On Tuesday morning, Time magazine published the full transcript of its recent Oval Office interview with President Joe Biden, conducted a week prior. One line quickly went viral among Middle East experts: When asked whether Biden believes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is prolonging the country’s war with Hamas to further his own political survival, Biden said the answer might be yes. “There is every reason for people to draw that conclusion,” the president responded. 

Hours later, Biden appeared to reverse himself on that sentiment. A reporter shouted a question at Biden as he left an event: Is Netanyahu “playing politics” with the war? “I don’t think so. He’s trying to work out a serious problem he has,” Biden said.

That Biden’s public reversal took place in a single day made the incident especially notable, even for an 81-year-old gaffe-prone president known for speaking off-the-cuff (much to the chagrin of his staffers). But it was not the first time onlookers were confused by his comments on the Middle East.

The White House’s pattern of contradicting itself over Israel’s war against Hamas has become a regular occurrence since October. Interpreting what the administration’s precise policy is at any given moment can take Talmudic levels of parsing, and clarifying whether Biden’s often-vague language reflects a change in message, or is simply a function of misspeaking, is a frequent challenge for journalists.

Stakeholders and experts describe a White House approach rooted in a desire to appease divergent and at times conflicting constituencies, stemming from difficult political realities at home and a fear that the bloody conflict in Gaza will still be raging as Election Day approaches. But trying to make everyone happy is often a self-defeating strategy in Washington, especially on one of the most divisive issues in politics. 

“There’s a big danger that the Biden team faces in trying to be everything to everyone and all people at once, that you may end up risking being nothing meaningful,” said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. 

Biden has tried to chart a course that maintains U.S. support for Israel, leaning on his longtime self-identification as a Zionist, while also criticizing Israel for not doing enough to protect civilians in Gaza. The farthest he has gone was a threat last month to withhold some U.S.-made offensive weapons depending on Israel’s actions in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. 

Yet his frequent criticism of Israel’s military tactics does not go far enough to appease left-wing Democrats unhappy with Biden’s overall support for Israel; meanwhile, his outreach to the anti-Israel segment of the party irritates Jewish voters and pro-Israel moderates. And Biden’s frequent admonitions of Israel risk hampering the country’s war effort, in the view of many of its supporters. (A National Security Council spokesperson declined to comment.) 

Biden’s occasionally harsh rhetoric toward Israel amid the mounting death toll in Gaza is “an indication of real anger and frustration, without actually being willing to confront or be identified fully, to make real what [he] feels, so you get a policy that is conflicted,” said Aaron David Miller, a former longtime State Department employee and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “I think the reason they’re conflicted is because he’s got these constituencies that he certainly isn’t going to satisfy. He can try to manage them.” 

Behind closed doors, the messaging differs depending on whom the White House is addressing — and who is delivering the message. Biden’s closest advisers on the Middle East are National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan; Sullivan’s deputy, Jon Finer; and Brett McGurk, White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa. Each of them takes a slightly different approach to the unfolding conflict. 

Viewed as the most liberal of the three foreign policy advisers, Finer has been dispatched several times to address Arab American and Muslim voters who accuse Biden of enabling war crimes with support for Israel in its war against Hamas. McGurk is generally viewed as more hawkish; he is closely aligned with the administration’s efforts to bridge ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The White House sent him to speak at an AIPAC gathering in March. Sullivan, a savvy political operator, is more in the middle. 

“You send Finer to Michigan, you send McGurk to AIPAC and then you have Sullivan who can talk to all different kinds of audiences, and charm all kinds of audiences,” said Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “They’re targeting to the progressive left on one hand, while trying to keep the swing voters on board, while trying to keep the pro-Israel community, while trying to keep the pro-Muslim community, and in doing so he’s infuriated everybody.”

Among other officials whose work relates to Gaza, there is a range of approaches and attitudes. John Kirby, the national security spokesperson at the White House, has earned praise from many in the Jewish community over what’s perceived as his deep personal belief in the U.S.-Israel relationship. USAID Administrator Samantha Power, meanwhile, has often gone farther than Biden in criticizing Israel’s actions in Gaza and its role in exacerbating a humanitarian crisis in the enclave. 

Often, it’s in private meetings that White House officials are doing what some in the political world call “coalition management,” but what might be known elsewhere as damage control. In May, Biden delivered a speech at a Holocaust memorial event in which he strongly condemned antisemitism and described his support for Israel’s security as “ironclad.” The next day, he went on CNN and threatened to withhold certain weapons from Israel if the IDF launched a major ground operation in Rafah. 

Pro-Israel Democratic megadonor Haim Saban called the weapons threat a “catastrophe,” while Israel’s critics welcomed the move but immediately called on Biden to go further. 

A week after the interview, a group of Jewish leaders, many of whom had sharply criticized Biden’s CNN threat, met with Finer at the White House to vent their frustrations. Elsewhere in the White House that day, Sullivan spoke to reporters, pledging to “get back to basics” by clearly restating the administration’s view on the conflict — including its central goal of the defeat of Hamas.

Voters and activists in the U.S. aren’t the only ones trying to decipher Biden’s messaging on the war. The indecisiveness is also noticed by leaders — both allies and adversaries — in the Middle East.

“Every time Hamas sees some sign that, ‘Oh, well, maybe parts of the Democratic Party are moving against Biden, we’ve got him cornered,’ then their price gets higher for negotiation, within negotiations for releasing hostages,” Katulis said.

Sometimes the muddled messaging from the White House reflects their desire to downplay a more noteworthy policy shift that could alienate pro-Israel voters. When Biden delivered a White House address last Friday announcing a cease-fire deal approved by Israel, the contours of the deal he laid out did not describe a full defeat of Hamas or removal of the terrorist group from power. 

When asked directly by reporters in recent days whether the goal is still for Hamas to be removed from power, White House officials have demurred. 

“They’re not the drivers of events, they’re reacting to events,” said Katulis. “So they’re just getting whipsawed by what is a very complicated war.”