Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu have had numerous tough conversations behind the scenes since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted two months ago.
But on Tuesday Biden’s frustration with the Israeli premier broke into the open, as he took issue with Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza and the hostility of Netanyahu’s far-right government to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“I think he has to change, and . . . this government in Israel is making it very difficult for him to move,” the US president said at a fundraising event.
The unusually blunt comments were the strongest indication so far of mounting US unease with Israel’s war effort. They came as a UN General Assembly vote calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza underscored Israel’s growing diplomatic isolation: just eight countries joined Israel and the US in opposing the motion, while 153 voted in favour.
Biden and Netanyahu have had disagreements throughout the war, but US officials have said Biden believed the best way to influence the Israeli prime minister was to keep them behind closed doors. Biden has in public staunchly backed Israel’s war effort, even at the risk of upsetting allies.
But some US officials said Biden’s remarks pointed to the limits of his so-called “bear hug” strategy, and indicated that eventually it would be hard for him to be silent about his concerns.
“This is a blinking yellow light from the president on growing gaps between the US and Israel on the Gaza war and the aftermath,” said Aaron David Miller, a Middle East analyst and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
A big source of friction has been the soaring humanitarian cost of Israel’s invasion of Gaza, which has killed more than 18,000 people, according to Palestinian officials, while displacing the vast majority of the enclave’s 2.3mn population and rendering much of the territory uninhabitable. Israel launched its offensive in response to Hamas’s October 7 assault, which killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials.
The US has exerted pressure on Israel to reduce civilian casualties, particularly as it extended its land offensive into Gaza’s south, where most of the population has fled. But the death count has continued to spiral since fighting resumed this month after a brief ceasefire.
“It’s very clear [Israel] wants to continue the military operation in the south, that they want to get the hostages out and want to degrade Hamas’s infrastructure and kill or capture the leadership. And they are going to keep going until they’ve done all three,” said one western official.
Even before the war, Biden and other US officials had expressed concerns about “extreme” figures — such as ultranationalist ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich — in Netanyahu’s cabinet, as well as violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. But that violence has increased since the war broke out, with 336 attacks by settlers against Palestinians, according to the UN.
The two sides have also clashed over the future of Gaza. US officials have said publicly that the Palestinian Authority (PA), which administers parts of the West Bank, should have a role in the enclave’s postwar governance. It has also insisted that Israel should not reoccupy Gaza or shrink its territory.
But Netanyahu has been dismissive, saying repeatedly that he would not accept the PA’s return to Gaza. US officials have grown frustrated by his government’s unwillingness to discuss realistic “day after” scenarios, and its hostility to a two-state solution over the long term.
“The region is looking at the US . . . to get Israel to put forward a positive position,” said a person familiar with US-Israeli deliberations. “But [Washington] isn’t making much progress.”
Israeli analysts say that Netanyahu’s stance was partly driven by domestic political calculations, with a rising expectation of elections next year.
“[Netanyahu] knows once Israel scales down its ground offensive in Gaza — almost certainly in a few weeks — he won’t be able to hold back the political flood: in the not-too-distant future, his governing coalition will lose its parliamentary majority,” Anshel Pfeffer, a columnist and biographer of Netanyahu, wrote in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper.
“He will try to delay that moment, but his political instincts tell him he will have to fight an election soon — and all the polls are saying he will lose, by a wide margin. So he’s trying to draw up the battle lines of the campaign.”
It is not just Israel where the war is a domestic political issue. Biden’s comments came as he is beginning to pay a political price within the US for his strong support for Israel.
The latest FT-Michigan poll, published this week, showed that 40 per cent of American voters believed the US was providing “too much” financial and military aid to Israel in its war against Hamas. Biden’s approval ratings, as measured by the 538.com polling average, have dipped further since the war broke out, and recent polls have shown him trailing Donald Trump, a year out from the next presidential election.
Biden has long felt deep and close personal ties to Israel, which have helped to define his approach, but other officials have ratcheted up their disapproval. Defence secretary Lloyd Austin this month warned that Israel risked “strategic defeat” unless it did more to protect civilians in Gaza.
Some observers in Israel fear the US spat could presage a worse rupture. “I think a moment of truth is coming, and soon,” said Ami Ayalon, former head of Israel’s domestic security service, who compared it to Henry Kissinger’s push for a “reassessment” of US-Israeli ties in the 1970s that triggered a crisis in relations.
“Biden could well do something similar,” said Ayalon. “He could say: ‘I have to think’, and everyone would know what that means: a possible end to military assistance and no more use of the [UN Security Council] veto.”
Others say that while Biden’s criticism of Netanyahu has become more pointed, his administration is still far from breaking with Israel on the war.
US officials say publicly and privately that while they want a quick end to the war, they agree with Israel’s goal of dismantling Hamas. They also say that they cannot dictate exactly how Israel goes about its military campaign.
While criticising Israel, Biden on Tuesday said the US was “not going to do a damn thing other than protect Israel” during the crisis. As for Hamas: “They’re a brutal, ugly, inhumane people, and they have to be eliminated,” he added.
Miller characterised Biden’s stance as part of a “growing frustration” with the US ally. “But I wouldn’t interpret this as that we’re rushing towards a moment of truth . . . and that the president is on the cusp of telling Netanyahu ‘enough’.”
Additional reporting by Neri Zilber in Tel Aviv
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