Netanyahu says he ignored Biden’s war counsel – and threats that Israel would be ‘left alone’ without US help

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made no secret of his feelings toward President Biden after Donald Trump was elected this month, publicly revealing he’d ignored the current U.S. president’s counsel and threats to withhold aid. 

“The U.S. had reservations and suggested that we not enter Gaza,” Netanyahu revealed to the Israeli Knesset on Monday. 

The U.S., he said, also was hesitant about Israel’s plans to enter Gaza City, Khan Younis and “strongly opposed entry into Rafah,” threatening to force Israel to fight without U.S. aid.

“President Biden told me that if we go in, we will be left alone,” Netanyahu said. “He also said that he would stop shipments of important weapons to us. And so he did. A few days later, [U.S. Secretary of State Antony] Blinken appeared and repeated the same things and I told him – we will fight with our nails.”

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The U.S. ultimately withheld a single shipment of 2,000-pound bombs, allowing all other weapons transfers to go on. 

“I made clear that if they go into Rafah – they haven’t gotten into Rafah yet – if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, to deal with that problem,” Biden told CNN’s Erin Burnett in an interview at the time.

The move prompted blowback from supporters of Israel in Congress and Biden eventually moved forward with the shipment.

Netanyahu also claimed the U.S. wanted Israel not to respond to Iran’s missile attacks on Tel Aviv in October. 

“Again, we were told by our friend that there is no need to respond. And I said that sitting and not reacting is not acceptable, and we responded.”

He confirmed that Israel had struck Iranian nuclear facilities in its counter-attack.

“It’s not a secret, it has been published,” Netanyahu said. “There is a specific component in their nuclear program that was hit in this attack.”

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Netanyahu emphasized the importance of Israel making its own decisions. 

“We must preserve Israel’s independence. We decided to enter – and we occupied Rafah, the Philadelphi Corridor and the Rafah…