Former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk slammed Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu as Sunday “clear and present danger” to the country, and called on him to resign “before he does even more damage to Israel.”
“[Netanyahu’s] determination to stay in power no matter the cost is a clear and present danger to Israel. He needs to resign…yesterday!” Indyk wrote in a post on X Sunday morning.
His comments came following a New York Times report that Netanyahu not only was aware that Qatar was shuttling millions of dollars a month to Gaza, where it helped prop up the Hamas government, but that he encouraged the payments.
According to the Times report, Netanyahu and other Israeli officials allowed the money to flow into Gaza in the hope that it would help maintain peace and stability in the region, and in the belief that Hamas had neither the desire nor the capacity to launch a large-scale attack. The Times previously reported that Israeli officials had blueprints of the Hamas’ plans more than a year before the Oct. 7 attack but chose to regard an actual attack as unlikely.
“He needs to resign before he does even more damage to Israel,” wrote Indyk, who was tasked with working to forge an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal during his roughly year-long tenure as President Barack Obama’s special Mideast envoy in 2013 and 2014.
Indyk’s comments come as calls for Israel to scale back or end its violent campaign in Gaza have accelerated. The U.S. has vowed to stand with Israel, and recently vetoed a ceasefire resolution in the U.N. Security Council — a measure that had support from almost all other Security Council countries. However, U.S. officials have also called on Israeli leaders to take measures to avoid civilian casualties.
The war poses a challenge to President Joe Biden, as he attempts to balance support for America’s chief ally in the Middle East with calls for a ceasefire from the left, as the civilian death toll in Gaza continues to grow.
Indyk warned in his post that Netanyahu is “currently causing a rift” with Biden, whom he described as “Israel’s only friend in this crisis.”
Source: politico