band aid.