The Biden administration is growing increasingly critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war against Hamas, which has led to thousands of Palestinian deaths and growing anger within the Democratic Party.
Biden has acted as a shield for Israel against international condemnation and calls for a cease-fire, but there is a growing disconnect between Netanyahu’s wartime bluster and concerns being aired by President Biden and his Cabinet.
Among the key points of public disagreement between the allies is the intensity of Israel’s military campaign in southern Gaza, and the potential role of the Palestinian Authority in governing post-war Gaza.
“My experience in Republican and Democratic administrations leads to the following axiom: American presidents do not like to fight openly with Israeli prime ministers,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“When they do fight, the fight is focused in a very directed manner, in achieving something positive.”
National security adviser Jake Sullivan, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. CQ Brown Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have all visited Israel in recent days, encouraging Israel to transition to a lower-intensity phase of the war.
“We also have some great thoughts about how to transition from high-intensity operations to lower intensity and more surgical operations,” Austin said Monday in Tel Aviv.
U.S. officials have played down the apparent contract with Netanyahu promising to “fight to the end,” but Biden has upped his own criticism of the war and Israel’s government.
Biden last week criticized Israel’s bombing campaign as “indiscriminate” during a campaign event, a stunning admission even as his aides have withheld public judgment on whether Israel has violated international humanitarian law on the conduct of war.
And during a Hanukkah reception, Biden reportedly recalled a message that he wrote to Netanyahu on a photo of the two, who have known each other for decades.
“I love you but I don’t agree with a damn thing you had to say,” Biden recalled writing. “It’s about the same today.”
Biden has long had a tense relationship with Netanyahu, stretching back to the Israeli prime minister’s antagonism to former President Obama’s pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran and failed peace talks with the Palestinians in 2013.
Throughout most of this year, Biden was an outspoken critic of Netanyahu’s pursuit of judicial reforms that he said were threatening the country’s democratic existence. He met Netanyahu on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September, holding back a coveted Oval Office invitation.
But Biden has long made Israel’s security a policy priority and has embraced Israel in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack.
“It’s stunning the degree to which Biden has supported Israel, it’s really quite amazing,” said Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“It’s a matter of principle, it’s the only thing that can ultimately explain it: his deep-seated belief that Hamas savagely, indiscriminately killed and raped and burned 1,200 Israelis, grabbed 240 hostages — of which there are probably only maybe even 100 left that are alive — [and] retreated into a densely populated area where they’re hiding and co-locating their assets among civilian populations. It’s a matter of principle for Biden.”
But the president is finding it harder to defend Israel after two months of war and a staggering death toll in Gaza — the latest estimates amount to around 19,000 people killed, the vast majority of whom are believed to be civilians, but that also includes Hamas members — along with a mounting humanitarian catastrophe.
“He’s navigating a fine line between a Republican party, with some exceptions, that has emerged as the ‘Israel-can-do-no-wrong’ party, and a divided Democratic party,” Miller said.
“I think until now, Biden veers toward the conservative take on this, which is don’t expose yourself to Republican criticism.”
But Netanyahu, while overseeing a unity war cabinet, is not making things any easier.
He has rejected U.S. calls for allowing the Palestinian Authority to play a role in governing the Gaza Strip following the stated goal of eliminating Hamas. And on Saturday, Netanyahu reportedly boasted that he was responsible for blocking the establishment of a Palestinian state — a long-held U.S. and international policy goal.
“Among friends it’s important not to foster illusions,” he reportedly told his Cabinet.
“I’m proud that I prevented the establishment of a Palestinian state because today everybody understands what that Palestine state could have been, now that we’ve seen the little Palestinian state in Gaza,” he added.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a close Biden ally, called Netanyahu “an exceptionally difficult partner” during an appearance Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“What has been a real challenge is the big gap between most of us in Congress and the president who believe a two-state solution is the only way forward, and Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has done everything he can to undermine a positive vision for peace for Israel.”
Michael Koplow, chief policy officer with the Israel Policy Forum, a nonprofit education and analysis group based in Washington, said that even as there’s obvious tension between Biden and Netanyahu, it has not yet impacted cooperation between the U.S. and Israel, nor U.S. military support for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“In some ways we’re in the simplest period,” Koplow said. “I think that as soon as Israel’s high intensity phase of this campaign ends, and then you have to work out, frankly, what are thornier questions … Once it becomes time to actually make decisions and figure out who is going to run Gaza, I think you’re going to see more tension between Biden and Netanyahu.”
Netanyahu is also coming under pressure on the domestic front, with Israel’s public holding the prime minister responsible for failing to prevent Hamas’s initial attack and growing anger as scores of hostages remain in captivity. The tragic killing by the IDF of three Israeli hostages last week has only fueled that outrage.
“Netanyahu at the moment is extremely unpopular inside of Israel,” Koplow said. “It doesn’t matter what poll you look at, Israelis want the war to end in some sort of victory regarding the hostages and regarding degrading Hamas, and as soon as that happens, they want Netanyahu gone.”
U.S. officials say they have not put a time frame on Israel’s military operation but have talked about phasing from the current large-scale air and ground incursion into “surgical military objectives,” a senior administration official told reporters last week.
Israel’s Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, during a press conference Monday with Austin, said that Israel was preparing to operate “at different levels of intensity” and was looking to allow the return of the Palestinian population to certain areas of the strip.
“In every area where we achieve our mission, we will be able to transition gradually to the next phase and start working on bringing back local population,” he said.
”Israelis and Palestinians have both paid too bitter a price to just go back to October 6. So I discussed pathways today toward a future for Gaza after Hamas,” Austin added.
“The United States continues to believe, as we have under administrations of both parties, that it is in the interest of both Israelis and Palestinians to move forward toward two states, living side by side, in mutual security.”