President Joe Biden told a crowd of Democratic donors over the weekend about a decades-old photo he took with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an aside that seemed intended to illustrate his long support of Israel and track record of speaking bluntly with the conservative Israeli leader.
Biden said he’d written on the photo of himself as a young senator and Netanyahu as an embassy hand, “Bibi, I love you. I don’t agree with a damn thing you say.’” He told donors at a Friday night fundraiser that Netanyahu still keeps the photo on his desk and had brought it up during Biden’s lightning visit to Tel Aviv last week.
As expectations grow that Israel will soon launch a ground offensive aimed at rooting out Hamas militants who rule the Gaza Strip, Biden finds himself facing anew the difficult balancing act of demonstrating full-throated support for America’s closest ally in the Middle East while trying to also press the Israelis to act with enough restraint to keep the war from spreading into a broader conflagration.
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