Israel government poses quandary
Netanyahu’s policies run in opposition to US-Palestinian effort
WASHINGTON — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government is little more than a week old but it’s already giving the Biden administration headaches.
Days into its mandate, a controversial member of Netanyahu’s right-wing Cabinet riled U.S. diplomats with a visit to a Jerusalem holy site that some believe may be harbinger of other contentious moves, including vast expansions of Jewish settlement construction on land claimed by the Palestinians.
And Netanyahu’s government adopted punitive measures against the Palestinians that run in direct opposition to several recent Biden moves to boost U.S.-Palestinian relations, including restoring assistance to the Palestinian Authority that had been cut during the Trump administration and allowing Palestinian officials to visit the United States.
The new government is an unwelcome complication for a Biden national security team seeking to shift attention away from the Middle East and toward rivals like China and Russia. It also comes as Republicans take control of the House of Representatives and are eager to cast Biden as unfriendly to Israel ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Bracing for more turmoil, Biden is dispatching his national security adviser to Israel this month in a bid to forestall potentially deepening rifts between his administration and its top Mideast partner. That visit by Jake Sullivan may be followed by other highlevel trips to Israel, including one by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, according to administration officials.
Their message goes beyond
warnings about inflaming tensions with Palestinians: It’s also about not cozying up with Russia, particularly now that Moscow is relying on Israel’s main enemy, Iran, in its war on Ukraine; and not upsetting the delicate Middle East security balance.
Since Netanyahu won hotly contested elections last year with huge support from the Israeli right, U.S. officials have sought to tamp down predictions of a collision course, saying they will judge his government on actions rather than personalities. Biden himself spoke of his yearslong relationship with Netanyahu.
“I look forward to working with Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has been my friend for decades, to jointly address the many
challenges and opportunities facing Israel and the Middle East region, including threats from Iran,” Biden said when Netanyahu took office Dec. 29.
Yet Biden and Netanyahu are not close. Biden and former Obama administration officials who now work for Biden still harbor resentment toward the prime minister who, during his previous iteration as Israel’s leader, sought to derail their signature foreign policy achievement: the Iran nuclear deal.
Still, the administration is signaling it will engage with Netanyahu while avoiding more extreme members of his government. “We will be dealing directly with Prime Minister Netanyahu,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said last week
when asked about possible contacts with Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose visit to the site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary prompted a major outcry.
The inclusion of Ben-Gvir, a West Bank settler leader, and other extreme rightwing figures in Netanyahu’s government who are hostile to the Palestinians and opposed to a two-state resolution has put Israel and the U.S. on opposite paths.
On Thursday, the deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Robert Wood, at an emergency meeting of the Security Council called by Arab states to condemn Ben-Gvir’s holy site visit, underscored Biden’s firm support for “the
historic status quo,” especially the “Haram Al-Sharif/ Temple Mount.”
Wood noted that Netanyahu had pledged to preserve the status quo — “We expect the government of Israel to follow through on that commitment,” he said — and stressed that the administration placed a priority on preserving the possibility of a two-state solution.
But on Friday, Netanyahu’s Security Cabinet approved a series of punitive steps against the Palestinian leadership in retaliation for the Palestinians pushing the U.N.’s highest judicial body to give an opinion on the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.
Those moves underscored the hard-line approach to the Palestinians that Netanyahu’s government has promised.
The Security Cabinet decided to withhold millions of dollars from the Palestinian Authority and transfer those funds to a compensation program for the families of Israeli victims of Palestinian militant attacks. And it will deny benefits, including travel permits, to Palestinian officials who “are leading the political and legal war against Israel.”
Meanwhile, Biden’s administration is moving in a diametrically opposed direction. Since taking office, the administration has reversed the Trump ban on aid and provided more than $800 million in economic, development, security and other assistance to the Palestinians and the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.