White House national security aide John Kirby tried to clean up President Joe Biden’s claim Tuesday that Israel has engaged in “indiscriminate bombing,” telling reporters Wednesday that Biden was expressing concern about civilian casualties in general.
Kirby faced a barrage of questions from journalists about Biden’s statement, made to wealthy donors behind closed doors in Washington, DC, just hours after he had expressed public solidarity with Israel at the annual White House Hanukkah party.
Biden’s claim was picked up immediately by anti-Israel groups and foreign media. Israel has pushed back hard against Biden’s claim, telling reporters in at least two press conferences that it takes every possible step to avoid Palestinian civilian casualties.
Journalists asked Kirby whether, if Biden believed that Israel engaged in “indiscriminate bombing,” the U.S. would apply new restrictions on the use of American military aid, or whether the administration believed Israel had engaged in war crimes.
Kirby tried to defuse the inquiries, claiming that Biden had simply been worried about the effect of civilian casualties on Israel’s image in the world. He added that the administration continued to urge Israel to be careful about Palestinian civilians.
Though no journalist asked Kirby to provide an example of “indiscriminate bombing,” one did ask to provide an example where the Israeli military had listened to the U.S. about civilian casualties. Kirby provided several, including Israel’s effort to create a map of zones in Gaza in order to warn civilians about where military action was likely to happen.
“There’s very few militaries in the modern world that would do that,” Kirby said, praising the Israeli military. “I don’t know that we would do that.”
Kirby was wearing a steel dog tag, a symbol of the movement in Israel to free the hostages abducted by Hamas, now numbering 134, after over 100 were released during a week-long truce, and after several were confirmed to have been murdered by Hamas.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
