Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville says his comments earlier this week on the Israeli-Hamas conflict were taken out of context to pressure an end to his blockade of military promotions.

The Biden Administration blasted Tuberville on Wednesday for comments he made to Birmingham’s WBRC that “when you start picking sides in the Middle East, it could get really messy very quick.”

White House Deputy Press Secretary and Senior Communications Adviser Andrew Bates contrasted Tuberville’s comments with those of President Joe Biden on Tuesday: “We’re with Israel. Let’s make no mistake.”

In Tuberville’s earlier sound bite, the Alabama senator said, “Israel has the right to go, because they came in and they did some terrible things in their country.”

However, Tuberville’s unedited interview comments on Tuesday appear to deal with the larger implications of the conflict.

“This thing could really get out of hand,” Tuberville said. “People taking sides, people getting involved. The ball is in the court of President Netanyahu of Israel. He as 400-500,000 troops on the border of Gaza. He’s going to decide whether they’re going to go in or not. We’re having, late tonight, an all Senators conference and telling us really what’s going on. I’m hoping that cooler heads prevail–they don’t go into Palestine.”

In a longer statement to WBRC on Thursday, Tuberville said he supports the Israeli efforts to neutralize Hamas in Gaza.

“Israel is our closest ally and I firmly stand with them,” Tuberville said. “Joe Biden is attempting to deflect the facts that he lifted sanctions against Iran and handed over $6 billion and Iranian prisoners to get Americans back, all while Iran was plotting with Hamas to go into Israel with the mission to obtain more hostages.”

On Thursday, the U.S. and Qatar agreed to deny Iran access to $6 billion recently transferred to the nation as part of a deal that led to the release of five Americans from Iran last month, according to The New York Times.

“Now, 27 Americans are dead and others are held hostage,” Tuberville said. “My first priority is getting our Americans back, then Hamas needs to be wiped off the map. The White House using these atrocities and trying to spin my words to put more political pressure on me to lift military holds is despicable. But it’s par for the course for this administration.”