“I think that’s a worthwhile thought, but I don’t think if I started off with that we ever would have gotten to where we are today,” Biden said. “We have to take this a piece at a time.”
President Biden conceded to critics within his party Friday that calls to put specific conditions on aid to Israel are a “worthwhile thought” amid the country’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
But at a press conference marking a four-day truce in the war to free 50 hostages taken by Hamas, Biden also implied that those conditions could hamper diplomacy.
“I think that’s a worthwhile thought, but I don’t think if I started off with that we ever would have gotten to where we are today,” Biden said. “We have to take this a piece at a time.”
The president has been under immense pressure from a growing group of Democrats who have criticized the Biden administration for strongly backing Israel in the conflict, despite a growing number of civilian casualties in Gaza.
“The blank check approach must end,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote in a New York Times op-ed published Wednesday. “The United States must make clear that while we are friends of Israel, there are conditions to that friendship and that we cannot be complicit in actions that violate international law and our own sense of decency.
