Netanyahu tests Biden’s patience as war pressure builds

President Biden’s relationship with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is showing new signs of strain amid the war in Gaza, which has put both leaders under extraordinary political pressure.

Biden has stood firm in defense of Israel, despite intense backlash from voters calling for a cease-fire, and from Democratic lawmakers appalled at a Palestinian death toll of nearly 25,000 people.

But Netanyahu’s rejection of Biden’s push for a two-state solution in a day-after scenario for the Gaza Strip is challenging Biden’s efforts to stand strong in the face of Israel’s critics. The Israeli leader also appears to be blocking U.S. efforts to broker a new hostage deal.

“What’s happening now is that Prime Minister Netanyahu is rebuffing the Biden administration at virtually every turn,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).

“Ignoring their entreaties, slapping down the proposal to move quickly toward a two-state solution, I would think there’s a point when the Biden administration runs out of patience. They have a lot more patience than I would. I think that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s actions are hurting Israel and I think they’re hurting the United States.” 

Since Israel launched its retaliatory war following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, Biden and his senior aides have sought to strike a delicate balance between unqualified support for Israel’s stated goal to defeat Hamas militarily, and confronting the horrendous humanitarian toll on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

On top of the deaths, the vast majority of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people has been forced out of their homes and face rampant crises of hunger and disease.

“The administration wants to see more done on humanitarian assistance. They want to continue to see fewer civilian Palestinian casualties,” said Dennis Ross, a veteran Middle East peace negotiator across Republican and Democrat administrations, and distinguished fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Ross said reports that Biden is frustrated and running out of patience with the Israeli leader is “a function of people below the president who are also dealing with pressures internationally and wanting to show that we’re putting pressure on Netanyahu.”

The White House has rejected calls for a cease-fire and argued one would only help Hamas, but the administration is putting its support behind efforts to pause the fighting for weeks to allow for humanitarian groups to aid Palestinians and help secure the release of about 100 hostages.

“We are in serious discussions about trying to get another pause in place,” White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Tuesday, amid reports that Israel had offered a two-month pause in fighting in exchange for Hamas releasing hostages.

But Netanyahu has signaled he’s not interested in U.S. calls to restrain Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip.

“Only total victory will ensure the elimination of Hamas and the return of all our hostages. I told President Biden this in our conversation over the weekend,” Netanyahu said Sunday.

Netanyahu has further rejected Biden’s calls to establish a Palestinian state in a day-after scenario for Hamas’s defeat in the Gaza Strip, saying Israel must retain security control over Palestinian territories.

Biden has publicly played down these differences.

“There are a number of types of two-state solutions. There’s a number of countries that are members of the [United Nations] that are still — don’t have their own militaries,” Biden told reporters last week. “And so I think there’s ways in which this could work.”

Ross said the president’s response was likely influenced by Netanyahu — commonly called “Bibi” — when the two spoke Jan. 19. 

“What that reflected was clearly, Bibi said something to him privately in a way that led him to say that,” he said.

“Meaning, this was Bibi talking about: If you’re talking about a state that’s demilitarized, then we’re talking about a different kind of state. There’s different kinds of states that don’t pose a threat to us that we could accept  — so that allows Biden to say this.” 

Biden has not shied away from criticizing Netanyahu in public throughout the two leaders’ nearly 40 years of knowing each other, spanning Netanyahu’s early diplomatic career in the U.S. and Biden’s time as Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair.

Biden, as President Obama’s vice president, had a front-row seat to some of the most fraught times in U.S. and Israel relations – from the failure of the U.S.-led peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians to Netanyahu’s lobbying Congress against Obama’s efforts for a nuclear deal with Iran. 

And throughout 2023, Biden has raised alarm over the Israeli leaders’ embrace of far-right fringe politicians and pursuit of judicial reforms that had sparked widespread protests in the months preceding Oct. 7.

But the president is using significant political capital to stand alongside Netanyahu, with an increasing number of Democratic lawmakers pushing for a cease-fire; protests and some resignations among staff at federal agencies; and protests staged outside his campaign events across the country.

Pro-Palestine advocates have warned that Biden’s staunch support for Israel, particularly amid the carnage in Gaza, could cost him crucial votes in swing states such as Michigan. 

Still, the majority of U.S. public opinion is in support of Israel in its war against Hamas, which slaughtered an estimated 1,200 people in southern Israel and took 240 people hostage – dozens of whom have since been released in U.S.-brokered deals. 

“This is an extremely sensitive year in the United States. No serious presidential contender would basically take on either Netanyahu or Israel,” said Fawaz Gerges, professor of international relations and Middle Eastern politics at the London School of Economics. 

“Between now and the elections, the Biden team will not do anything to either anger or upset or really engage in any public spat with Netanyahu, and Netanyahu knows this. Netanyahu truly, historically, is a manipulator in chief of the American electoral system.”

Biden and his top aides, as part of efforts to degrade Hamas, are looking to get Israel on board with agreeing to the creation of a Palestinian state by offering normalization with Saudi Arabia in return — a strategy the Saudis have endorsed. 

Netanyahu has pushed for establishing ties with Saudi Arabia, but his rejections of a Palestinian state are further isolating him on the global stage.

Josep Borrell, the plain-spoken foreign policy chief for the European Union, was blunt in his criticism of Netanyahu’s rejection of a two-state solution.

“Which are the other solutions they have in mind? To make all the Palestinians leave? To kill them?” Borrell said. “Certainly, the way of trying to destroy Hamas is not the way they are doing, because they are seeding the hate for generations.” 

That has left Biden one of Netanyahu’s last allies amid the overwhelming international calls for Israel to implement a cease-fire. 

“Netanyahu really cares about one man’s audience, and that’s Joe Biden,” Gerges said. “Israel has really lost in the court of public opinion, whether you’re talking about Spain or Ireland or Belgium — I mean, it’s world public opinion. Truly, the United States and Germany, and to a lesser extent, the U.K., are still solid supporters of Israel, but the United States really is against the world when it comes to Israel.”

Netanyahu also faces a reckoning at home. 

Protests against Netanyahu that were put on hold in the wake of Oct. 7 have restarted amid growing criticism within Israel over failure to secure the release of hostages, the conduct of the war, and the failures that allowed Hamas to attack in the first place. The protests are still relatively small but signal growing anger among the public even as they support efforts to defeat Hamas.

Gadi Eisenkot, a former head of the Israeli military and opposition lawmaker whose son was killed fighting in Gaza, has called for elections to be held after the war and raised doubt over the military defeat of Hamas.

“It is necessary, within a period of months, to bring the Israeli voter back to the polls and hold elections in order to renew trust, because right now there is no trust,” Eisenkot said in an interview with the Israeli TV program “Uvda.”

“As a democracy, the state of Israel needs to ask itself after such a serious event: ‘How do we continue from here with a leadership that has failed us miserably?’” 

Families of hostages have criticized Netanyahu as prolonging the military fight against Hamas to preserve his political power.

“This holdup is with the Netanyahu government,” said Liz Naftali, whose 4-year-old niece was released after 50 days of captivity. Naftali is advocating for the release of all the hostages.

She accused the Israeli prime minister of being “unwilling to agree to the terms to release our loved ones, to make these deals final.”

It’s a view that Netanyahu’s critics in Washington also believe. 

“There’s a reason why he’s had nine political lives. He’s a very gifted politician, but that does not mean he’s taking the right course now,” Van Hollen said.

“In fact, I think it’s very clear he’s put his own political ambitions and political interests above the interest of Israel and its allies.”