Lapid: ‘Netanyahu’s Biden disagreement harms Israel’s security, foreign relations’

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid warned on Tuesday evening that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dispute with US President Joe Biden was harming Israel’s security and foreign relations.

Despite the strong US support for Israel since the beginning of its devastating genocidal war on the Gaza Strip on 7 October, Washington’s criticism of Netanyahu has increased recently for reasons including the catastrophic losses among Palestinian civilians.

Lapid posted on X: “Netanyahu’s public quarrel with the administration in the USA is an injury to the security of the state, an injury to Israel’s foreign relations and a lack of national responsibility.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Biden warned that the far-right government in Israel would lose international support. Netanyahu responded by claiming that Israel’s position on the war is supported by the majority of the American people.

Biden asserted in an interview on the US NBC network: “Israel has had the overwhelming support of the vast majority of nations. If it keeps this up with this incredibly conservative government they have, and (National Security Minister Itamar) Ben Gvir and others… they’re going to lose support from around the world, and that is not in Israel’s interest.”

Netanyahu responded in a statement on Tuesday: “Since the beginning of the war, I have been leading a political campaign whose purpose is to curb the pressures intended to end the war before its time, and on the other hand also to gain support for Israel.”

“We have significant successes in this area, because today the Harvard-Harris survey is published in the United States, which shows that 82% of the American public supports Israel. This gives us more strength to continue the campaign until the complete victory,” Netanyahu added.

According to Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, the poll cited by Netanyahu focuses on Israel versus Hamas, not Israel versus the Palestinians: “Hence the relatively large gaps compared to other polls that showed different results.”

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