Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that he will not send a delegation to Washington, as planned, because the US did not veto the UN Security Council's proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza.
Netanyahu said Washington's failure to block the proposal was a "clear departure" from his previous position and would harm the war effort against Hamas, as well as efforts to free more than 130 hostages from captivity in Gaza.
"In light of the change in the American position, Prime Minister Netanyahu has decided not to leave the delegation," his cabinet announced.
The UN Security Council voted for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and the immediate and unconditional release of all civilians. The US abstained.
The White House denied that the US restraint reflected a change in US policy.
A high-level delegation was due to travel to Washington for talks on a planned Israeli military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians have taken refuge.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Israel's decision was disappointing and that the US would raise concerns about Israel's policy as part of ongoing talks between the two governments.
"We are very disappointed that they will not come to Washington to allow us to discuss with them viable alternatives to their entry into Rafah. Nothing has changed about our position that a major ground offensive in Rafah would be a major mistake,” Kirby said.
He added that the talks between Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and others will cover the same topics that the US team planned to discuss with the delegation.
Galant is in Washington this week, as part of a separate delegation from the one whose visit was canceled, as the Joe Biden administration pressures Israel not to launch an attack on Rafah.
In Israel, opposition leader Yair Lapid accused Netanyahu of trying to divert attention from a split in his coalition over a bill on military service, to the detriment of relations with the US.
"It is shocking irresponsibility of the prime minister," Lapid wrote on the X network.
Benny Gantz, a member of Israel's war cabinet, said on Sunday that he would quit the government if a law was passed that would continue to exempt ultra-Orthodox Jews from mandatory military service.
"The nation cannot accept that, the Knesset (parliament) must not vote for it, and my colleagues and I will not be members of the emergency government if such a law passes the Knesset," said the centrist Ganz.
Gantz, a former chief of staff who enjoys more support than Netanyahu in polls, entered the unity government to help manage the war against Hamas after the October 7 attacks.
"The government's martial law is a serious moral failure that will create a deep rift between us at a time when we should be fighting together against our enemies," Gantz said.
His party alone would not be able to topple Netanyahu's government, but Defense Minister Galant also spoke out against the law, signaling opposition within the prime minister's Likud party.
Galant said that the bill should be before the government today and that he would not support it.
The proposed law has not been made public, but according to parts leaked to Israeli media, it extends long-contested military exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jews, and may even expand them, Reuters reported. The law also downplays the economic consequences of the decades-long policy, which Israel's leading economists have repeatedly warned comes at a high cost.
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