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By Katherine Fung
Senior Writer
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President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have had a complicated and sometimes tense relationship over the years, but Biden has cut the Israeli leader some slack over the Gaza war.
Asked if Netanyahu bears some responsibility for Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel, Biden told Time magazine, "I don't know how any one person has that responsibility."
"He was the leader of the country, so therefore it happened," Biden said in the interview, published Tuesday. The president spoke to Time on May 28.
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Last October, Hamas militants launched an unexpected attack on Israel, storming into the south of the country and killing 1,200 people and abducting about 250 others. Israel then began airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, and the conflict has escalated over the past eight months, with more than 36,000 Palestinians killed, according to Associated Press reports citing the Gaza Health Ministry.
Biden's latest remarks about Netanyahu come in stark contrast to what Donald Trump has said. Trump, who is set to take on Biden in a presidential rematch in November, has said that the prime minister "rightfully has been criticized for what took place on October 7."
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In an April interview with Time, Trump said that the October 7 attack "should have never happened," but it did "on [Netanyahu's] watch." The presumptive Republican nominee also blamed the prime minister for not seeing it coming.
"They have the most sophisticated equipment," Trump said. "They had—everything was there to stop that. And a lot of people knew about it, you know, thousands and thousands of people knew about it, but Israel didn't know about it, and I think he's being blamed for that very strongly, being blamed."
Biden told Time that while he does not fault Netanyahu for the attack, he disagrees with the Israeli leader over "what happens after Gaza's over."
"What does it go back to? Do Israeli forces go back in?" the president asked. "I've been talking to the Egyptians and been talking to the Saudis. I've been talking to the Jordanians, I've been talking to the Emiratis. The answer is, if that's the case, it can't work.
"There needs to be a two-state solution, a transition to a two-state solution. And that's my biggest disagreement with Bibi Netanyahu," Biden said.
This past Friday, Biden made a surprise announcement outlining a peace proposal he said that Israel had put forward. The three-part plan would ultimately lead to a permanent cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and include the release of all hostages still being held by Hamas.
But doubts about the plan grew over the weekend after Netanyahu, who has repeatedly said Israel will not end the war until Hamas is destroyed, said Saturday that his conditions "have not changed" and that a permanent cease-fire was a "nonstarter."
"Under the proposal, Israel will continue to insist these conditions are met before a permanent cease-fire is put in place," a statement from Netanyahu's office said. "The notion that Israel will agree to a permanent ceasefire before these conditions are fulfilled is a nonstarter."
However, Netanyahu's chief foreign policy adviser, Ophir Falk, emphasized to Britain's Sunday Times that Israel was not rejecting the proposal, saying that it was "a deal we agreed to—it's not a good deal, but we dearly want the hostages released, all of them."
On Monday, Biden spoke by phone with a critical mediator in the negotiations to confirm "Israel's readiness to move forward with the terms that have now been offered to Hamas," the White House said. A readout of that call affirmed that "Hamas is now the only obstacle to a complete ceasefire and relief for the people of Gaza."
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