Netanyahu Confirms: ‘Great Slowdown’ in U.S. Arms, Ammunition Shipments

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed Friday that there had been a “great slowdown” in U.S. arms and ammunition shipments, and said he publicly criticized the White House after months of quiet frustration.

As Breitbart News reported, Netanyahu posted a video to social media earlier this week in which he thanked the Biden administration for its support, but urged it to stop withholding arms and ammunition. The White House claimed that it did not know what he was talking about, but Republican senators filled in the details: the Biden administration had been using bureaucratic tricks to delay weapons shipments since as long ago as January.

In an interview with Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman, Netanyahu explained:

We began to see that we had some significant problems emerging a few months ago. And in fact, we tried, in many, many quiet conversations between our officials and American officials, and between me and the president to try to iron out this diminution of supply.

…

I raised this issue with Secretary Blinken. And I said that we are being told by our Defense Department officials that barely a trickle is coming in. He said, ‘Well, everything is in process. We’re doing everything to untangle it. And to clear up the bottlenecks.’

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I don’t know what’s causing it. But I’m aware that there has been a great slowdown in the provision of the important ammunition and weapons. I’m not talking about F-35s or F-16s that are years down the line. I’m talking about what is necessary now to both win the war in Gaza quickly and avoid a war in Lebanon that, in the absence of such a correction, the risks of it breaking out are increasing.

It is suspected that the slowdown in arms shipment came at the behest of anti-Israel Democrats, as President Joe Biden faces dissent from Arab- and Muslim-American voters in key swing states like Michigan in a tough re-election.

The White House criticized Netanyahu for his public comments earlier this week, to which Netanyahu responded: “I am willing to absorb personal attacks if that is what it takes for Israel to get the arms and ammunition it needs in its war for survival.”

Netanyahu also told Sherman that he foresaw “an inter-Arab sponsorship and assistance by Arab countries” in the future administration of post-war Gaza, which he said would have to undergo “deradicalization” after Hamas was gone.

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 recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the 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.