The United States and Israel are at odds over how the Gaza War should be conducted and what should ultimately define a victory over Hamas, a reflection of the two allies’ and their respective leaders’ divergent short-term needs and longer-term goals.
US President Joe Biden, who is campaigning for reelection at what is expected to be a hotly contested poll next November, wants to demonstrate resolute policy control that deftly balances concern for Israel’s security and Palestinian civilians’ safety.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under fire for failing to foresee the vicious October 7 Hamas invasion and thus protect Jewish lives, is struggling to satisfy public demands for retribution, thirst for total victory and the rescue of Hamas-held hostages.
So far, Netanyahu’s desires are outweighing Biden’s priorities: The Israeli leader is taking every opportunity to publicly demonstrate his independence from his close ally in the name of crushing Hamas and saving his reputation and position.
Take, for instance, the relationship between wiping out Hamas while avoiding civilian casualties. Biden has called Israel’s bombing of Gaza “indiscriminate,” and dispatched a pair of top officials to Israel during the past month to inform Netanyahu about Washington’s concerns.
On November 30, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken asked Netanyahu to avoid “massive” civilian casualties. Last week, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan announced that Israel’s assault on Gaza would enter a phase “that is focused in more precise ways on targeting” and would “distinguish between targets that hit Hamas and those that might take the lives of innocent civilians.”
Sullivan said he was not setting “a deadline and we understand that the campaign must and will continue, but in a lower intensity manner.”
Netanyahu maintains that Israel does not target civilians, but Hamas uses them as “human shields” and thus is responsible for non-combatant deaths. Over the weekend, he openly rebuffed Sullivan’s call to reduce the intensity of Israel’s offensive.
In a statement, Netanyahu said, “I told our American friends: our heroic fighters did not fall in vain. Because of the deep pain of their fall, we are more determined than ever to keep fighting until Hamas is eliminated – until absolute victory.”
During the past three weeks, Israeli aerial bombing and artillery salvoes have increased, according to United Nations officials. Gaza is “hell on earth,” asserted Philippe Lazzarini, director of UNRWA, the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees. He added the lack of food supplies entering the Gaza Strip was creating starvation.
“Back in Gaza…people are everywhere, living on the streets, lacking everything. They beg for security,” Lazzarini wrote on social media.
The US and Israel are also at odds over the future governance of Gaza if and after Hamas is defeated. They are also at loggerheads on longer-range plans not only for a pacified Gaza but also the West Bank, parts of which are ruled by the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Biden, who foresees a role for the Palestinian Authority in a pacified Gaza and West Bank, has advised Israel not to occupy the Gaza Strip once Hamas is eliminated. Netanyahu said Israel does not want to occupy and rule Gaza but also rejects any role for both Hamas and the PA in presumed peace plans.
Israel has inquired outsiders about temporarily occupying Gaza once the war is over. Egypt and Jordan, neighboring countries that are at peace with Israel, have rejected the idea. Israeli government officials also suggested that each European Union country take in 10,000 Palestinian refugees. None has supported the idea.
As for resolving the decades-old Israel-Palestinian conflict, Biden and his European allies also have all called for reviving the so-called “two-state solution,” in which a Palestinian state would include both Gaza and the West Bank under PA governance.
Netanyahu is not alone in rejecting the two-state formula. Benny Gantz, a minister in Netanyahu’s War Cabinet, refuses to use the word “two-state” in regard to a peace solution.
Last Thursday (December 14), he spoke of backing a “two-entity” arrangement, in which Israel would control all borders and security—effectively, what already exists in the West Bank, where Israeli-controlled settlement areas hem in islands of Palestinian territory.
“It is clear to both us… that the old concepts and the reality of the past decades need to change and be forward-looking,” Gantz said.
The country’s president, Isaac Herzog, aware that Biden is promoting the two-state idea, said Israel is too mortified by the 1,200 civilians killed by Hamas on October 7 to speak about the issue now.
“I am against just saying ‘two-state solution.’ Why? Because there is an emotional chapter here that must be dealt with. My nation is in bereavement. My nation is in trauma,” he told the Associated Press.
The gap between Biden’s and Netanyahu’s policies also reflects the leaders’ divergent domestic political needs.
Due mainly to inflation and floods of illegal migration crossing into the US from its southern border, Biden’s reelection prospects are dimming, polls show. He needs both Arab-American and Jewish-American votes to fill out his support in a deeply divided population.
In particular, there are deep pockets of Palestinian and other Arab votes concentrated in the crucial swing state of Michigan, where he barely beat Donald Trump in 2020.
American Jewish supporters of Israel generally trend toward Biden’s Democratic Party, but they might abandon him if they believe he has endangered Israel’s security.
Surveys suggest that younger voters also oppose his perceived full-throated support of Israel’s war effort. Hence Biden’s effort to ease US military backing for Israel while expressing sympathy for Palestinian civilians.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, faced political pressures before October 7. For the past year, he has battled critics who assert he has weakened judicial powers that otherwise would have been used to convict him of corruption.
Once the war is over, he will likely come under harsh criticism and face new calls for his resignation over his failure to foresee and thwart Hamas’ massive attack.
Netanyahu may be counting on full retribution and elimination of Hamas to make up for the intelligence failure, no matter how intense Washington’s critiques of his bombing campaign might become.
Despite bombardment that has taken thousands of Palestinian lives, including many women and children, the Israeli onslaught has been unable to root out major Hamas leaders, one of Netanyahu’s stated top goals.