Biden’s opportunity to break with Netanyahu has arrived
As the war in the Middle
East drags on and the true general-election season swings into gear, President Biden badly needs an Israel-Gaza policy reboot. Thursday’s State of the Union speech is his chance to make the pivot he will need to fix the strategy and take him to November.
Five months into the Israel-Gaza war, Biden’s policy and messaging on the crisis are widely and rightly viewed as a mess. His administration appears feckless in its inability to influence the Israeli government and hypocritical for talking about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza while massively supplying the country creating it. Biden himself has been criticized as both weak and stubborn.
It’s time for Biden to reset both the policy and message. Conveniently, he will have the attention of the entire Congress and millions of Americans Thursday evening. Typically, State of the Union speeches tout previous accomplishments and don’t break much new ground. However, if Biden seizes the opportunity, he could lay out for domestic and international audiences exactly what he thinks should be done to alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe, how he thinks the war should end, and how he envisions establishing Palestinian governance in Gaza after.
Several administration officials I’ve talked with acknowledge that internal frustration with Israel’s scorched-earth bombing campaign is boiling over, both because of the devastation it is causing for Palestinians in Gaza and the way it puts Biden in a bind politically.
For months, the White House believed that outrage from
Arab and Muslim Americans, along with progressives, was limited and politically manageable. But in recent weeks, calls for Biden to change course have spread from progressives such as Sen. Chris Van Hollen (DMd.) to centrists such as Biden confidant Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.). Coons recently called for an aid cutoff to Israel if it wages a ground assault in Rafah in southern Gaza, where more than 1 million civilians are living in tents.
As the election gets closer, with no end to the war in sight, the White House has been inching toward a clearer break with the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On Monday, Vice President Harris called for an “immediate cease-fire” for six weeks and called the situation in Gaza “inhumane” and a “humanitarian catastrophe.” Harris also met with Netanyahu’s chief rival, Benny Gantz, this week in Washington and pressed him to come up with a “credible” humanitarian plan before any ground operation in Rafah.
A major Biden speech resetting U.S. policy on the Israeli-Gaza war would have to address at least three crucial issues: how to end the humanitarian crisis, how to wrap up the large-scale military operations (while getting the hostages back), and how to set up a Palestinian-led government in Gaza afterward.
To be fair, the Biden team is working hard on all these issues, but mostly behind the scenes. What can be seen in public is not encouraging.
On the humanitarian side, the United States has a moral and national security interest in using its leverage against Egypt and Israel to prevent food and medicine from being denied to civilians. The Biden administration was roundly criticized last week as engaging in political theater after dropping about 38,000 meals in northern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of people risk starvation.
The White House says it is exploring establishing a maritime delivery route. But even that is a mere drop in an ocean of need. Letting an ally deny food to 2 million starving people is a terrible way to fight extremism.
Regarding the fighting, the Biden team has said it wants Israel to switch to targeted operations aimed at high-level operatives, and that it’s simultaneously negotiating for a temporary cease-fire. But it is clear that Netanyahu won’t fully stop major ground operations unless Biden applies real pressure. Hamas must release all the hostages in exchange for a cessation of fighting. But only the United States has the influence to push this outcome forward.
Looking ahead to what lies after the war, Biden’s diplomats are working with regional governments on a future road map, but again, it’s happening behind the scenes. Biden should publicly spell out how Palestinian security forces other than Hamas can be organized to take over in Gaza and how the United States will help make that happen.
Some pundits have even suggested Biden should go to the Israeli Knesset and use his popularity with the Israeli public to convince them to buck Netanyahu and change course. This notion ignores the fact that, while Israelis don’t like Netanyahu, they overwhelmingly support the war effort. Gantz is no less hawkish on “eradicating” Hamas or storming Rafah than Netanyahu.
By focusing his message on Americans, Biden can free himself from the need to navigate Israeli politics. The president’s job is to communicate to the American people a clear strategy based on U.S. interests, which include supporting Israel but not turning a blind eye to the humanitarian catastrophe it is causing.
Biden’s task in this State of the Union address is to carve out a middle-of-the-road strategy that acknowledges the realities on the ground, even though this will fully satisfy neither the protesters throwing fake blood on Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s car nor Netanyahu. But at least Biden would be showing Americans and the world that his administration intends to shape events, rather than being shaped by them.