There are limits to Biden's support for Netanyahu and Washington decided to tell him enough soon
Financial Times
Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu have had many difficult conversations behind the scenes since the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas two months ago.
But on Tuesday, Biden's frustration with the Israeli Prime Minister exploded into the open, as he objected to Israel's "indiscriminate bombing" of Gaza and the hostility of Netanyahu's far-right government to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The US president said at a fundraising event: "I think he has to change, and. . . This government in Israel is making it very difficult for him to move,"he said.
The unusually frank comments were the strongest indication yet of mounting U.S. unease with the Israeli military campaign.
Biden and Netanyahu had disagreements throughout the war, but U.S. officials said Biden believed the best way to influence the Israeli prime minister was to keep her behind closed doors. Biden publicly strongly supported the Israeli operation, even at the risk of upsetting the allies.
But some U.S. officials said Biden's remarks signaled the limits of his so-called "bear hug" strategy and suggested it would eventually be difficult for him to keep quiet about his concerns.
"This is a flashing yellow light from the president on the growing gaps between the United States and Israel over the Gaza war and its aftermath,"said Aaron David Miller, a Middle East analyst and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for international peace.
A major source of friction has been the high humanitarian cost of Israel's invasion of Gaza, which has claimed more than 18,000 lives, according to Palestinian officials, while displacing the vast majority of the enclave's 2.3 million residents and rendering much of the territory uninhabitable.
The United States exerted pressure on Israel to limit civilian casualties, especially since it expanded its ground offensive to southern Gaza, where most of the population fled. But the death toll has continued to rise since fighting resumed this month after a brief ceasefire.
"It is very clear that [Israel] wants to continue the military operation in the South, that it wants to get the hostages out and wants to weaken Hamas' infrastructure and kill or capture the leadership. They will continue until all three are done,"said one Western official.
Even before the war, Biden and other US officials expressed concerns about "extremist" figures - such as ultra - nationalist ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich-in the Netanyahu government, as well as violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. But this violence has increased since the outbreak of the war, with 336 attacks by settlers against Palestinians, according to the UN.
The two sides also clashed over the future of Gaza. U.S. officials have said publicly that the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the West Bank, should have a role in governing the enclave after the war. She also insisted that Israel should not reoccupy Gaza or reduce its territory.
But Netanyahu was dismissive, repeatedly saying that he would not accept the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza. American officials were frustrated by his government's unwillingness to discuss realistic "next day" scenarios, and its hostility to the two-state solution in the long term.
A person familiar with the US-Israeli deliberations said: "the region is looking at the United States. . . To make Israel present a positive attitude". "But [Washington] is not making much progress."
Israeli analysts say Netanyahu's stance has been driven in part by domestic political calculations, with expectations for elections next year growing.
"[Netanyahu] knows that as soon as Israel reduces its ground offensive in Gaza - almost certainly in a few weeks - he will not be able to curb the political flood: in the not too distant future, his ruling coalition will lose its parliamentary majority,"wrote Anshel Feifer, a columnist and biographer of Netanyahu, in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
"He will try to delay that moment, but his political instincts tell him that he will have to run for election soon - and all the polls say that he will lose, by a wide margin."So he's trying to draw the battle lines of the campaign."
It's not just Israel where the war is an internal political issue. Biden's comments came as he began to pay a political price within the United States for his strong support for Israel.
The latest FT-Michigan poll, published this week, showed that 40 percent of American voters believe that the United States provides "a lot" of financial and military assistance to Israel in its war against Hamas, and recent polls have shown that he is lagging behind Donald Trump, a year away from the next presidential election.
Biden has long felt deep and close personal ties with Israel, which helped define his approach, but other officials have stepped up their disapproval. Defense Minister Lloyd Austin warned this month that Israel risked "strategic defeat" unless it did more to protect civilians in Gaza.
Some observers in Israel fear that criticism of the United States could portend an even worse rupture. "I think a moment of truth is coming, and soon," said Ami Ayalon, the former head of the Israeli internal security service, who compared it to Henry Kissinger's push for a "reassessment"of US-Israeli relations in the Seventies that provoked a crisis in relations.
"Biden could do something similar,"Ayalon said. "He can say:" I have to think, " and everyone will know what that means: a possible end to military assistance and the non-use of the [UN Security Council] veto."
Others say that while Biden's criticism of Netanyahu is becoming more pronounced, his administration is still far from separating from Israel in the war.
U.S. officials say publicly and privately that they want a quick end to the war, but they agree with Israel's goal of dismantling Hamas. They also say that they cannot dictate exactly how Israel will conduct its military campaign.
While criticizing Israel, Biden said on Tuesday that the United States would "do nothing other than protect Israel" during the crisis. As for Hamas:"they are a brutal, ugly and inhuman people, and they must be eliminated".
Miller described Biden's stance as part of a" growing frustration " with the U.S. ally. "But I'm not going to interpret this as the president being on the cusp of telling Netanyahu 'enough is enough'.
