US support for Israel during the Gaza war has become increasingly difficult. Standing between both allies are the almost 35,000 Palestinian deaths and the criticized Israeli management of a contest that is advancing into its eighth month. On the eve of the November presidential elections, the United States has ended up becoming another theater of that war, even though it is thousands of kilometers from the Middle East battle front.
The complicated relationship between US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has seen several scuffles in recent weeks. The Israeli president is determined to impose his strategy, focused on warlike rather than humanitarian objectives such as freeing the hostages or safeguarding Gazan civilians. This Saturday the Jewish State ordered new forced displacements of Palestinians in the Strip that international law considers illegal. Although the differences have opened one of the largest gaps in bilateral relations in memory, no one predicts a total break between two countries that need each other and provide feedback.
From the hugs in Jerusalem in October, on the eve of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, the tenant of the White House went on to become an “asshole” when referring to the Israeli leader at a private event in February, according to what was then published by the NBC television network. Now, Netanyahu’s decision to complete the total land occupation of the Strip against the general opinion of the international sphere has pushed relations further into the abyss. “Relations are at historic lows,” which constitutes “a worrying escalation,” understands Itamar Eichner, diplomatic correspondent for the Israeli newspaper. Yedioth Aharonoth.
“The bleak relations between Israel and the United States began long before October 7, but it seems that we have now reached an unprecedented low with public statements” by Biden, he maintains. After several warnings that were not heeded by the Jewish State, this is “the first time that the United States has publicly threatened Israel” because “Israel openly mocks the United States” by waging war on its own in Rafah, Eichner interprets.
The Israeli invasion in the last week of that southern town of the Palestinian enclave after months of pressure from Washington against an offensive, ended up exhausting the patience of the Democratic president, who had tried to maintain a complicated balancing act between supporting his ally and pressure for a ceasefire from the progressive wing of his party and the pro-Palestinian university protests.
“If they enter Rafah, I am not going to provide the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities,” Biden announced Wednesday in an interview with CNN. It was his fiercest comment against Israeli strategy in the seven months of war, a statement that some experts have described as “seismic” in scope.
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It was the first time that the president explicitly threatened to withdraw vital support for the Israeli forces if carnage was not avoided in the enclave where around a million and a half people were crowded in deplorable conditions. Hours earlier, the Pentagon confirmed that it had paralyzed a shipment of 1,800 one thousand kilo bombs and 1,700 five hundred kilo bombs.
Netanyahu’s response was defiant: “If we have to be alone, we will be alone. I have said that, if necessary, we will fight with our nails,” the president said Thursday on the eve of Israel’s Independence Day. “In the War of Independence, 76 years ago, we were a few against many. We didn’t have weapons. There was an arms embargo on Israel, but with great strength of spirit, heroism and unity among us, we emerged victorious,” he concluded without expressly referring to Biden, but determined to move forward with his plans.
It was followed, however, by another hook to the chin. A long-awaited report from the State Department declared it “reasonable” to consider that Israel’s military campaign, reinforced with weapons sent by the United States, has violated International Humanitarian Law in Gaza. This report comes in the eighth month of fighting and after almost 35,000 fatalities, around 70% of them minors and women, according to the authorities of the Strip, where Hamas rules.
But the slap was only intended to warn, not to knock out. The same report, ordered by Biden in February, pointed out that it is difficult to “establish firm conclusions” about specific incidents, and only considers it probable, and not proven, that these violations could have occurred. On the other hand, it does value as “credible and reliable” the guarantees given by Israel that it would use the weapons that Washington gives it in accordance with International Law, which is why it allows the shipment of these arsenals to continue.
And both Biden, in the interview, and his Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, in an appearance in Congress, highlighted that the commitment to supporting Israel remains “to the letter.” The head of the Pentagon justified the stoppage of the shipment of the bombs with the argument that “it is about having the right weapons for the task” and the United States wanted to see Israel develop “more precise” operations. “A small diameter bomb, a precision weapon, is very useful in a dense, heavily built area,” but “perhaps not so much a thousand kilo bomb that can create a lot of collateral damage.”
“If Israel is dragged into a military operation in Rafah, that will worsen its position within the international community,” acknowledges Israeli Kobi Michael in an analysis published this week by the Institute for the Study of National Security (INSS). acronym in English). “Hamas leaders are in a win-win strategic comfort zone, where they will benefit if a deal more convenient for Hamas is imposed on Israel due to American and Egyptian pressures along with internal pressures, fueled by a well-oiled and effective campaign by Hamas and its allies Iran and Russia,” adds Michael.
This is not the first time that the United States and its ally have had a strong clash. Ronald Reagan already resorted to interrupting the supply of weapons in 1982 to force the then Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, to stop his bombing of Lebanon. And Biden himself, then vice president in the Barack Obama era, already experienced a moment of tension with Netanyahu: in 2011, on a trip to paralyze the construction of new settlements in the West Bank, he landed in Israel with the news that the Government was ending to approve 1,600 more buildings. Obama and Netanyahu always maintained a relationship that was, at best, distant.
But no matter how much both countries show their teeth at any given moment, or their leaders maintain friction, both governments know that blood is not going to reach the river. Israel urgently requires weapons and support from Washington, as evidenced by the Iranian drone and missile attack last month; The US government needs Israel’s support in the Middle East, and cannot afford to alienate the influential Jewish community at home. Nor can it afford, six months before the November elections, to open a flank to criticism from the Republican opposition, which, led by former President Donald Trump, accuses the White House of betraying its ally. Added to this is the personal position of Biden, a politician with genuinely pro-Israel leanings.
Each one measures their steps very carefully: Israel develops its ground offensive in Rafah with caution so as not to incur the “big” attack against the city that Biden has assured would be his “red line”, without going into details of what he would consider “big”. ”. The spokesman for the National Security Council, John Kirby, has pointed out that the United States maintains most of its arms shipments to Israel. “They continue to receive the vast, vast majority of everything they need to defend themselves,” he said in a telephone press conference on Thursday. And the United States continues to vote on the side of its ally in every measure that is debated in the UN regarding the war, be it in the Security Council or in the General Assembly.
“The relationship between the United States and Israel has become so institutionalized that it can work at all other levels, even if the respective leaders cannot see each other. The relationship is deep at an institutional level, so there will always be room to develop it,” says Steve Cook, from the Council on Foreign Relations analysis center, in a talk with journalists.
At the same time, Cook acknowledges, something is changing in the attitude of the American Democratic government, pressured by the progressive wing of its party, the young vote and the pro-Palestinian protests in universities. “Policy in the United States toward American-Israeli relations is changing. It is clearly seen in the open debate in the Democratic Party about the imposition of conditions on aid to Israel, the stoppage of aid to Israel, the sanctions on citizens in Israel,” says the expert.
“There is a greater willingness to express these types of concerns, to talk about policies or to seek policies that – for lack of a more diplomatic word – are more punitive against Israelis,” adds the Middle East scholar.
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