Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, has diverged from President Joe Biden’s position on supplying weapons to Israel. According to Breitbart, Fetterman expressed his disagreement with Biden’s stance of withholding munitions during the conflict with Hamas.
Fetterman, who has actively supported Biden’s 2024 campaign in Pennsylvania, made his viewpoint unequivocal during an appearance on Fox News’s “Special Report.” During the interview, host Bret Baier questioned Fetterman about his position, highlighting how his earlier comments had contradicted the president and caused embarrassment for the Democratic Party.
Fetterman said Biden “has been very supportive [of] Israel. I don’t think we should be withholding any kind of munitions, and I think…we need to send them immediately,” Fetterman said. Of course, Israel is in this kind of war, and we — I have no conditions. I never have, and I can’t imagine I ever will,” he said emphatically.
Fetterman’s explicit commitment stands in stark contrast to Biden’s wavering stance at the moment. Although Biden is not openly retracting support for Israel, Baier highlighted the fact that the United States is taking a cautious approach in regards to these arms sales. This raises the question of whether this cautiousness will eventually lead to a change in position.
“Do you think the U.S. support for Israel, he said today it was ironclad, but if they are slow-walking these arms sales, how can you say both things?” Baier asked Fetterman.
“Yeah,” Fetterman replied.
“Well, like I said, I do think the President has stood with Israel, but we have disagreed on issues like that.”
“If anyone — if there should be any kind of conditions, it should be on Hamas and its [en]ablers, and its benefactors,” the senator later added.
Encouraged by the progressive faction, Biden has intensified the diplomatic efforts to urge Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a “ceasefire.” Notwithstanding the influential pressure, Fetterman expressed his solidarity with Israel’s choice to advance towards a conclusive triumph in Rafah, rather than settling for a temporary truce.
“Well, I follow Israel on that,” he told Baier.
“They would know the situation more than I do.
“And I’m always trying to center this to people where it’s like Hamas could — well, they started this,” Fetterman correctly pointed out.
“And this could end right now if they send all those hostages back home and they could surrender, and all of the — but they clearly don’t care about all the Palestinian death and chaos and damage,” Fetterman later said.
“In fact, that’s the way they designed that.
“Israel actually cares about minimizing those civilian deaths.
“But Hamas sees that as just their own [kind] of collateral damage.”
