The White House said it was “perplexed” that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a high-level meeting in Washington after the United States abstained from a UN ceasefire resolution.
“We are perplexed by this,” White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday.
Netanyahu accused the United States of “retreating” from a “principled position” with its vote. American officials said the United States abstained because the resolution did not condemn Hamas. By abstaining rather than vetoing, the United States allowed the resolution to pass.
“We are perplexed by this,” White House spokesman John Kirby said of Israel’s decision to cancel a meeting in Washington, DC.
Kirby said the U.S. vote “does not represent a change in our policy.”
“We have been very consistent in our support for a ceasefire as part of a hostage agreement,” he said. “But because the final text does not contain key language that we believe is essential, such as condemning Hamas, we could not support it.”
“It appears that the prime minister’s office is choosing to create a perception of natural light here when it doesn’t need to,” Kirby said.
After the U.N. vote, Netanyahu condemned the U.S. decision as “a retreat from the consistent U.S. position since the beginning of the war” and said the U.S. abstention “harms the war effort as well as the effort to liberate to the hostages.”
He signaled that he would not send an Israeli delegation to Washington for high-level talks with US officials about a planned operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, a rebuke to President Joe Biden, who had requested the meetings.
The U.N. resolution is nonbinding and the world’s governing body has no way to enforce it.
Kirby denied that relations between the two countries are worsening, saying that “Israel remains a close ally and friend.”
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Humanitarian aid falls through the sky towards the Gaza Strip
US officials will meet on Monday for separate talks with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who is currently in Washington.
Gallant met with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan at the White House, Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the State Department and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon.
He said U.S. officials could continue to raise Washington’s concerns with Israeli policies in Gaza as part of ongoing discussions between the two governments.
“Nothing has changed in our view that a major ground offensive in Rafah would be a big mistake,” Kirby said.
The 15-member United Nations Security Council approved the ceasefire resolution 14-0 after the United States decided not to use its veto power over the measure, which also called for the release of all hostages taken captive during the Hamas surprise attack on October 7 in southern Israel. .
The chamber erupted in loud applause after the vote.
The United States vetoed previous Security Council ceasefire resolutions largely because they did not directly link them to the release of hostages, their failure to condemn Hamas attacks and the sensitivity of the ongoing negotiations.
U.S. officials have argued that the ceasefire and the hostage release are linked, while Russia, China and many other council members favored unconditional calls for a ceasefire.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the US decision to abstain from a UN ceasefire vote
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (right) arrives at the US State Department to meet with Secretary of State Blinken.
The US decision to abstain comes at a time of rising tensions between President Joe Biden’s administration and Netanyahu over Israel’s continuation of the war, the high number of civilian casualties and the limited amounts of humanitarian assistance arriving. to Gaza.
The two countries have also clashed over Netanyahu’s rejection of a Palestinian state, Jewish settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and settlement expansion there.
Furthermore, the well-known antagonism between Netanyahu and Biden – dating back to Biden’s tenure as vice president – deepened after Biden questioned Israel’s strategy in the fight against Hamas.
Then Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Biden ally, suggested Netanyahu was not acting in Israel’s best interests and called for Israel to hold new elections. Biden expressed his approval of Schumer’s comments, prompting a rebuke from Netanyahu.
During its visit to the United States, the Israeli delegation was due to present to White House officials its plans for a possible ground invasion of Rafah, a city on the Egyptian border in southern Gaza where more than 1 million Palestinian civilians have sought refuge from war.
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, more than 32,000 Palestinians in Gaza have died during the fighting.
Gaza also faces a serious humanitarian emergency, with a report from an international authority on famine warning on March 18 that “famine is imminent” in northern Gaza and that escalating war could lead to half of the 2 .3 million inhabitants of the territory on the brink of death. starvation.