Pause in arms shipment: Is Biden-Netanyahu rift widening?
Move marks US’ most serious signal of displeasure
President Joe Biden’s decision to hold off supplying about 3,500 bombs to Israel was the culmination of months of rising frustration over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct of the war in Gaza — and his administration may not be done yet.
The US acknowledged this week that it had halted the shipment, including 2,000-pound (900-kilogramme) explosives that could cause massive collateral damage in the densely packed southern Gaza City of Rafah, which Israel has said it’s determined to invade. It marked the Biden administration’s most serious signal of displeasure over the conduct of the ongoing war against Hamas.
On Wednesday, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the US is reviewing “other potential weapon systems” if needed.
Yet even as tension mounts, Biden administration officials and former officials said the moves had a clearly defined goal: exert as much pressure as possible on Israel to scale back or abandon an invasion of Rafah while being careful not to make a total break with Netanyahu’s government.
How does it impact truce talks?
The administration also wants to preserve space for negotiators who have convened in Cairo this week to keep striving for a ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas.
Officials in those talks include Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns, who is trying to bring home a deal whose prospects have whipsawed between hopeful and grim.
“The pause in arms shipments should not be read as a major break in the relationship,” said Mara Rudman, who held senior Middle East diplomatic roles in the Obama and Clinton administrations and is now a professor at the University of Virginia.
Is it the most significant moments of discord?
Biden’s decision on the arms supplies marks one of the most significant moments of discord between Israel and its most important ally since Hamas’s October 7 assault, which started the war. Hamas, designated a terrorist organisation by the US, killed 1,200 people and abducted about 250 when its fighters stormed into southern Israel from Gaza.
What’s the reaction of Republican lawmakers?
It was assailed by Republican lawmakers in Washington, who accused the administration of sending the wrong message to Hamas and other Iran-backed militant groups such as Hezbollah.
The pauses “call into question your pledge that your commitment to Israel’s security will remain ironclad,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a joint letter to Biden on Wednesday.
How much will Israel reconsider?
Raphael Cohen, director of the strategy and doctrine programme at the RAND Corporation research group, noted that Israel dialled back air strikes and opened border crossings after Biden voiced anger last month following an Israeli strike that killed seven aid workers.
“Despite Netanyahu’s rhetoric, Israel takes American pressure quite seriously,” he said.
But avoiding a Rafah invasion “functionally means leaving at least four battalions of Hamas fighters plus its senior leadership intact and over 100 hostages in Hamas hands,” he said.
“From an Israeli strategic perspective, that’s probably a non-starter and it also may fracture Netanyahu’s coalition.”
Even with the pause, Israel is believed to have a significant weapons stockpile. It has a major domestic defence industry and the Biden administration has repeatedly shipped weapons that fall beneath the threshold for congressional notification.