In the first call in the last two months since the middle east tension escalated, President Joe Biden spoke to Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu about Israel’s response to last week’s missile attack by Iran. The White House said the call lasted for 30 minutes and the talk was direct, honest and productive. “The US and the Israeli government have had discussions since last week since after the Iran attack.Those discussions continued with the president and the prime minister,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
“We’re going to continue to have those discussions with Israel on how they’re going to respond,” she said.
The conversation on a secure line, which also included Vice President Kamala Harris, began shortly after 10:30 am.
The call comes amid tensions between Biden and Netanyahu and was their first since August 21, a seven-week gap during which Israel also launched an offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Biden has cautioned Israel against attempting to target Iran’s nuclear program and is also against a strike on the country’s oil installations, which would send oil prices spiking less than a month before the US presidential election.
A new book by veteran journalist Bob Woodward details the growing rift, with Biden telling Netanyahu in July that “the perception of Israel around the world increasingly is that you’re a rogue state, a rogue actor,” The New York Times reported.
White House officials, worried after they were blindsided by a series of Israeli attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon, demanded the conversation Wednesday and insisted that it take place before Israel conducted a counterattack. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was reported to be “angry beyond words,” one administration official said, because the absence of clear advance notice about the attacks in Lebanon put the lives of Americans in the Middle East at risk.