Israel hasn’t forgotten: President Biden’s visit to Israel following the Oct. 7 attack on Israel allegedly blamed by the Hamas terrorist group
President Biden greeted Netanyahu with a hug after leaving Air Force One on his high-stakes trip to the Middle East.
Biden took a strong pro-Israeli stance in the war with Hamas. The day after the group’s killing spree, he did it.
Normally, when a U.S. president visits Israel, there are weeks or months of planning and preparations. But President Biden’s trip this week, following the brazen Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas, came at a time that was anything but normal.
Republicans failed again Wednesday to pick a speaker. That leaves the U.S. unable to respond to, well, pretty much anything in a strong and substantive way.
This criticism was even more sharply expressed by more right-wing analysts who have supported the government in the past. Nechama Duek, writing in Israel Hayom, said that Mr. Biden has spoken softly and empathically, “but with his words, he has bound and shackled Netanyahu and his government.”
The world watched the Holocaust and did nothing, Biden said. We will not stand by and do nothing again – not today, not tomorrow, not ever.”
For the first time this year, Gallup found this year that Democrats’ sympathies lie more with Palestinians than Israelis. And that is driven by young voters.
Two-thirds of respondents in the NPR poll — taken days after Hamas’ attack and after Biden’s initial remarks — said the United States should publicly support Israel.
Cracks started showing in the aftermath of the Gaza hospital bombing. Before the United States weighed in, Democrats Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota — the first two Muslim women elected to Congress — joined a pro-Palestinian chorus blaming Israel.
“Bombing a hospital is among the gravest of war crimes,” Omar tweeted. “The IDF reportedly blowing up one of the few places the injured and wounded can seek medical treatment and shelter during a war is horrific.”
An independent investigation is needed to determineWho is responsible for the war crime, after the U.S. intelligence assessment.
The National Security Council said in a statement that the explosion was not intentional and Israel was not to blame.
The War of Terror: What Happened after 9/11 to Israel and the United States, a Viewpoint from a White House Perspective
But a lot of damage had already been done. There were protests in countries including Jordan where Biden was supposed to meet with leaders of Egypt and Palestine.
She said that she was ashamed as a member of the United States Congress. I am ashamed that they are saying not yet. Maybe next week.’ … How many more have to die?”
To our president, to my president… I’m not going to forget this, I’m a Palestinian American and a Muslim. And I think a lot of people are not going to forget this.”
“It’s truly disturbing that Members of Congress rushed to blame Israel for the hospital tragedy in Gaza,” Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, for example, tweeted. Who would believe the word of a group that just killed innocent Israeli civilians?
He added, “Now is not the time to talk about a ceasefire. … Hamas does not want peace and they want to destroy Israel. We can talk about a ceasefire after Hamas is neutralized.”
When anything happens in the world, especially something of this magnitude, the president is expected to respond, to take a position, to show leadership.
A president has to often balance his own world view with domestic politics. At first, both were in line with each other.
Despite the fact that a president is in control of foreign policy, it is not one of the top priorities for voters.
To Mr. Biden’s mind, this has been the moment he has trained for his entire political career, a point he often makes when challenged about his age. He has visited two countries in the midst of active wars in the past eight months. He has married his public embraces with private cautions, and kept American troops out of both conflicts — so far. He seems determined to prove that for all the critiques that the United States is a divided, declining power, it remains the only nation that can mold events in a world of unpredictable mayhem.
Israel and the US want to avoid the mistakes made in the “war of terror”, according to Biden.
“I understand,” Biden said. Many Americans understand. I caution you against being consumed by what has happened here, even though you may feel like you need to shout out for justice. We made mistakes after 9/11 because we were enraged in the United States.
In the wake of a visit by President Biden, Israelis on Thursday praised his courage in coming at a time of war and for his full-throated support, as he pledged “we will not let you ever be alone” after attacks from Hamas killed at least 1,400 Israelis.
The degree of consultation is very rare in a relationship this close, according to Israeli analysts. It also carries risks if it could benefit Mr. Netanyahu. It may give him political cover for an extended war, but it may also constrain how he conducts it.
Satellite images show that hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles have been deployed north of Gaza as Israel prepared to send tens of thousands of soldiers into the enclave.
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Nadav Eyal, an Israeli analyst, wrote in the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth that the late Sharon used to say, “We will defend ourselves by ourselves.” These are not the values that Netanyahu has been projecting. He wants to be the United States’ 51st state. This is a price, symbolic as well as practical.
The US officials in Jerusalem felt that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was cautious about overreaching in Gaza and his right-wing coalition partners are eager to fire on the neighborhood. Settlers there have killed at least seven Palestinian civilians in acts of revenge in the last week, and the Israeli military is even more hawkish than the prime minister now and is determined to deliver a blow to Hamas that the whole neighborhood will never forget. The minister of finance is refusing to transfer tax money from Israel to the Palestinian Authority, making it practically impossible for Israel to keep control of the West Bank.
As the last American president born during World War II, President Biden is uniquely suited to lead the nation because of his view of American power and influence in the Cold War. 50 years ago Golda Israel sat in the Israeli prime minister’s office with a Soviet leader and today there are no other leaders who can say they did that or discuss the dismantlement of nuclear weapons.
The trip reassured Israel that Biden prioritized the need for the US to engage in this question instead of stepping back, according to Brian Katulis, vice president of policy at the Middle East Institute.
“When presidents get into their sweet spot you usually see and hear it, and in the past few weeks you have seen and heard it,” said Michael Beschloss, the historian and author of “Presidents of War,” which traces the rocky history of Mr. Biden’s predecessors as they plunged into global conflicts, avoided a few, and sometimes came to regret their choices.
The backdrop of Mr. Biden’s rare Oval Office address on Thursday night raises an unclear question: Whether Mr. Biden can bring the American population along. He will discuss America’s role to support democracy over autocracy, to reestablish a global order that is fast unraveling, and make the argument that there is no higher cause than protecting free people from invasion and terrorism.
It is a far harder case to make now than in February 2022, when President Vladimir V. Putin tried a lightning-strike attack to overthrow an imperfect democracy in Ukraine and restore the Russian empire of Peter the Great. The initial overwhelming support for Ukraine — one of the few issues that seemed to unify Democrats and Republicans — is clearly shattering, with a growing part of the Republican Party arguing that this is not America’s fight. The situation isComplicated by the fact that Mr. Putin is waiting to see if Donald J. Trump is elected president of the United States.
The importance of America’s longstanding relationship with Israel and the limits of the U.S. influence in the area were illustrated by the high-stakes visit.
After the attacks by Hamas, the U.S. worried that Mr. Netanyahu might approve a strike on Hezbollah. There are still worries about an Israeli overreacting to Hezbollah rocket attacks and an expected Israeli ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza that would compel Hezbollah to enter the war.
Biden’s visit was symbolic, but he also managed some concrete accomplishments. These included convincing Israel to allow humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza and persuading Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to open a land crossing into southern Gaza.
The visit almost didn’t happen. He said that his team had to decide if it should take place. Secretary of State Antony Blinken laid the groundwork in a whirlwind visit to the Middle East last week that that included seven hours of talks with Netanyahu and his war cabinet.
That message of engagement was not only directed at Israel, but also to the rest of the Middle East — particularly Iran and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militia it backs, Katulis says.
The visit reinforced Biden’s earlier warnings and the deployment of carrier task group to the eastern Mediterranean.
The U.S. officials are concerned that some of the more hawkish members of Israel’s war cabinet have wanted to take on Hezbollah even as Israel begins a long conflict against Hamas after the Oct. 7 attacks. The difficulties of battling both Hamas in the South and Hezbollah in the North are conveyed to the Israelis by the Americans.
He says that Biden and Austin made it clear to Iran and Hezbollah that they were in for a rude awakening.
The planned meeting between Biden and regional leaders fell apart after an explosion in a Gaza hospital killed hundreds of Palestinians.
“I don’t think the door is shut between the Biden administration and the key Arab countries just because of the cancellation of the meeting in Amman,” Katulis says.
Katulis says “there’s genuine concern” among U.S. officials about civilian casualties and “how that can negatively impact the mission itself and achieving the desired goals that Israel has stated.”
Finally, among the estimated 200 hostages taken by Hamas during its Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, as many as 13 are believed to be U.S. citizens. Biden and Netanyahu discussed efforts to win the release of hostages, including Americans, in a White House conversation.
“I think there’s some hope in the fact that President Biden spoke to some of the families of the hostages and that he prioritized this,” saidKatulis. He says the fate of the American captives is a big open question.
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American officials want to control Hezbollah too. In numerous meetings across the Middle East, American diplomats have been urging their Arab counterparts to help pass messages to the militia, including via their contacts in Iran, to try to prevent any Israel-Hezbollah war from erupting, whether through actions by the militia group or by the Israelis.
Have not doubt: the possibility of a regionwide war that could draw the United States in is much greater today than it was five days ago, senior U.S. officials told me. As I write on Thursday night, The Times is reporting that a U.S. Navy warship in the northern Red Sea on Thursday shot down three cruise missiles and several drones launched from Yemen that the Pentagon said might have been headed toward Israel. The missiles were fired at Israel from Lebanon and at the U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria.
Iran’s proxies are not likely to hit Israel without eventually hitting Tehran with a missile. If that happens, anything can happen. The Persian Gulf is believed to be home to Israel’s submarine fleet.
As the Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea pointed out to me, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (P.I.J.) achieved more this week with an apparently misfired rocket “than it achieved in all of its successful missile launches.”
How so? After that rocket failed and fell on the Palestinian hospital in Gaza, killing scores of people, Hamas and the P.I.J. rushed out and claimed — with no evidence — that Israel had deliberately bombed the hospital, setting streets ablaze across the Arab world. It was already too late for Israel and the US to say the P.I.J. accidentally hit the hospital with its own rocket. The Arab street was on fire and a meeting of Arab leaders with Biden was canceled.
Hamas has taken Israelis as well as the civilians of Gaza hostage. They did not vote in the kidnapping of Israeli children. Take a moment and listen to this Center for Peace Communications and Times of Israel series “Whispered in Gaza” from January — interviews with Gazans about what they really think of Hamas’s corrupt and despotic leadership. Israel has to respect and build on their views if it hopes to build anything sustainably positive in Gaza from this war.
I have a vote in America. There was a pledge from the president to ask Congress for an additional 14 billion dollars in aid for Israel, and $100 million to aid the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Israel might need to send weapons to protect it from Hamas and Hezbollah. But in terms of broader economic aid for Israel, it should be provided only if Israel agrees not to build even one more settlement in the West Bank — zero, none, no more, not one more brick, not one more nail — outside the settlement blocs and the territory immediately around them, where most Jewish settlers are now clustered and which Israel is expected to retain in any two-state solution with the Palestinians. Netanyahu promises to annex the entire West Bank in his coalition agreement.
I am aware that Hamas believes in eliminating the Jewish state and that’s not because Israel has expanded settlements in the West Bank. If Israel has any hope that it will be able to replace Hamas in Gaza with a Palestinian leadership that will be effective partners for a two state solution, then the settlement project has to stop and it has to stop now.
The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank needs to find a new leader as soon as possible so that it can rebuild its institutions and earn the people’s respect and legitimacy. The Palestinian Authority needs to be able to win a fair election in the West Bank and Gaza against Hamas, which they are ready to coexist with.
In doing so, the Israeli leader knowingly and blatantly acted against U.S. interests. He was willing to endanger America’s allies, Egypt and Jordan, to pursue more settlements. He was willing to risk America’s biggest diplomatic achievement, the Abraham Accords, if the pact meant halting settlements. He has shown no willingness yet to halt settlements to secure a historic breakthrough with Saudi Arabia.
America has been indirectly funding Israel’s slow-motion suicide — and I am not just talking settlements. What Netanyahu did in June last year is worth a look. Dan Ben explained how Netanyahu wanted to buy off the ultra-Orthodox parties in order to keep himself out of jail on corruption charges. Mr. Ben-David pointed out that Israel spends 14 years of complete funding on the M.I.T. every year and that this budgetary increment alone is more than that. It is completely crazy.
If this is the season of war, it also has to be a season for answers about what happens the morning after. I’m not the only one who would like to know. As the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari wrote in an essay this week in Haaretz about Netanyahu’s government: If it “does dream of exploiting victory to annex territories, forcefully redraw borderlines, expel populations, ignore rights, censor speech, realize messianic fantasies or turn Israel into a theocratic dictatorship — we need to know it now.”
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President Biden and his top aides have been urging Israeli leaders against carrying out any major strike against Hezbollah, the powerful militia in Lebanon, that could draw it into the Israel-Hamas war, American and Israeli officials say.
A two-front war between Israel and Iran is believed to draw in both the United States and Iran, as the militia is its main supporter.