Washington [US], June 21: White House officials on June 20 said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's comments about Washington's arms aid activities were unpleasant and disappointing.
"Those comments are truly deeply disappointing and certainly upsetting to us, given what we have provided and will continue to provide," US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. at a press conference on June 20, AFP reported.
The White House official said that no country is better than the United States in supporting Israel in dealing with threats from Hamas forces, as well as other concerns of Tel Aviv in the region.
The latest disagreement between the US and Israel appeared after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on June 18: "In recent months, unimaginably, the US has refused to provide weapons and ammunition to Israel. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken assured me that the US government is working day and night to untangle this bottleneck."
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre later asserted that she "did not know what Mr. Netanyahu was talking about." She informed that except for the batch of bomb weapons that Washington temporarily stopped transferring, billions of dollars of American weapons still flowed steadily to Israel during the 9 months of conflict with Hamas.
However, Mr. Netanyahu seemed to "add fuel to the fire", saying on June 20 that he was willing to accept personal attacks, as long as Israel received ammunition from the US.
Netanyahu's criticism in the video posted on June 18 caused the US to cancel the high-level meeting between the two countries in Washington DC on the Iran issue, which was scheduled to take place on June 20.
"Americans are very angry. Mr. Bibi's video (Prime Minister Netanyahu's nickname) has caused a lot of damage," Axios page on June 18 quoted an Israeli official. The announcement to cancel the meeting was made when a number of Israeli delegation officials were on their way to the US.
This is not the first time there has been a disagreement between the Israeli Prime Minister and the administration of US President Joe Biden since the Gaza conflict broke out in October 2023. Mr. Biden once strongly opposed Israel's campaign into the city of Rafah in Gaza and threatened to stop weapons aid, while Mr. Netanyahu affirmed that Israel would continue to fight even without support.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper