Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that President Joe Biden was trying to have “both sides” on the Israel–Hamas war.
Anchor Jake Tapper said, “You’ve become famous or infamous depending on your point of view for your stalwart support of Israel since the October 7 attacks, especially, but before then as well. Israel recovered the body of yet another hostage yesterday. That’s four hostage bodies recovered this week. The U.S. is assessing that Israel has amassed enough troops to launch a full-scale ground operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, despite President Biden’s warning that Netanyahu and Israel doing that would cross a red line. You’ve said you defer to what Israel thinks is best. So do you think Joe Biden is wrong for trying to stop a major Rafah invasion?”
Fetterman said, “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. 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 provided six weeks of peace and allowed everyone to be fed, moving towards peace. But now Hamas is convinced that they don’t have to. They don’t need to take any kind of deal except on their own terms. I don’t think all of the capitulating and those kinds of things are helpful. I don’t think that’s going to convince anyone that we’re not committed to stand with trying to have both sides on that.”
Tapper said, “The reason I said infamous is because there are a lot of progressives, a lot of people in your party who are mad at you for your strong support of Israel and for your continued condemnations of Hamas. Why do you think that is?”
Fetterman said, “I can understand why being a very strong supporter of Israel would upset anybody who supports the pro-Palestinian view. That’s fine. It’s reasonable, but I just decided to be on the side of Israel on that.”
