The Israeli critique of the US president which spurned an ICC indictment

In his speech to the Knesset on Monday, November 18, Netanyahu called out Biden’s advice throughout the war for being “repeatedly off the mark.” By Thursday, three days after the Israeli Prime Minister publicly criticized the U.S. President, the ICC issued arrest warrants for the prime minister and his former defense minister following months of delays from the international court due to U.S. pressure.

U.S. officials had been engaged in direct communications with ICC representatives and coordinated with allied nations to build a coalition opposing the ICC’s potential actions aimed at deterring the court in the months leading up to Thursday’s court decision to issue the arrest warrants.

While there was no official statement directly addressing Netanyahu’s comments, senior U.S. officials emphasized the importance of the longstanding alliance between the two nations following the Israeli Prime Minster’s parliamentary speech on Monday, where he claimed that President Biden and his Secretary of State, Antony Blinken had threatened to abandon Israel ‘alone,’ and withhold munitions over its Rafah offensive earlier this year.

Media outlets reporting on this development, highlighted the growing tensions between the U.S. and Israeli leadership, with sharp criticism from right-leaning outlets such as Fox News, The NY Post and Newsmax.

Fox reported on Netanyahu’s comments as valid criticism of Biden’s administration, arguing that the U.S. had wavered on providing unreserved support for Israel and accusing the Biden administration of prioritizing optics over strategy

CNN framed Netanyahu’s comments as part of an internal blame game within Israel’s leadership while also attributing tensions to the Biden administration’s inconsistent messaging about military support versus humanitarian concerns.

The New York Times pushed back on the Prime Minister’s comments, focusing on Netanyahu’s defiance and criticizing them as heavy handed and damaging to the bilateral relationship. At the same time NYT underlined that U.S. diplomatic leverage over Israel is waning, weakening Biden’s position and standing on Middle Eastern diplomacy.

The Wall Street Journal took a more geostrategic approach criticizing both Biden and Netanyahu for lacking a unified strategy, and warning that the absence of clear objectives could lead to long-term instability in the region.

In sum, U.S. right-aligned commentators accused Biden’s approach of emboldening adversaries like Hamas and Iran while alienating a key ally in Israel. While observers on the left side of the aisle defended Biden’s cautious stance as intended to prevent escalation in Gaza that could provoke Iran-backed militias in the region.

In the Middle East, Qatari-run Al-Jazeera didn’t miss an opportunity to denigrate both sides, using Netanyahu’s comments to critique Biden’s advice as symbolic of Western hypocrisy in supporting military aggression while paying lip service to humanitarian concerns. They used the schism as an opportunity to point out the fragility of the U.S.-Israel alliance, which it argued undermines American credibility in mediating regional conflicts.

Saudi Arabia’s Al-Arabiya took a more pragmatic stance, focusing instead on how Netanyahu’s remarks might influence regional geopolitics, specifically U.S.-Saudi relations. Commentary pointed out that public disagreements between the U.S. and Israel complicate Saudi Arabia’s calculations on normalization talks, as Riyadh does not want to align itself with an embattled Netanyahu administration.

Overall, the U.S. and Israel’s adversaries didn’t hesitate to point to these tensions as opening opportunities for non-Western powers like Russia and China to expand influence in the Middle East. It appears this last observation may be the keenest of them all, as strategic misalignments between Israel and the U.S., amplified by domestic political challenges in both countries leave an opening for actors hostile to both to exploit.