John Bolton claims Biden ‘has his hand around Bibi’s belt,’ not allowing Israel to move forward with military operations
Former national security adviser John Bolton said Thursday that pressure from President Biden may be the reason why Israel has delayed initiating significant military operations against Hamas terrorists in Gaza.
The former Trump administration official further suggested during a radio interview on the “Cats & Cosby Show” hosted by John Catsimatidis that if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t launch an offensive on the terrorists soon, “international pressure to do nothing” will substantially grow.
“In the Middle East, in particular, they recognize strength,” Bolton explained. “They talk about who’s the strong horse, and we know in the region it’s Israel. But Biden has his hand around Bibi’s belt. They’re not letting people go forward.”
Bolton, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, noted that an escalation of force by the Israeli military will be “risky” and “unpleasant” but is an appropriate response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack which killed 1,400 people in the Jewish state.
“If you believe that you’re entitled to live free from terror, and you’ve been attacked like Israel, then you have a right to defend yourself up to and including eliminating the threat of terror itself,” he argued.
Israel has reportedly agreed to consider delaying its ground invasion of Gaza to allow hostage talks to continue.
The Biden administration is said to be at the forefront of a cautious approach, worried that Israel doesn’t have an attainable military goal — to eradicate the terror group Hamas — partly because of a lack of readiness to complete the monumental task.
“Both Israel and the Biden administration want to exhaust every effort to try and get hostages out of Gaza,” an unidentified senior Israeli official told Axios earlier this week.
“If Hamas proposes a big package, of course, we will be ready to do things in return,” said the official, stressing that Israel’s plans for a ground assault would only be delayed, not dropped.
“I caution that, while you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes,” Biden told reporters during his trip to Tel Aviv last week.
Bolton argued that delaying military operations against Hamas is not in either the US or Israel’s interest.
“I don’t know if the Biden administration is fully complicit in it, or not smart enough to see what is happening,” he said. “Delay works against Israel and works against the United States because we are really the ultimate target for Iran.”
“Iran has been calling the shots for a long time with Hamas, with Hezbollah, with other terrorist groups in the region. The Biden administration is unwilling to see what’s right in front of them — that Hamas didn’t do this terrible barbaric attack on October 7th at their own decision. It was Tehran that was calling the shots.”
“In the face of this barbarity, [Iran] is seeing weakness and timidity,” Bolton added.