After decades of building a “close, personal” friendship with Benjamin Netanyahu, Joe Biden has had it with the Israeli prime minister. Now he’s hitting him hard — and it may be working.
Michael Hirsh is the former foreign editor and chief diplomatic correspondent for Newsweek, and the former national editor forThe last time Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu got into a public spat as ugly as this one was 14 years ago. In March 2010, Biden traveled to Jerusalem to push President Barack Obama’s ambitious peace plans on Netanyahu — the prime minister whom the then-vice president, upon landing, called his “close,.
“For Biden, as an old school politician, personal relationships are how you get stuff done. Sometimes it is. But at some point, with someone like Netanyahu, you have to take the measure of this guy and realize relationships don’t mean anything to him,” says Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and former foreign-policy advisor to Sen. Bernie Sanders. “Biden seems to have been taking way too long to figure that out.
Asked to comment, a senior administration official said the administration needs to see more assistance from the Israelis, but he believes they have been responding to the new U.S. pressure tactics. One sign is that they have opened up new road crossings in the north, raising the average number of aid trucks getting through to Gaza to 197 a day in March, the highest number since the Oct. 7 crisis began. The bigger issue, the official said, is preventing the Israelis from backsliding.
Joe Biden is greeted by Benjamin Netanyahu after arriving at Ben Gurion International Airport on Oct. 18, 2023, in Tel Aviv. | Evan Vucci/AP Biden and his top officials, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, have grown increasingly frustrated that Netanyahu and his war cabinet seem to have no future vision for Gaza other than to slaughter a lot more Palestinians. | Yasser Qudihe/AFP via Getty Imagesthat Biden’s new tack is working, but there are some encouraging signs that the ever-defiant Netanyahu may be wavering, at least slightly.
For Biden, it’s all been a slow awakening. “After Oct. 7, Biden decided he needed to show his support in the most personal way. So phase one — long and perhaps too long — was the assumption that support and good will in word and deed would be rewarded,” says Nimrod Novik, a former senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. The Biden team then “took the gloves off in a very incremental and disjointed way. There were the sanctions on settlers, then settlements, then the NSC memo.
David Makovsky, a long-time Israel watcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Peace, says he also believes that Biden’s pressure is beginning to tell on Netanyahu. Another factor, he says, is that Netanyahu is deeply unpopular at home, opinion is shifting dramatically in both Israel and the American Jewish community, and Biden’s deep credibility on the issue is helping.
For a while, at least, Biden more or less went along with Netanyahu’s approach — especially after the administration of George W. Bush, pursuing its quixotic democracy agenda, insisted on Palestinian elections in 2006 and the vote brought Hamas to power, permanently dividing the Palestinian population.
When it comes to the Israelis and Palestinians — two peoples who seek, impossibly, to occupy the same point on the map — the same issues just seem to recycle themselves. Today the open rupture between the U.S. and Israeli governments is probably the worst since at least 1989, when the George H.W. Bush administration began pushing hard for negotiations with the Palestinians.
That speech enraged both Obama and Biden. But after Trump was elected the following year, he effectively did Netanyahu’s bidding by pulling out of the nuclear pact. Such a showdown may be in the offing. According to Axios, one U.S. official says that an Israeli ground operation in Rafah could prompt Washington, for the first time, to allow passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. Already under Bidenfrom a resolution calling for more humanitarian aid in Gaza. Abstaining from the next vote on a ceasefire would send an unmistakable message.
United Kingdom Latest News, United Kingdom Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
10 Shows To Watch If You Like Love Is Blind (You'll Love My Picks)10 reality TV series to binge after Love Is Blind.
Read more »
'Love Is Blind' Alums Brett And Tiffany Speak On Black LoveThe couple opens up about what it was like to find love on the Netflix show — and the surprising expectations that came with it.
Read more »
Love, theoretically—and love, actually.What is love? New qualitative research identifies three main factors: positive responsiveness, authentic connection, and a sense of stability.
Read more »
Kristen Stewart, Katy O'Brian & Love Lies Bleeding Director Discuss Interplay Of Love & StrengthAll the latest movie news, movie trailers & reviews - and the same for TV, too.
Read more »
Manchin slams Biden for ‘reckless’ EV mandate telling people ‘what kind of car’ they can haveJoe Manchin bashed Joe Biden for his new EV mandate that regulated tailpipe emissions standards.
Read more »
Most people love to show love. Narcissists, however, only love themselves.Most people love to show love. Narcissists, however, only love themselves.
Read more »