Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government missed an opportunity to reach a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia last year, a top aide to former US president Joe Biden said in an interview that aired Sunday.

The deal would have required a ceasefire and hostage release deal and a willingness on the part of Israel to establish a political horizon for an eventual Palestinian state — something Netanyahu has long rejected and, since Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, has stated would amount to a prize for terrorism.

For their part, Biden officials repeatedly argued that progress toward Palestinian self-determination need not be considered an Israeli concession, as the US and its Arab allies were looking to advance the goal in a way that would isolate Hamas in favor of a reformed Palestinian Authority.

“I don’t understand the decision not to grab that opportunity as the most important strategic move Israel can make,” Amos Hochstein told Channel 13’s “Hamakor” investigative program. “I think it was missed before. I hope Israel doesn’t miss that opportunity moving forward — even if it means doing things that politically are uncomfortable.”

Hochstein was one of nine senior Biden administration officials interviewed for the Sunday program who took viewers through their frustrations in dealing with Netanyahu’s government throughout the Gaza war.

The former US officials shared their belief that Netanyahu’s refusal to plan for the postwar management of Gaza was a stalling tactic to avoid decisions that risked toppling his government.

They detailed brief deliberations in Washington about having Biden deliver a speech aimed at potentially spurring an election in Israel, given Netanyahu’s intransigence.

And they revealed that a video posted by Netanyahu accusing the US administration of withholding various weapons transfers for months scuttled a nearly final agreement to release the lone shipment of 2,000-lb bombs that had actually been frozen.

“Hamakor” also interviewed a more junior administration official who resigned in protest of what she said was Biden’s decision to give Israel a pass despite a US law that bars the transfer of weapons to countries that block the transfer of humanitarian aid.

Despite the disagreements, the top Biden officials professed devotion to Israel’s security, explaining that this dedication was what made attacks by Netanyahu and his supporters, who accused them of abandoning Israel, particularly stinging.

“Having the prime minister of Israel question the support of the United States after all that we did — do I think that was a right and proper thing for a friend to do? I do not,” said former national security adviser Jake Sullivan. “[However], I will always stand firm behind the idea that Israel has a right to defend itself and that the United States has a responsibility to help Israel, and I’ll do that no matter who the prime minister is, no matter what they say about me or the US or the president that I work for.”

Relations between the Biden administration and the Netanyahu government were not at a particularly high point before Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught on Israel, in which terrorists killed some 1,200 people and seized 251 as hostages.

Weeks before the onslaught, Biden had finally agreed to meet Netanyahu after holding out for nine months due to disapproval of the premier’s controversial plan to radically overhaul the Israeli judiciary.

Nonetheless, the US president gave an impassioned speech in support of Israel and warned Iran and its proxies not to join the fight against the Jewish state. Biden also ordered US aircraft carriers into the Eastern Mediterranean in a further demonstration of deterrence.

“I was asked to send a message to Hezbollah: ‘Whatever just happened, do not enter this conflict. If you do, the rules of the game change, and if you mess with this, you’ll be messing with us — the United States,'” Hochstein recalled.

Biden decided to make a solidarity visit to Israel even before his aides came up with the idea, Sullivan told “Hamakor.”

Before the president got off the plane in Tel Aviv, though, the US secured an Israeli commitment to start allowing in humanitarian aid into Gaza from Egypt, after top officials in Jerusalem initially pledged not to allow in one drop.

“The weight of October 7 had a physical manifestation on all of the leaders of Israel,” Sullivan recalled from that visit. “They looked different.”

Former National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said one of the Israeli ministers — whom Channel 13 revealed was Ron Dermer — told Biden during a meeting of the war cabinet that his wife had whispered into his ear where she planned to hide their daughter if Hamas terrorists entered their home.

Already in those early days, the US tried to guide a shocked Israel in its response to Hamas.

Biden “did raise his concerns that a ground operation in Gaza that was disconnected from any kind of strategic endpoint [and] could end up creating huge problems for Israel,” Sullivan said.

Ilan Goldenberg, a senior national security aide for the administration, said the US envisioned a military campaign that was similar to the one it led against ISIS, where territory was captured and then handed over to the Kurds. The US held talks with Arab allies who expressed willingness to temporarily manage security in Gaza, but they all conditioned this assistance on being able to pass the baton to the PA — a nonstarter for Netanyahu and his far-right coalition partners.

While then-war cabinet ministers Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot backed the US plan, they were overruled by the premier, Goldenberg said.

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