A couple of days after Israeli precision strikes killed seven aid workers from the non-profit World Central Kitchen in Gaza on April 1, President Joe Biden sat down for an interview with Spanish language broadcaster Univision. The interview was uncharacteristically critical of Israel, and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. "I think he’s doing a mistake," said Biden, about how the war in Gaza was progressing. "I don’t agree with his approach." American presidents rarely rebuke Israeli leaders in public. But the Gaza war and the upcoming presidential elections seem to have forced Biden’s hand.
On April 4, Biden called up Netanyahu and demanded an immediate ceasefire. In what was described as a tense phone call lasting about half an hour, the president asked the prime minister to address civilian casualties, humanitarian concerns and the safety of aid workers. Biden specifically wanted Netanyahu to open up the Erez crossing into northern Gaza and the port of Ashdod in southern Israel for humanitarian aid and to augment the passage of supplies through Kerem Shalom. And he threatened, on record, that the US would reconsider its unqualified support for Israel, unless the demands were not met immediately. Biden’s tone and tenor was so harsh that Israel issued a statement within hours, conceding at least some of the demands.
America’s stern and, occasionally hostile, encounters with Israel have been occurring quite frequently now. In mid-March, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer used his chamber’s floor to send a brutal message to the Israeli prime minister. “The Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7. The world has changed, radically, since then, and the Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past,” said Schumer, a close ally of the president. The comments stung Israel badly as it came from the highest-ranking Jewish American in the US government who enjoys an impressive record of staunch pro-Israel policies. A day later, Biden endorsed Schumer’s views, saying that he made “a good speech” that reflected American concerns. A few days later, Washington chose to abstain from a UN vote calling for a ceasefire in Gaza; usually it vetoes such resolutions. A miffed Netanyahu cancelled his proposed trip to the US, in response.
The ongoing Gaza war is testing the very pillars of the US-Israel ‘special relationship’, which, for decades, appeared destined for eternity. In 1919, president Woodrow Wilson had announced his support for a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine; in 1948, president Harry S. Truman recognised the new state of Israel just 11 minutes after David Ben-Gurion announced its founding; in the 1973 Yom Kippur war, after Israel was dealt with a nasty surprise by a joint Egypt-Syria attack, the Nixon administration ordered the airlift of entire tank units, allowing the Jewish state to fight back; America’s unconditional aid to Israel remains unparalleled, so far touching $158 billion (not adjusted for inflation) since World War II, which is way more than what Washington has given anyone else; and, finally, the unconditional, blanket diplomatic support the US gives Israel all the time is the stuff of dreams in the world of geopolitics.
Now, many Americans have started questioning this partnership, especially with gory images from Gaza being streamed live 24x7. Biden has been steadily losing support because of his policy towards Israel and the war in Gaza. A Gallup poll held last month showed that 55 per cent of Americans are opposed to the war in Gaza. A Pew survey also returned similar results. Even more alarmingly for Biden, it showed a major divergence between the views of young Americans—a reliable Biden constituency in 2020—and the president’s policies on the issue. Thirty per cent of those under 30 said they supported the Palestinian people, while only 14 per cent said their sympathies were entirely or mostly with the Israelis.
Nearly 50 per cent Democrats said they sympathised with the Palestinians. And Biden’s handling of the war found support from just 12 per cent of voters under 30. In an election year, these are numbers no candidate, especially the one who is trailing in all opinion polls, can ignore. Biden already got a taste of what was about to come during the presidential primaries when he found that in battleground states like Michigan and Minnesota, he was losing the support of not just Arab or Muslim voters, but also of progressives, young voters, Afro-American voters, and even progressive Jewish voters.
After realising his vulnerability, perhaps, Biden has been working on a plan to get Netanyahu to end the war at the earliest, followed by Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza. Biden wants an empowered Palestinian Authority to take charge of Gaza and oversee its post-war reconstruction. A successful reconstruction attempt could pave the way for negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel for a two-state solution. In Biden’s scheme of things, this would bring back to the diplomatic table key Arab players like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and they could resume peace talks with Israel and also fund reconstruction efforts. It would also allow the US to reduce the influence of Iran and pro-Tehran militias like Hezbollah over Palestine and also over the wider Muslim public opinion.
The problem with such a plan is that it is unlikely to work while Netanyahu is in office. According to some reports, Biden has confided in his close associates that despite his best efforts, Netanyahu is “giving him hell” and is “impossible to deal with”. But even if Netanyahu wanted to agree to Biden’s plan, his far right coalition partners will not agree to any proposal involving a two-state solution. They believe that Israel has inalienable rights to the West Bank, which they call the biblical territory of Judea and Samaria. And Netanyahu, who faces multiple corruption charges, cannot think of a situation where he is out of power, unless he receives firm guarantees about keeping him out of jail. The Israeli political system, however, is not really worried about sending its former prime ministers behind bars. Ask Ehud Olmert, who spent 18 months in jail on corruption charges.
That is probably why Netanyahu has adopted a confrontationist policy towards Washington. Biden now clearly wants a new prime minister before the situation gets any worse. Netanyahu, on the other hand, seems to think that an open confrontation with Biden would aid him in refurbishing his far right credentials and help him survive the domestic political crisis.
Biden’s uneasy ties with Netanyahu did not start with the Gaza war. The two leaders, who were once very good friends—Obama, in fact, once sent Biden to mollify Netanyahu during the Iran nuclear deal negotiations—had a major falling out after Netanyahu chose to go ahead with his judiciary overhaul effort that brought Israel to a standstill. (The whole country was paralysed for weeks by strikes and demonstrations over the decision to take away the judiciary’s power to review laws passed by the Knesset.) After Biden announced that he expected Netanyahu to revisit the policy, the Israeli PM issued an unusually acerbic rejoinder on ‘X’, saying that Israel was a “sovereign country that makes its decisions by the will of its people and not based on pressure from abroad, including from the best of friends.”
Even the judiciary overhaul plan is pushed by the far right parties, which argue for more executive control over the judicial branch. Netanyahu also must have felt that with his corruption trial travails, more control over the judiciary would be beneficial for him.
The next few weeks will be crucial for both Biden and Netanyahu. US intelligence agencies have warned about the possibility of an Iranian attack on Israeli military and governmental locations, in response to the bombing of an Iranian consular building in Syria on April 1. Although Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack, Iran has vowed revenge. Foreign Minister Israel Katz said if Iran attacked Israel from its own territory, Jerusalem would respond in kind,” raising the threat of a larger regional war. Biden, too, has weighed in on the issue. “Our commitment to Israel’s security against these threats from Iran and its proxies is ironclad,” said Biden, appearing on the White House lawn with the Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. “We are gonna do all we can to protect Israel’s security.”
The impact it will have on Biden’s presidential campaign, however, remains to be seen.