{"id":10222,"date":"2024-10-05T12:07:46","date_gmt":"2024-10-05T06:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=10222"},"modified":"2024-10-05T12:07:46","modified_gmt":"2024-10-05T06:22:46","slug":"biden-warns-israel-against-iran-oil-strikes-as-war-fears-mount","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/biden-warns-israel-against-iran-oil-strikes-as-war-fears-mount\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden warns Israel against Iran oil strikes as war fears mount"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p>US President Joe Biden on Friday advised Israel against striking Iran&#8217;s oil facilities, saying he was trying to rally the world to avoid the escalating prospect of all-out war in the Middle East.<br \/>\nBut his predecessor Donald Trump, currently campaigning for another term in power, went so far as to suggest Israel should &#8220;hit&#8221; the Islamic republic&#8217;s nuclear sites.<\/p>\n<p>Making a surprise first appearance in the White House briefing room, Biden said that Israel&#8217;s Benjamin Netanyahu &#8220;should remember&#8221; US support for Israel when deciding on next steps.<br \/>\n&#8220;If I were in their shoes, I&#8217;d be thinking about other alternatives than striking oil fields,&#8221; Biden told reporters, when asked about his comments a day earlier that Washington was discussing the possibility of such strikes with its ally.<\/p>\n<p>Biden added that the Israelis &#8220;have not concluded how they&#8217;re, what they&#8217;re going to do&#8221; in retaliation for a huge ballistic missile attack by Iran on Israel on Tuesday.<br \/>\nThe price of oil had jumped after Biden&#8217;s remarks Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Any long-term rise could be damaging for US Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democrat confronts Republican Trump in a November 5 election where the cost of living is a major issue.<br \/>\nMeanwhile Trump, campaigning in North Carolina, offered a far more provocative view of what he thinks a response to Iran should be, referencing a question posed to Biden this week about the possibility of Israel targeting Iran&#8217;s nuclear program.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They asked him, &#8216;what do you think about Iran, would you hit Iran?&#8217; And he goes, &#8216;As long as they don&#8217;t hit the nuclear stuff.&#8217; That&#8217;s the thing you want to hit, right?&#8221; Trump told a town hall style event in Fayetteville, near a major US military base. Biden &#8220;got that one wrong,&#8221; Trump said.<br \/>\n&#8220;When they asked him that question, the answer should have been, hit the nuclear first, and worry about the rest later,&#8221; Trump added.<\/p>\n<p>Trump has spoken little about the recent escalation in tensions in the Middle East. But he issued a scathing statement this week, holding Biden and Harris responsible for the crisis.<br \/>\n<strong>&#8211; &#8216;Wait to see&#8217; &#8211;<\/strong><br \/>\nBiden&#8217;s appearance at the famed briefing room podium was not announced in advance, taking reporters by surprise.<\/p>\n<p>It comes at a tense time as he prepares to leave office with the Mideast situation boiling over and political criticism at home over his handling of a recent hurricane that struck the US southeast.<br \/>\nBiden said he was doing his best to avoid a full-scale conflagration in the Middle East, where Israel is bombing Lebanon in a bid to wipe out the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah.<br \/>\n&#8220;The main thing we can do is try to rally the rest of the world and our allies into participating&#8230; to tamp this down,&#8221; he told reporters.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But when you have (Iranian) proxies as irrational as Hezbollah and the Huthis (of Yemen)&#8230; it&#8217;s a hard thing to determine.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Biden however had tough words for Netanyahu, with whom he has had rocky relations as he seeks to manage Israel&#8217;s response following the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.<br \/>\nThe Israeli premier has repeatedly ignored Biden&#8217;s calls for restraint on Lebanon, and on Israel&#8217;s war in Gaza, which has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians.<\/p>\n<p>Biden deflected a question on whether he believed Netanyahu was hanging back on signing a Middle East peace deal in a bid to influence the US presidential election.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No administration has helped Israel more than I have. None, none, none. And I think Bibi should remember that,&#8221; Biden said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And whether he&#8217;s trying to influence the election, I don&#8217;t know, but I&#8217;m not counting on that.&#8221;<br \/>\nBiden said he had still not spoken to Netanyahu since the Iranian attack, which involved some 200 missiles, but added their teams were in &#8220;constant contact.&#8221;&#8221;They&#8217;re not going to make a decision immediately, and so we&#8217;re going to wait to see when they want to talk,&#8221; the US leader added.<\/p>\n<p>Iran said its attack was in retaliation for the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.<br \/>\nHezbollah has been launching rockets at Israel since shortly after the October 7, 2023 attacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US President Joe Biden on Friday advised Israel against striking Iran&#8217;s oil facilities, saying he was trying to rally the world to avoid the escalating prospect of all-out war in the Middle East. But his predecessor Donald Trump, currently campaigning for another term in power, went so far as to suggest Israel should &#8220;hit&#8221; the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10222"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10222"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10224,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10222\/revisions\/10224"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}