The Biden administration is dismissing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pronouncement that a date has been set for a ground offensive into Rafah as bluster that is in no small part fueled by the Israeli prime minister’s tenuous political standing at home, senior administration officials told CNN.
The administration has been publicly questioning Netanyahu’s insistence Monday that Israel has decided on a time to mount a widescale offensive into the southern Gaza city, with top Biden national security officials saying publicly Tuesday that no date had been shared with them.
Biden remains sensitive to Netanyahu’s current political standing, including how much the prime minister is beholden to his ultra-conservative government, the most right-wing in Israeli history, one senior administration official told CNN. Still, US officials – everyone from Biden on down – have been largely careful to stay away from publicly commenting on Israeli politics throughout the course of the Israel-Hamas war. Those private observations have at times spilled out into public view.
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