Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) criticized President Joe Biden last week, claiming that the president wanted to “have both sides” of the ongoing conflict between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas. Fetterman’s comments came after the president said that he would withhold weapons shipments to Israel if it began a military operation against Hamas’ final stronghold of Rafah.
The senator said during a weekend interview that the president was “trying to have both sides” in the current conflict.
He was asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper about becoming “famous or infamous” for supporting Israel.
““Yeah. I think it’d be unfortunate if it’s being infamous to be supporting Israel. And I’ve been very supportive of Israel from the beginning of all that. I think it’s important that America stands with our very, very critical ally as well there as well too,” he said.
“I’d like to point out that Hamas is what started this, and Hamas could surrender and send every one of the hostages back, and it could all end right now. In fact, they rejected the recent ceasefire deal that would have had six weeks there of peace and allowed everybody to be fed and to continue to move more towards peace. But now Hamas is convinced that they don’t have to,” he added.
Fetterman has been one of the Senate’s most outspoken supporters of Israel and has been willing to criticize Biden in the past.
Itzhak Gelerenter
Shani Louk
Amit Buskila
A family gave me this Nova Music Festival blue band as a reminder to never forget this atrocity or the hostages—and I won’t. https://t.co/OE3WzFzb9v pic.twitter.com/S0RxJsiEI7
— Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) May 17, 2024
The president’s comments came as Israel has taken much of the Gaza Strip from Hamas. Hamas launched the terrorist attack last Oct. 7 that killed about 1,200 people.
Amid Israel’s current operation, the number of rockets fired from Gaza has declined significantly. Unfortunately, Israel also received word over the weekend that some of those taken hostage during the attack have since died.
Hamas rejected several ceasefire efforts. In one case, Hamas said that it could not return several dozen hostages because they were no longer alive.
Israel is currently surrounding Rafah, which appears to have the last significant concentration of Hamas fighters.
In addition, the United States began supplying humanitarian goods to Gaza using a floating pier announced earlier this year by Biden.
