Bibi and Biden on collision course

Benjamin Netanyahu is set on a path which brooks no deviation. He wants victory against Hamas, victory against Hezbollah and, ultimately, victory against Iran.

Over the year since the October 7 massacre, Netanyahu has played the diplomatic game with the United States: receiving constant visits from American officials from the State Department and Pentagon, listening to entreaties by President Biden for limited military action and appeals to protect civilians, and making encouraging noises about ceasefires.

When trust breaks down between two such important allies, the winners can only be Israel’s opponents

However, all along, the Israeli leader has been relentless in focusing, and then expanding on, his principal objectives. He wants revenge for October 7 and to create a new security environment in which Israel’s enemies would be destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Indeed, as the war with Hamas and then Hezbollah continued aggressively, despite daily pleas from Washington to avoid escalation, Netanyahu became more confident both in his actions and words. There could be no turning back, he said. Now was the right time to strike at all of Israel’s enemies. 

Biden, in profanity-laden conversations with Netanyahu, according to the latest revelations from Bob Woodward, accused the Israeli prime minister of having no strategy. But he’s wrong. Netanyahu did (and does) have a strategy, it’s just that the US president doesn’t like it. Biden wants a lasting ceasefire, a stabilized Middle East, a new alliance between Israel and Arab nations and a future, independent state for the Palestinian people. 

The objectives nurtured by Washington and those enforced by Tel Aviv are so far apart that relations between the US and Israel have become wholly disjointed. While American commitment to Israel remains “iron-clad,” the relationship between Biden and Netanyahu is at rock bottom. Woodward’s soon-to-be-published book, War, quotes sources as recalling a private comment made on one occasion by Biden about Israel’s leader. “A bad fucking guy,” he is supposed to have said. That pretty much sums up Biden’s total frustration with Netanyahu.

If it was just a question of momentary bad temper on the US president’s part, it would not matter so much. Netanyahu has been around long enough and had worse things said about him. However, there is something far more important at stake. Washington has lost trust in Netanyahu and that has an impact. 

Israel needs the US, perhaps more than ever before, and yet Netanyahu has increasingly gone his own way without even telling his American allies what he is planning to do next. Washington has been caught out on numerous occasions.

Little if any notice was given about the air strike on the Iranian consulate building in Damascus in April which killed seven of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers, including two generals. No one in Tel Aviv tipped off Washington that Mossad was about to seize the opportunity to assassinate Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas who (foolishly) had been photographed in Tehran for the inauguration of the new Iranian president in July. And Washington was kept in the dark about the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, at the organization’s headquarters in Beirut.

Netanyahu must have known that if he tipped off Biden a few hours before any of these attacks took place, he would have been ear-bashed by the US president to hold fire or at least to postpone the operations.

When trust breaks down between two such important allies, the winners can only be Israel’s opponents. The US has come to Israel’s aid, as have Britain and other European partners, by defending the country against potentially catastrophic attack. When Iran launched 300 ballistic and cruise missiles and drones at Israel in April, the US and other navies, armed with anti-missile systems, were there to play their part in shooting them down.

Now Netanyahu and his cabinet are drawing up plans to strike back at Iran following the second launch of nearly 200 ballistic missiles on Israel on October 1. But, again, Tel Aviv is keeping its own counsel, unwilling to reveal to Washington precisely what it has in mind. Biden has made his views clear: he accepts retaliation is justified but he is opposed to a strike on Iran’s nuclear plants or oil facilities for fear of the consequences.

It’s like Netanyahu and the Biden administration are going along parallel lines which never meet and are going to different destinations. Netanyahu wants victory at all costs. Biden, and his vice president Kamala Harris, want above all a ceasefire and an end to the spiraling death and destruction.

Perhaps Biden was justified when he queried whether the Israeli prime minister was holding back any prospect of a diplomatic solution because of the possibility that Donald Trump might win the election next month. Trump has said frequently that Israel should be allowed to finish the job it started after the Hamas attack on October 7.

Despite the breakdown in trust between Washington and Tel Aviv, Netanyahu still knows that if Iran responds, as threatened, to an Israeli strike in retaliation for Tehran’s October 1 ballistic missile attack, the US Navy will be ready to help shoot down whatever Tehran throws at Israel. That sort of trust is iron-clad.

This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.