President Joe Biden was on the verge of taking "draconian measures" after an Israeli military drone strike killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in the Gaza Strip in April 2024, but U.S. intelligence that Iran was about to launch an "unprecedented" aerial attack on Israel prevented Biden from moving forward, according to Brett McGurk, a top Middle East adviser to four presidents. In an interview with "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" taped Thursday, McGurk described Biden as "fed up" with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's handling of the war in Gaza. "At that moment, if not for that impending missile attack, which we then had to deploy military forces … I think we would have taken some pretty draconian measures against Israel," he said, adding that cutting off U.S. weapons to Israel "was very much on the table." The U.S. and its Arab and European partners helped protect Israel from the Iranian attack, which McGurk said included 120 ballistic missiles, 170 drones and 30 cruise missiles that were "all launched to land at the same time." In his new memoir titled "Brink," which is set to be published Tuesday, McGurk recalled a tense conversation between Biden and Netanyahu around that time in which the U.S. leader warned the prime minister he could end the weapons supply.
At the time, the Israeli government said it believed there were more than 130 hostages in Gaza and around 34,000 Gazan deaths, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. "You think I'm Santa Claus? No Santa in Israel, pal," McGurk quotes Biden as saying.
In McGurk's interview with CBS News, the longtime foreign policy aide recounted the Biden administration's initial reaction to Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel, its handling of Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza, the efforts to secure an Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage release deal, the role of Iran and — starting years earlier — a long-sought push to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. McGurk is no longer working with the Bidens and is currently a CNN contributor. Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war has drawn years of scrutiny — including from within his own party.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, the administration faced intense pressure to stop military aid to Israel amid the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The U.S. is the largest weapons supplier to Israel, and provides billions in aid. A 2023 State Department review of Israel's conduct found that it was "reasonable to assess" that Israeli security forces have used U.S.-made weapons in ways "inconsistent with" international humanitarian law obligations.
Casualties in Gaza, "including high levels of civilian casualties," raised "substantial questions as to whether the IDF is using" U.S.-made weapons "effectively in all cases," the report said. Chris Van Hollen told "Face the Nation" in November 2024 that Biden didn't use U.S. leverage effectively, arguing he sent Israel "more bombs and more money" after Netaynahu disregarded his requests, and pointed to U.S. laws blocking arms shipments to military units that violated human rights. Since then, debates over the future of U.S.-Israel relations have continued to rage.
Some of the criticism that the Biden administration was not strong enough in its response to Israeli actions in Gaza has been directed at McGurk, who was the White House National Security Council's coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa and one of his most influential advisers. McGurk noted that the Biden administration did pause some weapons transfers to Israel, including 2,000-pound bombs but never instituted a weapons halt. He believes some of the calls to go further may not have been effective.
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