In defying Joe Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu is exposing the limits of US power
‘The Biden administration is all but banging the table and demanding Israel act.’ The US president and Benjamin Netanyahu last October. Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
The pictures out of Gaza get more harrowing with each passing day. After months of witnessing civilians grieving for loved ones killed by bombs, now we see children desperate to eat – victims of what the aid agencies and experts are united in calling an imminent “man-made” famine. What matters most about these images is their depiction of a continuing horror inflicted on the people of Gaza. But they also reveal something that could have lasting implications for Israelis and Palestinians, for Americans and for the entire world. What they show, indeed what they advertise, is the weakness of the president of the United States.
Joe Biden and his most senior lieutenants have been urging Israel to increase the flow of food aid into Gaza for months, in ever more insistent terms. This week the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, cited the finding of a UN-backed agency that the threat of hunger now confronted “100% of the population of Gaza”, adding that this was the first time that body had issued such a warning. Earlier this month, the vice-president, Kamala Harris, told Israel it needed to do whatever it took to get humanitarian aid into Gaza: “No excuses.” The Biden administration is all but banging the table and demanding Israel act.
A week ago, it seemed to have had an effect. The Israel Defense Forces announced what was billed as a “dramatic pivot”, promising that it would “flood” Gaza with food supplies. But there’s precious little sign of it. An additional crossing has been opened, the so-called 96th gate, allowing a few more trucks to go in, but nothing on the scale that is required to avert disaster – or mitigate the disaster already unfolding. For all the talk of a pivot, there is still “a series of impediments, blockages, restrictions … on lorries carrying the most basic humanitarian aid”, David Miliband of the International Rescue Committee said this week. He noted the way that Israel’s ban on “dual use” items, those things that could be used as weapons if they fell into the hands of Hamas, means that even the inclusion of a simple pair of scissors for a clinic can result in an entire truckful of aid being turned back.
To repeat, the victims of this are the 2.2 million people of Gaza, who don’t know where their next meal is coming from. But it represents a severe problem, or several, for Biden too. The most obvious is that he is in a re-election year, seeking to reassemble the coalition that brought him victory in 2020. Back then, a crucial constituency was the young, with voters under 30 favouring Biden over Donald Trump by 25 points. Now it’s a dead heat. To be sure, there are several factors to explain that shift, but one of them is younger Americans’ outrage at the plight of Gaza.
The threat to re-election is illustrated most sharply in the battleground state of Michigan, home to 200,000 Arab-Americans who are similarly appalled, with many unequivocal that they will not vote for Biden, even if that risks the return of Trump – with all that implies for the US and the world. That number is more than enough to tip the state from Democrat to Republican in November. “If the election were held tomorrow, I think Biden would lose Michigan,” veteran Republican strategist Mike Murphy told me on the Unholy podcast this week. For Biden, “this is a pain point”.
US support for Israel in this context would be a headache for any Democratic president, but Israel’s willingness to defy its most important ally presses especially on Biden. For one thing, the upside of his great age is supposed to be his experience in foreign affairs and especially his personal relationships with fellow world leaders. He likes to say he has known every Israeli prime minister since Golda Meir and that he’s dealt with Netanyahu for decades. Critics reply: a fat lot of good it’s done you.
And that is the heart of the matter. For most of Israel’s history, it’s been taken as read that a clear objection from a US president is enough to make an Israeli prime minister change course. A shake of the head from Dwight Eisenhower brought an end to the Suez war of 1956. A phone call from Ronald Reagan ended the Israeli bombardment of west Beirut in 1982. In 1991, George HW Bush pushed a reluctant Likud prime minister to attend the Madrid peace conference, by withholding $10bn in loan guarantees.
Biden has repeatedly made his displeasure known, and yet Netanyahu does not budge. It’s making the US look weak and for Biden especially, that’s deadly. “The subtext of the whole Republican campaign is that the world’s out of control and Biden’s not in command,” David Axelrod, former senior adviser to Barack Obama, told me on Unholy . “That’s basically their argument, and they use age as a surrogate for weakness.” Every time Netanyahu seems to be “punking” Biden, says Axelrod, it makes things worse.
Plenty of Israeli analysts suggest that appearances are deceptive. In their view, Netanyahu is making a great show of thumbing his nose at Biden, because he is in an undeclared election campaign and defiance of Washington plays well with his base, but in reality he is much more compliant. In this reading, Team Netanyahu’s talk of a ground operation in Rafah – where nearly 1.5 million Palestinians are crammed together, most having fled Israeli bombardment – is just talk. Yes, the Israeli PM likes to threaten a Rafah invasion, to put pressure on Hamas and to have a bargaining chip with the Americans, but he is hardly acting like a man committed to doing it. Amos Harel, much-respected defence analyst for the Haaretz newspaper, notes that there are only three and a half IDF brigades currently in Gaza, compared with 28 at the height of hostilities. “Netanyahu is in a campaign, and for the time being at least, ‘Rafah’ is just a slogan,” he told me.
Let’s hope that’s right, and a Rafah operation is more rhetorical than real. That does not address Israel’s foot-dragging on aid, which Netanyahu is clearly in no hurry to end, in part because his ultranationalist coalition partners believe sending food to Gaza is tantamount to aiding the Hamas enemy.
That leaves Biden with two options. His preferred outcome is a breakthrough in the talks in Qatar, which would see both a release of some of the hostages taken by Hamas on 7 October and a pause in fighting, allowing aid to flow in. But Netanyahu fears such a pause, which would hasten the day of reckoning for his role in leaving Israel’s southern communities so badly exposed six months ago to Hamas – whether that reckoning is at the hands of the electorate or a commission of inquiry. He prefers to play for time, ideally until November, when Netanyahu hopes to say goodbye to Biden and welcome back Trump.
The alternative for Biden is tougher. Last month, he issued a new protocol, demanding those countries that receive US arms affirm in writing that they abide by international law, including on humanitarian aid. If the US doesn’t certify that declaration, all arms sales stop immediately. In Israel’s case, the deadline for certification is Sunday.
Joe Biden does not want to be the man who stopped arming Israel, not least because that would leave the country vulnerable to the mighty arsenal of Hezbollah just across the northern border with Lebanon. His administration is split on the move and he may well deem it too much. But he does need to see food flood into Gaza, right away. He has tried asking Netanyahu nicely. Now he needs to get tough.
Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist