Newsmax: Fred Fleitz Conveys Concerns to Blinken About Deteriorating US-Israel Relationship

Fred Fleitz, vice chair for the America First Policy Institute, told Newsmax on Friday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken is hurting the United States’ relationship with Israel.

Joining “Greg Kelly Reports,” Fleitz said Blinken was taking a lesson out of President Joe Biden’s book as he stumbled into pushing for a cease-fire between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas.

“This confused, halted way of speaking is almost as bad as Joe Biden,” Fleitz said of Blinken during a press conference after he talked to Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday evening.

“By saying, you know, ‘Oh, we want a pause in the fighting,’ and not calling [for] what he’s really calling for — a one-sided cease-fire where Israel stops attacking and Hamas does not … — I just think he’s really hurting our relationship with Israel,” he added.

Still, Fleitz said he believes Netanyahu “understands Biden. He knows that he’s going to go wobbly. I think Netanyahu is playing this right.”

Biden called for a “pause” in the conflict after Jessica Rosenberg, a rabbi involved with Jewish Voice for Peace, asked him if he backed one during a fundraiser in Minnesota earlier this week.

“I think we need a pause,” the president said. More specifically, “a pause means it gives time to get the prisoners out.”

The White House later said that Biden was not calling for a cease-fire but was urging Israel to consider pauses in its retaliatory invasion of the Gaza Strip to allow civilians to leave or receive foreign aid.

Blinken reiterated that message when speaking to Netanyahu, but the Israeli leader said it can happen only if hostages are released.

Information from Reuters was used in this report.

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