Immediately after the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation carried out by the Palestinian group Hamas on 7 October last year, the administration of US President Joe Biden pledged its unstinting military support for Israel.
Biden stressed that Washington was ready to “provide all appropriate means of support to the government and people of Israel,” adding that the US government’s support for Israel’s security is “very strong and unwavering.”
The reaction reversed all signs of the widening discord between the two countries in the months preceding the war over political developments inside Israel. Since March last year, Washington has been pressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to back down on his government’s drive to reform the Israeli judicial system in ways that would have rendered the judiciary subordinate to the executive.
The tensions had reached the point where Biden had refused to invite Netanyahu to the White House.
But all that was water under the bridge when it came to the carnage the Netanyahu government unleashed against Gaza after 7 October. On 27 October, one of the bloodiest days of the war when the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) cut off communications from Gaza to prevent visual documentation of its carpet bombing of the Strip from slipping out, US National Security Spokesman John Kirby said that Washington “does not draw red lines” for Israel and that Washington would continue to support what he termed Israel’s “security needs.”
Washington has long been the foremost mediator and sponsor of negotiations in the Arab-Israeli conflict, while remaining a staunch supporter of Israel and defender of Israeli security.
The formula has never changed regardless of developments. Yet, the Biden administration’s “unlimited” support for Israel’s brutal aggression on Gaza has exposed Washington to pressures that may compel it to take a more balanced stance.
The atrocities Israel has been committing against Gaza for the last four months have been described as the “second Nakba” of the Palestinians, referring to the first forceful expulsion and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland in 1948.
The Biden administration’s support for this campaign jars with the image it has been trying to project as the champion of democracy and human rights. It helps to explain why the administration has tried to downplay the assessments of dozens of experts on international law who have said that Israel is perpetrating a textbook case of genocide, let alone countless war crimes and crimes against humanity.
It also explains why the mainstream US media did not air South Africa’s presentation of its case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) earlier this year charging Israel with genocide.
Given the way extremist mentality in the Israeli government is driving the genocidal frenzy against Gaza, that extremism and the intransigence of the government are another main source of pressure on Biden.
His frustration with it led Biden to remark in December that Netanyahu should “change his hard-line government.” But despite Biden’s attempts to persuade Netanyahu to scale back the violence, it is clear that Netanyahu has shrugged them off and remains defiant.
Despite repeated warnings against extending the Israeli military operation into Rafah, Netanyahu remains set on perpetuating the war until he wins a “total victory” over Hamas. As the humanitarian situation worsens in Gaza, the Netanyahu government shows no sign that it will soften its belligerent behaviour and respond to the minimal demands of international organisations pleading for a ceasefire to allow in desperately needed relief for the Palestinians.
Massive demonstrations have swept the US in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza and in protest against Washington’s support for Israel’s war. Washington, New York, New Jersey, and other cities, as well as university campuses in Harvard and Indiana, and even high schools in Fairfax, Virginia, have seen demonstrations of a size unseen since the protest movement against the war in Vietnam in the 1960s.
The administration is also experiencing unprecedented cracks over the issue, as anger and frustration at Biden’s policies have driven some officials to resign and others to sign letters denouncing their government’s complicity in Israeli crimes.
More worrisome to Biden and the Democratic Party is the fact that opposition to his administration’s military and financial support for the war on Gaza is draining the Democratic voter base.
The remorseless Israeli assault on Gaza and Washington’s unquestioning support for the far right Netanyahu government have also cast a shadow over Washington’s relationship with its allies and partners in the Arab region.
Arab frustration at Washington’s role in the crisis prompted a visit by a delegation of foreign ministers from the Arab and Islamic countries to China in November last year, when they issued a joint call for an immediate ceasefire and the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Washington has repeatedly vetoed all UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire.
These pressures may have opened a margin for change in the Biden administration’s support for the extremist Israeli government in favour of a more balanced policy.
During a recent White House press briefing, Biden issued one of his most strongly worded criticisms of Netanyahu’s government, for example. Israel’s military response to the 7 October attack in Gaza had “crossed the line,” he said. Deputy National Security Adviser John Viner, in a meeting with Arab-American leaders in Michigan, also said that he had “no confidence” in the current Israeli government’s willingness to take “meaningful steps” towards Palestinian statehood.
According to the New York Times, Viner’s remarks were “one of the administration’s clearest expressions of regret.” On 11 February, a White House statement reported that Biden had told Netanyahu in a telephone call that military operations in Rafah should not be launched without a credible plan to ensure the safety of the more than one million people sheltering in the area.
In January, Biden issued an executive order authorising the Departments of State and the Treasury to impose sanctions on four extremist Israeli settlers in the West Bank. The news outlet Axios reported that Washington had considered including the far-right Israeli Ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich among the individuals subjected to sanctions, but that the administration had decided to exclude them and focus on those who have committed violent attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Biden also issued a new directive to cut military aid to countries that violate international protections for civilians. The directive gives the US secretary of state 45 days to obtain “credible written guarantees” from foreign recipients of military aid engaged in conflicts on the ground, including Israel and Ukraine.
On 11 February, a senior US official revealed that negotiations on a ceasefire and prisoner-exchange agreement between Israel and Hamas had made “real progress,” but that there still existed some “significant” gaps between the two sides.
He said that Biden had spoken with Netanyahu primarily about reaching an agreement. Then, speaking to reporters at the White House, Biden stressed that he was “pushing very hard now to deal with this hostage ceasefire. There are a lot of innocent people who are starving, a lot of innocent people who are in trouble and dying, and it’s gotta stop.”
* A version of this article appears in print in the 15 February, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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