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For his 23rd book, “War” (to be published Tuesday by Simon & Schuster), legendary Watergate journalist Bob Woodward delves into the inner circles of the Biden White House to examine American influence in the war between Russia and Ukraine, and Israel’s conflict against Hamas and Hezbollah.
Read the excerpt below, and don’t miss David Martin’s interview with Bob Woodward on “CBS Sunday Morning” October 13!
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Secrets always exist. And often the secrets have immense weight especially in human relations. What do the main characters really think of each other? What is going on behind the scenes that others might not notice nor imagine? What might be the driving forces that are not articulated or visible?
President Biden’s frustrations and distrust of Israeli prime minister Netanyahu had been building for years and in the spring of 2024 finally erupted.
“That son of a bitch, Bibi Netanyahu, he’s a bad guy. He’s a bad f***ing guy!” President Biden declared privately to one of his closest associates. “A bad f***ing guy!
“He doesn’t give a s**t about Hamas. He gives a s**t only about himself.”
The president was preoccupied with bitterness and distrust of Netanyahu, who he said had been lying to him regularly.
Netanyahu was destroying the entire region of Gaza, pounding one of the most densely populated places on earth with an estimated 45,000 bombs. Almost half, 47 percent, of Gaza’s population of 2.2 million were children under the age of 18. Hundreds of the bombs dropped on Gaza had been the massive 2,000-pounders. The carnage resembled some of the worst bombing during World War II.
Netanyahu was continuing to say he was going to kill every last member of Hamas.
Biden had told him that was impossible, threatening both privately and publicly to withhold offensive U.S. weapons shipments to Israel.
Netanyahu promised Biden that Israel would change strategy and pursue Hamas with more carefully targeted and sophisticated operations. They would replicate the more systematic and patient year-long hunt to eliminate the Black September Palestinian militants who killed 11 Israeli Olympic team members in Munich 1972.
No more battalions going in firing rockets and artillery without strategy, no more dropping huge bombs on urban areas. But Netanyahu continued to issue precisely those orders.
Before October 7, Netanyahu’s political leadership was in tatters. He faced criminal charges of fraud and bribery that had been delayed multiple times, and he was widely criticized for pushing legal and judicial reforms that weakened the independence of Israel’s judiciary. Netanyahu was close to being ousted as prime minister.
But after the large-scale October 7 Hamas attack on his watch, Netanyahu pushed aside questions of Israel’s catastrophic intelligence and security failures and resurrected himself as a strong wartime leader. Israel had rallied around their prime minister. Ongoing war shielded Netanyahu.
President Biden told a friend that Netanyahu was now working hard to save himself politically and stay out of jail.
Biden was amazed that Bibi’s leadership had lasted.
“Why hasn’t there been an internal revolt?” Biden said. “A strong internal revolt about just voting Bibi out of office somehow, someway! Just get him out of there!”
President Biden complained bitterly that Netanyahu had spent no time on a plan for Gaza and the region after the war ends. He knew this because of multiple secure calls with Netanyahu and several meetings Blinken had reported back on over the last six months.
The White House would issue brief readouts of the Biden-Netanyahu phone calls to the media suggesting they were fruitful, cordial and productive.
Excerpted from “War” by Bob Woodward. Copyright © 2024 by Bob Woodward. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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For more info:
- “War” by Bob Woodward (Simon & Schuster), in Hardcover, eBook and Audio formats, available October 15