Netanyahu: Israel ‘Not a Vassal State of the United States’

(Greta Van Susteren/Newsmax)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week pushed back against President Joe Biden’s warnings that an attack on the city of Rafah would be crossing a “red line” for the United States.

Israel and the U.S. are currently at odds over how to approach the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, where an estimated one million Palestinians have taken shelter. Netanyahu has said that Israel must enter Rafah, while Biden has described this as a “red line” for the U.S.

Netanyahu told his security Cabinet that Israel is “not a vassal state of the United States,” in a heated exchange last week, Axios reported.

Netanyahu reportedly compared his situation with Biden to that of Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion when he declared Israel’s independence despite the protests of the Secretary of State at the time, George Marshall.

He also recounted his speech to Congress that the prime minister made in 2015, in which he proclaimed his opposition to the nuclear deal with Iran reached by then-President Barack Obama, a statement that upset some Democrats and might have affected U.S.-Israel relations.

One aide, who was not named, told Axios that Netanyahu said to his Cabinet, “When is comes to threats to our security, we will do whatever it takes.”