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Commentators and analysts in the Israeli media focused on the statements of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir in which he attacked US President Joe Biden and their impact on relations between the Israeli government and the US administration. They also addressed the expected deal with the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and attempts to thwart it.

Ben Gvir said - in an interview with the Wall Street Journal - that Biden, “instead of providing full support to us, is providing humanitarian aid and fuel to Gaza, and that goes to Hamas,” and he considered that American behavior would be completely different if he were the former president. Donald Trump is in office.

Oded Ben Ami, a political program presenter on Channel 12, said that Minister Ben Gvir is complicating Israel’s relations with the American administration, while Dana Weiss, a political analyst on the channel, believed that these statements will push the American administration to ask: How is this possible in light of our support? For Israel in an unprecedented way?

Weiss continued, "I do not think that any other leader (other than Biden) would have gone so far in Israel's interests, knowing that he is causing harm to his electoral base (...) and in the American administration they say that we provide them with support, and this is how he (Ben Gvir) responds to us." “It did a lot of damage.”

For his part, Yisrael Ziv - former commander of the Operations Division in the army - said, “God forbid, if the Americans and Biden had not been here, what calamity would have befallen the State of Israel? On the other hand, if Ben Gvir had not been present, things would have been good.”

In the same context, foreign affairs analyst Gil Tamari told Channel 13 that Ben Gvir was right about one thing, which is that if Trump were president, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have received a phone call from him telling him, “Either you dismiss Ben Gvir, or else American support will stop.” .

Unlimited support

Tamari pointed to the support that Biden has provided to Israel since the start of the occupation’s aggression against the Gaza Strip on the seventh of last October, including sending 100 planes loaded with ammunition without obtaining the approval of Congress, and support totaling two billion dollars, with talk of another support package worth 14 billion dollars.

Regarding the possible prisoner exchange deal with Hamas, political analyst Rafif Drucker told Channel 13 that it is based on two extremely contradictory stages. The first will last a month and a half, during which Israel will get a lot and will not give much, which is what Netanyahu can pass politically and live with.

The second stage - according to Drucker - is in which Hamas will demand, in exchange for the release of the soldiers, the release of the most heavy-handed prisoners, including the leader of the Fatah movement, Marwan Barghouti, and “the architects of the terrorist operations in the second intifada, and the saboteurs of the elite,” as he described it, adding that they are “exciting numbers.” "For madness."

He added that Hamas will also demand at this stage the withdrawal of Israeli forces and a cessation of fighting, adding, “Even if there is no final cessation of fighting, this process is supposed to take 3 months, and this means that for 4 and a half months there will be no fighting, and it is very difficult to resume fighting.” Later".

In this context, Natalie Shem Tov, a political program presenter on Channel 13, quoted one of the detainees liberated from the Gaza Strip, saying that during her last days in captivity, she listened on Israeli radio to politicians explaining why they should not be released.

The Israeli spokeswoman added, "I want to say to our politicians that you can say a lot, but keep in mind that our kidnappers, who are suffering minute after minute in the Hamas tunnels, hear your words."

Source: Al Jazeera