Netanyahu is deceitful, but Biden's policy is worse!

 

Mahmud Alloush

5/12/2024

With the onset of the Israeli war on Gaza, a decisive turn occurred with the movement of the Israeli army towards the Rafah area and its control over the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. In response, US President Joe Biden decided to suspend a shipment of weapons destined for Israel in the first punitive measure against it since the outbreak of the war. He also threatened to withhold further weapons if Israel carried out a large-scale ground invasion in the region. Biden's escalation against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicates that the United States will no longer be willing to overlook Netanyahu's efforts to push the war to a more dangerous point.

From the first day of the war, Netanyahu set three main objectives: the retrieval of hostages, the elimination of Hamas, and preventing Gaza from posing a future threat to Israel’s security. By persisting in continuing the war, he demonstrates a determination to conduct what he previously pledged. However, his opposition to the recent ceasefire proposal, which was accepted by Hamas, reveals that flexibility, once manufactured alongside mediator efforts, is no longer one of his deceptive tactics. This is to mislead the Israeli and global public opinion and attempt to gain more time to continue the war for as long as possible.

Nevertheless, Biden’s policy in the war has been, until very recently, even worse than Netanyahu’s own approach. This is because it was designed from the start, like most Western policies, to perfectly align with some of the outcomes Netanyahu aims to achieve today. It seems difficult to know whether Biden’s new approach with Netanyahu is capable of reversing the course, as the latter no longer prioritizes avoiding the loss of US support to the extent, he prioritizes continuing the war and maintaining his government coalition with his extremist partners.

Over many months of this war, the United States opposed many Israeli steps but failed to prevent them. This failure isn’t due to the Biden administration’s inability to exert enough pressure on Netanyahu to avoid these steps, but rather because it remained aligned with Netanyahu for so long that he increasingly believes Biden is more deceitful than him. Therefore, US punitive measures against Israel and the threat of further ones will not have any significant value if they do not succeed in preventing Netanyahu from continuing to advance in controlling Rafah.

Because the United States bears a significant responsibility for the catastrophic outcomes of the war, having provided Israel with all forms of military, political, and economic support, the Rafah issue presents an opportunity for Biden to atone for some of the sins committed. If he succeeds in compelling Netanyahu to abandon the goal of Rafah and accept a deal with Hamas that leads to ending the war.

Palestinians, as well as many Israelis who are tired of Netanyahu’s repeated promises of imminent victory, realize he is deceptive. They understand that the demands he puts forward in negotiations are designed to sabotage any deal rather than to achieve one. Also, the movement of the Israeli army towards Rafah just hours after Hamas accepted the mediation proposal by Qatar and Egypt confirms that Netanyahu is not yet ready to accept a deal that forces him to acknowledge the failure to achieve the war’s objectives.

When Hamas announced its acceptance of the mediators’ proposal, it knew in advance that Netanyahu would oppose it. Therefore, its acceptance was fundamentally designed to expose Netanyahu’s deception to the world and disrupt the double game he played with the Americans during the past weeks of negotiations, to show that Hamas was obstructing the deal.

The world did not need further evidence that Netanyahu did not want this war to end. The partial Israeli move in Rafah may be designed to pressure Hamas to extract a deal with better conditions for Netanyahu. Expanding the attack on Rafah may exacerbate US-Israeli tensions. However, the solid truth so far is that Washington has not yet exerted its strong influence on Netanyahu to force him to consider a withdrawal plan for the war.

President Biden said on May 7th that the United States would continue to demonstrate its commitment to supporting Israel even at a time when it is not satisfied with Netanyahu’s management of the war. How, then, can Washington turn its anger against Netanyahu into practical actions that force him to change his war management, if it explicitly informs him that it will continue to support him regardless?

Although some obstacles appearing in the details of the proposed deal can be overcome by the mediators through maneuvering between Hamas and Israel’s demands, the major obstacle hindering this deal lies with Netanyahu, who wants to continue the war for the sake of war itself. No party can remove this obstacle except the United States.

The idea of achieving victory in the way Netanyahu wants has lost its realism for a long time, prompting him to redesign his war strategy to maintain his government coalition with partners obsessed with killing and displacing Palestinians, reoccupying the Gaza Strip, and spreading settlements therein. The world’s acquiescence to his deceit regarding Rafah now gives him a sense of the ability to continue the war for the longest possible period, with limited costs to Israel’s relations with the United States and the world.

Because the Biden administration accepted being involved in Netanyahu’s deceit, as well as being a political and military partner in the massacre he commits in Gaza, it has become more susceptible to his extortion than ever before. With only a few months left until the US presidential elections, Biden’s options for reconciling between aligning with Netanyahu’s policies in the war and mitigating its effects on his re-election prospects are limited.

Let’s remember that American university students, who rose up to demand an end to the war, condemned US policy in the war to a greater extent than they condemned Israel. Biden’s policy in the war has caused significant domestic harm and has damaged the United States’ standing in the Middle East. It seems difficult for him to fully repair this damage in any case. However, the Rafah issue presents him with an opportunity to mend some of the damage.

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Translated from:

https://aja.ws/xetcy4