U.S. President Joe Biden cannot abide a war that goes on for months, led by an incompetent, messianic prime minister.
Days after the terrorist attack on Israel last autumn, U.S. President Joe Biden made a lightning visit to Jerusalem as a personal expression of support for the country and its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Their embrace on the airport runway, whatever their acrimonious history, reflected Biden’s revulsion at the massacre and his commitment to a dazed, dispirited people. He was the portrait of the loyal ally: condemning the “pure evil” of the atrocity, reaffirming Israel’s right to self-defence, promising arms, providing intelligence, moving warships into the region.
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It was easier then, during that brief but decisive interlude — the three weeks or so between the crisis on Oct. 7 and the Israeli ground assault on Gaza on Oct. 27 (bombing began earlier). It was then that Israel was deciding how to respond.
Publicly and privately, Biden urged restraint. No doubt this was viscerally and politically unlikely amid the savagery. With every report of kidnapping, murder, torture and sexual assault, a scorched-earth response became all but certain.
Biden knew revenge is not a strategy. There were too many doubts. Would invading Gaza destroy Hamas, as Netanyahu promised? How many civilians would be collateral damage? What about the safety of the hostages? And what was the plan for Gaza following the military campaign?
Hussein Ibish, an analyst in Washington, warned that Israel was “walking into a trap.” He predicted it would respond disproportionately, killing Gazans at a rate of 10-to-1. He worried that laying waste to Gaza would impair the prospect of diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia and others, bringing international condemnation. All have happened.
Thomas Friedman of the New York Times saw all that, and urged, in the short term, doing nothing. Forbearance was most likely to bring home the hostages, avoid a regional war and preserve a measure of goodwill. Reacting coolly, he said, would allow for other means, such as targeted raids, selected assassinations and the isolation of Hamas.
Biden knew that blind anger after Sept. 11 had pushed the United States into Afghanistan, then Iraq. It was America’s biggest foreign-policy failure since Vietnam.
Not that Israel would have listened. Netanyahu, who is responsible more than any other Israeli for the strategic, military and intelligence failure of the Oct. 7 attacks, promised to destroy Hamas. It was implausible. Meanwhile, his colleagues were threatening far worse, making the kind of biblical vows that zealots do, using language that now appears in legal briefs accusing Israel of “genocide,” however cynical and unsubstantiated.
And now, some three months later, we see how Israel’s fury has become its folly: 25,000 dead in Gaza, overwhelmingly innocents, almost 20 times Israel’s toll. A humanitarian crisis. Homes and hospitals destroyed. A people displaced. All for what? A few leaders assassinated? Some 9,000 fighters killed or captured, while even more of their ilk enlist?
The network of tunnels remains largely intact. Many Israeli soldiers have died. A regional war looms. Thousands remain displaced within Israel while the economy suffers. Antisemitism flares everywhere. Hostages remain in captivity.
The war has been a disaster for Israel, which is struggling on the ground and in public opinion. It reels under the leadership of Netanyahu, who refuses to resign.
For Biden, the war has become a political albatross. It’s cost him support, from Arab-Americans in Michigan to young people who condemn Israel but, hypocritically, ignore Putin’s war crimes in Ukraine and Assad’s in Syria.
For weeks, Biden has been trying to get Netanyahu to moderate his position, and their relations have cooled. Biden cannot abide a war that goes on for months, led by an incompetent, messianic prime minister.
It may be that Biden will have to break with Netanyahu, who hopes he can do better with Donald Trump. Bibi’s appeal to Israelis: Only I can prevent a two-state solution imposed on us by the U.S.
Biden continues to be calm, quiet and reserved; curiously, he’s not retaliated for the recent deadly attacks on U.S. soldiers in Jordan. He refuses to be provoked. This is leadership.
Netanyahu, for his part, is weak, distrusted and desperate. He continues to put his self-preservation above anything else, trying Biden’s patience and inviting a rupture with Israel’s best friend.
Andrew Cohen is a journalist, commentator and author of Two Days in June: John F. Kennedy and the 48 Hours That Made History.
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