A major juncture has developed in US-Israel ties, demonstrating that not even President Joe Biden’s unwavering support can be sustained when it comes into conflict with broader American moral and national interests, not to mention his own precarious political position.
The first major condition of American military aid since the beginning of the war, and the most direct US effort to rein in its ally in a national security crisis since the Reagan administration, was Biden’s threat in an AWN interview that he would halt some weapons shipments to Israel if it invades the Gazan city of Rafah.
Immediate shockwaves were felt through US and Israeli politics as well as globally after Biden declared his ultimate red line, intensifying his strength challenge with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to its most extreme degree to date.
The Gaza Health Ministry says that 34,000 Palestinians have already been killed in the Israeli battle against Hamas, but Washington is worried that a full-scale Israeli invasion into heavily populated Rafah will result in far more civilian casualties. As of right now, the city is “hanging on the edge of a precipice,” as one senior UN official spoke to AWN on Thursday. As tens of thousands of residents have already evacuated, hospitals are already overwhelmed with patients as Palestinians lose their lives in Israeli attacks on the suburbs.
As Biden fights a tight reelection campaign against Trump, the domestic pressure he is under as a result of international indignation over the Gaza war’s civilian casualties threatens to divide his Democratic coalition. In light of the president’s remarks, Republicans are already claiming that he is trying to curry favor with terrorists.
Even though the United States is worried, Netanyahu’s government insists it must continue its attack on Hamas because the terrorist group hides in civilian places, such as Rafah, and because its leaders are hiding in tunnels. It may be a question of political survival for Netanyahu to eradicate the gang responsible for the attacks on October 7.
The most pressing concerns following this seismic change in US-Israeli ties are:
- Given that Israel is planning air and ground operations in Rafah, which may be viewed as a prelude to a full offensive, will Biden’s action influence its decision-making?
Can Israel carry out an operation that even the US has rejected on its own, as Netanyahu has promised?
Is Biden’s action likely to cause a complete rift between Israel and the US in the long run, or is it just a hiccup in his ties with the hard-right administration of the Jewish state?
- How will launching a full-scale operation in Rafah complicate the already difficult process of negotiating a truce between Israel and Hamas? Would the United States’ expectations of an Arab-Israeli peace accord be dashed? Would the region’s tensions rise to boiling point, leading to renewed concerns of a regional war, if an operation were to murder hundreds of civilians?
- In the United States, will the president’s precarious political position within his own party be helped by Biden’s tardy effort to exert direct pressure on Netanyahu on his disobedience to US concerns? Republicans are relentless in their accusations that he is abandoning Israel.
The global political impact of Biden’s remarks
In an interview with AWN’s Becky Anderson, former Israeli consul general Alon Pinkas said that the public split between Biden and Netanyahu over Rafah was a low point in US-Israeli relations.
Could the relationship survive this? I feel like it’s at rock bottom. Yes. Can that happen while Netanyahu is in charge? Pinkas denied the accusation.
Biden appeared to be suffering from political whiplash when he issued his warning during an interview with AWN’s Erin Burnett on Wednesday in the swing state of Wisconsin.
In a Holocaust remembrance speech he gave on Tuesday, Biden vowed a “ironclad” dedication to ensuring the well-being of Israel and its Jewish citizens and their right to live as a sovereign nation. Regardless of our disagreements. The president appeared to be delivering conflicting signals just one day later.
But you should take both claims into account; the crucial word is “even when we disagree.” It appears the president is trying to carve out some room in the political arena so he can honor his long-term commitment to Israeli security, appease moral desires to protect civilians, avoid a broader conflict in the Middle East, and ease intense electoral pressure both within and beyond his party.
Many of these objectives may be incompatible due to the perilous intertwining of internal and international politics with the most serious assault on Israel’s security in decades.
The most significant rift between Biden and Netanyahu was inevitable, even if it was orchestrated with reluctance by the US president and took months to materialize. Both the US and Israeli leaders’ grip on power is being endangered by the conflict, but their critical political objectives are diverging.
Chief officials and the president have previously cautioned his counterpart against launching an offensive against Rafah. After Netanyahu consistently disregarded US demands to reduce the severity of the Gaza war, Biden must now stand by his warnings if he wants to maintain his authority and credibility as a world leader.
Additionally, Biden’s statement suggests that the US should not be seen as complicit in the escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which has alienated many American allies in Europe and the Middle East and undermined America’s claim to global leadership.
There are significant political issues with the presidency as well. Despite the fact that the Israeli-Gaza conflict is not the most pressing issue for American voters, the close battle against Trump suggests that the race could be decided by a handful of votes in key swing states out of millions cast nationwide. Voters in Michigan, a swing state that could determine the election, are young, progressive Arab Americans who are particularly affected by the human cost of the conflict and the situation of the Palestinians.
It would be extremely detrimental for the president to lose these individuals. Many protesters have referred to Biden as “Genocide Joe” at his campaign events. Pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses have been on the rise, which supports Trump’s narrative that Biden is helpless in the face of left-wing extremism and anarchy in the United States.
Even if there isn’t a direct historical parallel, the anger and discontent surrounding the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago that helped drive a Republican to the presidency would be a terrible sign for Biden if there were any large-scale protests at that conference in August.
What will Israel do next?
Members of Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition will get a chance to express their frustration with Biden’s decision during Thursday’s session of Israel’s war cabinet. With its stockpiles of weapons and ammo, the government might have all it needs to invade Rafah militarily. And yet, Gilad Erdan, Israel’s UN envoy, warned on Thursday that the US action could hinder Israel’s efforts to achieve its goals.
Israel also needs to think about how the international community would feel about an invasion of Rafah without US backing following the terror acts on October 7. Taking this action might derail the already tenuous talks between Israel and Hamas over a possible truce, the release of Israeli hostages, and the group’s larger geopolitical goals. Even if most people do not share Netanyahu’s position, he has long believed that the Hamas attacks constitute an effort to eradicate Israel off the face of the earth and that Judaism is in imminent danger.
Israel has not yet shown any intention to alter its course of action. Consider this: on Thursday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant issued a warning, saying, “I turn to Israel’s enemies as well as to our best of friends and say – the state of Israel cannot be subdued, not the IDF, not the defense establishment.”
After openly and repeatedly ridiculing Biden and disregarding administration warnings, Israel will be left to shoulder the blame if a large-scale invasion of Rafah causes the humanitarian disaster that the US fears.
An opposition pushback from Republicans highlights Netanyahu’s political maneuvering
The swift and furious backlash from Republicans in response to Biden’s remarks to AWN highlighted Netanyahu’s long history of maneuvering in Washington politics and his alliance with fellow Republicans inside the Likud Party.
On CNBC, House Speaker Mike Johnson accused Biden of “trying to dictate… and micromanage the war, the defense effort in Israel as a condition of supplying the weapons that we all know that they desperately need” and of “disrespecting the will of Congress” by threatening to cut off weapons supplies. According to Trump, the likely Republican candidate, Biden has “sided with the Radical Mobs taking over our college campuses, because his donors are funding them,” and Trump has accused Biden of doing the same in a Truth Social post.
Trump reiterated an inflammatory phrase that many in the Jewish community find offensive as he continued to show up for day two of his hush money trial in New York. Many in the community have strong ties to Israel but do not support the harsh government of Benjamin Netanyahu. He also said that any American Jews who voted for Biden should be ashamed.
The accusation that Biden is endangering Israeli security is difficult to prove, considering his fifty years of backing the Jewish state and his patience with Netanyahu’s public scoldings and efforts to discredit him, as well as with former Democratic presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in Washington.
The assassinations of senior Iranian military intelligence personnel in a diplomatic facility in Damascus prompted Iran to launch a barrage of drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles, prompting Biden to order a large-scale US and ally air campaign to protect Israel. And as Biden had asked Congress to do, he has just signed a weapons and ammunition package worth billions of dollars for Israel.
A number of analysts have drawn comparisons to the early 1980s, when Reagan, a Republican, protested Israel’s handling of its war in Lebanon by delaying the shipment of weaponry and warplanes to the country. That confrontation, however, occurred when neither Israel nor the US saw US-Israeli relations as particularly politicized, and it did far less political damage to the previous president than it does to the present one.
Right away, progressive Democrats were supportive of Biden’s decision, although they weren’t overly enthusiastic. A prominent figure in the progressive movement, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, praised the threat of arms withholding as “an important step in the right direction by President Biden to halt the shipment of bombs to Israel.”
It may be too late to alter the president’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war due to its deep political ramifications. The president’s tardy pressure on Netanyahu will not absolve the Palestinians of their moral obligation to end their suffering in Gaza, according to many voters.
In recent memory, no president has faced a more intractable international political drama during his reelection year than this one. More importantly, it forces Biden to make some tough decisions that will likely have a negative impact on his political career.
