US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued to discuss Israel’s retaliation for Iran’s recent missile attack during a phone call today, a White House spokeswoman said without further details. She described the eagerly awaited call as “direct and productive”. Vice President Kamala Harris also attended.
The leaders of the US and Israel spoke today for the first time since August 21. They have now teamed up amid rising tensions in the Middle East over Israel’s attack on Lebanon and just after new information emerged about Biden’s displeasure with Netanyahu’s actions. According to a new book by journalist Bob Woodward, the US president behind the scenes called Netanyahu a liar or an asshole.
Today’s phone call lasted 30 minutes, said White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre at a press conference. At the same time, she announced that Biden’s office would soon publish a more detailed summary of the call.
Israel is currently considering how to respond to the Iranian missile attack on October 1, when Iran fired over 180 ballistic missiles at Israel. In recent days, the United States has urged Israel to exercise restraint in any retaliation. President Biden publicly rejected possible Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and called on Israel to reconsider strikes on oil facilities as well. The reason is concerns about the subsequent rise in oil prices, which would have a negative effect on the American and world economy. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, on the other hand, called for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
According to The Times of Israel (ToI), the White House is frustrated with Netanyahu’s approach to the current crisis in the Middle East. Netanyahu reportedly lacks a strategy to end this crisis, and Biden is losing confidence in him, according to ToI.
The outgoing head of the White House said on Friday that he does not know if Netanyahu is trying to influence the November presidential election in the US. According to the BBC, pre-election polls suggest that the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East and the inability to reach a diplomatic agreement is hurting both Biden and Harris as the Democratic presidential candidate competing against Republican ex-president Donald Trump.
The Israeli prime minister’s office said, according to the AP, that Trump called Netanyahu last week and “congratulated him on the intense and determined operations that Israel is conducting against Hezbollah.”
The current tension between Israel and Iran escalated with the attack on October 1, with which Iran responded to the killing of its allies by Israeli airstrikes – among these targets were the head of the Palestinian terrorist movement Hamas Ismail Hanija, a high-ranking representative of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Abbas Nilforoushan or the leader of the militant movement Hezbollah Hasan Nasrallah.
Source: www.tyden.cz
