The U.S. administration acknowledges waning influence over its closest Middle East ally
The looming Israeli military plans to invade Rafah have exacerbated tensions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and the Biden administration, which has grown increasingly frustrated with its attempts to rein in Israel’s military campaign.
The consequences of the distrust between President Biden and Netanyahu, who have spoken 18 times since Hamas’s Oct. 7 assault, have grown only starker in recent days. Biden now appears to be trying to draw a line with Israel’s proposed military operation on Rafah where 1.1 million Palestinians—many of them displaced—now reside.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, has vowed to forge ahead, saying Wednesday that Israel would mount a “powerful” operation in the city once residents are allowed to evacuate.
The U.S. has communicated that it wouldn’t—under any circumstances—support a plan for a full-scale invasion of Rafah, and that it would prefer to see targeted operations, U.S. officials said. The Biden administration has asked the Israeli military to produce a “credible plan” that included both a military and humanitarian component if it decides to disregard Washington’s advice and invade the city, U.S. officials said.
The growing clash between the two governments over Rafah underscores the Biden administration’s waning leverage over Netanyahu as his military continues to hammer Gaza, even as pressure grows inside the U.S. government to rein in Israel. The State Department has launched a probe looking at several Israeli airstrikes in Gaza that killed dozens of civilians and the possible use by Israel of white phosphorus in Lebanon, to determine whether the Israeli military misused American bombs and missiles to kill civilians, U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal.
Talk of a Rafah operation came as the U.S., together with Qatar, Egypt and Israel, continued to work on fragile plans for a sustained pause in fighting to secure the release of some of the remaining hostages in Hamas captivity while also ensuring that desperately needed humanitarian aid gets to the people of Gaza. Those efforts appeared to collapse Wednesday when Israel said it wouldn’t return to Cairo for further negotiations.
In recent weeks, U.S. officials have been exploring different ways to exert pressure on Netanyahu, but Biden has shown no willingness to use the biggest tool in his arsenal: weapons sales to Israel. The president has dismissed any talk of slowing arms sales to Israel, U.S. officials said, and instead has largely relied on the bully pulpit to try to express discontent.
Sitting alongside Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Tuesday, Biden again emphasized the U.S.’s desire for a hostage deal, which would cease fighting for at least six weeks, as a path to a longer-term resolution. “The key elements of the deals are on the table,” Biden said. “There are gaps that remain, but I’ve encouraged Israeli leaders to keep working to achieve the deal.”
On Wednesday, Netanyahu’s office said the government wouldn’t send a delegation back to Cairo to continue negotiations.
Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank, said the Biden administration’s public messaging so far is having very little impact on pushing Netanyahu to develop an exit strategy for Gaza or embracing the Biden administration’s goal of advancing talks to establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
“The gap between the Biden administration and the Netanyahu government on a range of key issues has widened in recent weeks as the war between Hamas and Israel continues,” Katulis said.
Tensions between Biden and Netanyahu had been rising for months. In mid-December, Biden angered Netanyahu and Israel’s government when he told attendees at a campaign fundraiser that Israel was starting to lose support around the world because of its “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza.
At that same event, Biden recalled something he once said to Netanyahu, whom he has known for nearly 50 years: “I said, ‘Bibi, I love you, but I don’t agree with a damn thing you have to say.’ That remains to be the case.”
The relationship reached a boiling point later that month, according to U.S. and Israeli officials, when Biden abruptly ended their Christmas-week call following a tense exchange about civilian casualties and, in Washington’s view, the need for Israel to shift to a new phase in its war, focused on targeted operations. Biden, who was so angry that he was almost shouting in the Dec. 28 call, according to officials, declared the conversation “over” and hung up.
Some of Biden’s senior aides are becoming increasingly worried that his support for Israel’s war in Gaza risks damaging his re-election prospects amid cratering support from young voters. Last week, Biden dispatched a group of foreign policy and political advisers to Michigan on Thursday in an effort to quell growing outrage over deaths in Gaza ahead of Michigan’s Feb. 27 presidential primary. The appeal has taken on a new urgency after Biden’s previous attempts to assuage Muslim and Arab-American supporters have proven insufficient.
Over one million Palestinians—many of them displaced—reside in Rafah. PHOTO: SAID KHATIB/AGENCE FRANCE
Israel’s bombardment in the enclave has left more than 28,000 people dead, mostly women and children, according to Palestinian health authorities. The figures don’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Netanyahu has significant considerations about his own political longevity with his war against Hamas. He is deeply unpopular in Israel, and some more left-leaning media outlets have said the prime minister bears responsibility for the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Last month, the U.S. administration was considering enacting a package meant to send a message of discontent to Israel.
The package, U.S. officials said, would have included a reversal of two Trump-era policies: one that allows products made in Jewish settlements in the Israel-occupied West Bank to be labeled as being “Made in Israel,” and another that upended longstanding U.S. policy that the West Bank settlements violate international law.
U.S. officials said they were also considering imposing sanctions on two influential members of Netanyahu’s right-wing government: Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Taken together, U.S. officials said, the package could have sent a strong message of discontent. But, in the end, the Biden administration only enacted sanctions against four largely unknown Israeli settlers, once again tempering the Biden administration’s response.
Efforts for a sustained pause in fighting appeared to collapse when Israel said it wouldn’t return to Cairo for further negotiations. PHOTO: AHMAD SALEM/BLOOMBERG NEWS
“It remains to be seen what leverage the Biden administration might be willing to use to address this gap between Israel and the United States on the Gaza endgame and the revived two-state solution concept.” Katulis said. “It’s one thing to leak messages of discontent and disapproval—it’s another thing to make a policy shift that might matter and lead to a different debate or decision calculus inside of Israel.”
On Tuesday, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller defended the Biden administration’s strategy, saying that Biden’s and Blinken’s have had an impact on the way Israel has conducted its operations, even if not always to the full extent the U.S. wants. Miller said some people might have unrealistic expectations about how much influence the U.S. has over Israel.
“I think that sometimes people pretend that the United States of America has a magic wand that it can wave to make any situation in the world roll out in exactly the way that we would want it to,” he said, “and that is never the case.”
Write to Dion Nissenbaum at dion.nissenbaum@wsj.com and Vivian Salama at vivian.salama@wsj.com
I wonder why Israel should disclose its plans to bring peace to Rafah.
I wonder where the US came up with the idea that Israel would misuse American bombs and white phosphorous in Lebanon. If they were giving this stuff to Israel, did they intend to blame Israel for using it down the road?
So here is another “fellow” at a ME institute stirring up trouble instead of calming things down – just like Blinken and Biden himself.
So finally Netanyahu showed some anger – I guess the indiscriminate accusations are have some effect.
I don’t see any prospects for his re-election.
I do agree that Detroit is going to be a problem. Now is the time to deal with it.
Unless someone comes up with confirmed numbers about who died and how many, we should stop refreshing Hamas information. Their numbers are more along the lines of propaganda than reporting.
The left-leaning media have always said that Netanyahu was unpopular, but somehow he keeps getting elected. He is only unpopular amongst the single digit left-leaning population.
While I don’t especially like these guys either, just think if Israel were to do the same thing to all these US “officials” who turn up in Israel to discuss the situation with intelligence and army leaders behind Netanyahu’s back and declare them persona non grata.
The issue is Nov 5th, 2024 in Michigan. We all know the voting demographics there, and how the voting went in 2016 & 2020. The DNC feels that if they lose Michigan, they’ll probably lose the WH, and Trump is likely POTUS again. They can’t stomach this. They’d rather risk the demise of Israel than lose in November.
The main point that is missed by this article is that it was fine with Biden to support Israel when she had just experienced a body blow and was reeling, right after October 7th. But now that Israel is actually WINNING THE WAR AGAINST HAMAS, no way is Biden happy. No, at this point he is desperate to prevent Israel from WINNING! He just can’t figure out a way to make sure Israel can’t win. That’s his real problem.
In this article the WSJ shows its ineptitude and/or its support for Hamas by accepting the fake figures Hamas puts out for casualty figures.
In addition there is the usual MSM attempt to imply that Netanyahu is an unreliable partner who just wants to do his own thing, and who also bites the hand that feeds him.
This is what passes for “objective” journalism in the US today, a.k.a. Fake News.
Apparently the authors cannot be bothered to consider why Netanyahu might have a problem with Biden’s overt and covert hostility towards him and the state of Israel.
Noticeably absent from the article is the backstory: Biden’s payments of billions to Iran, the empowering of Iran through lifting sanctions on their oil exports, and payments Biden has made to Hezbollah, Hamas, the PA, and UNWRA. In other words Biden has paid billions of dollars to Israel’s enemies, making it possible for them to launch a holocaust against Israel. Do you think it is slightly possible that Netanyahu wouldn’t trust him? But they won’t put the truth like that in the mainstream media.
Not only does Biden not have a magic wand, he also was never very bright even before he developed dementia. Now it is painful to watch and listen to him struggle to express himself or even read from notes.
I do not think he is the one behind the decision making. I was watching him make remarks to the press when King Abdullah of Jordan spoke. After Biden spoke, he moved away from the microphone, looking at the floor, and appeared to be unsure of what he was supposed to do or where he was supposed to stand. So he stood for a few moments in one spot, eyes on the floor, and then shambled away, eyes on the floor to another spot on the other side of the King, then shambled, shuffling back, eyes on the floor, to the other side of the King to the point that the King got distracted and stopped speaking and turned backward to try to see what Biden was doing. And this is the leader of the free world?
I think a majority of people in the US are quite worried that he is President and he doesn’t seem to know where he is or what he is supposed to be doing. I think the last time this happened, the American people didn’t know about it: when President Woodrow Wilson had a stroke and the country was being run by his wife and maybe a few advisors. Now it is happening not only out in the open, but in front of televised audiences all around the globe.
I would even go so far as to say articles like the one above are a form of PSYOP to make people think Biden is actually thinking and making decisions.
I am not making light of anyone suffering from dementia, but we have a President who is non compos mentis, and we have to face it. Someone must do something to help relieve this man of responsibilities that he cannot manage, and save our country.
If necessary, we as a people are going to need to unite to get this done. The free world is depending upon us.
I wonder what “people” Miller is talking about. From what I can see of the matter, it’s Joe Biden who keeps pulling his woefully short magic wand out of his trousers, even when he’s not asked to do so. I think Bibi is “the people”. If that’s the case, Biden should keep his wand to himself.