Biden: Make a full break with Bibi

Half steps and rhetorical warnings not enough as Netanyahu continues to stiff President Biden

Benjamin Netanyahu is playing Joe Biden. The President should split with with the Israeli Prime Minister, not just rhetorically. 

Biden's all-out initial support for Israel after the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack was totally justified. Now with the Israeli retaliation having killed some 30,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, women, children, babies, while Hamas still is holding hostages, it's costing the President politically.  Not only Arab-Americans but young voters and voters of color threaten to desert the Democrat this fall.  

Biden's criticism of Israeli war policies doesn't impress them as it hasn't produced any change. Netanyahu will keep stiffing the President's pressure to seek a peaceful resolution with an eye toward a Palestinian state eventually.  Bibi, with his hard core right wing coalition, needs to stay in office to avoid a criminal trial.

I'm sure he's fine with the prospect this may help his fellow indictee Donald Trump in the American election. 

Instead of sharp verbal warnings and veiled threats of pressure, Biden need a bold break. Here's the speech he should give, if possible in Israel:

"I still remember my first visit to Israel more than fifty years ago. I fell in love with the country and the people. I always will have your back.  Unfortunately, your Prime Minister refuses to work with me to bring home the hostages and end the bloodshed. The radicals in his government are making it impossible for me to defend Israel in the international community.  I will continue to do whatever I can to ensure your safety. But I no longer can work with Mr. Netanyahu. I will reengage with the military and diplomatic support you deserve when and if the government is willing to work with its American ally."

This is exactly what Biden should do, says Alon Pinkas, who was a top foreign policy and political adviser to former Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres. As for Netanyahu's warning to the American President to watch out because his policies are supported by Israelis, Pinkas counters:  "Netanyahu is polling at  19% which is less people than think Elvis is still alive."  Biden gets high favorable in polls of Israeli voters.

Those who doubt this might be the wake-up call Israel needs  should read a couple  compelling pieces in the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs: "Israel's Self- Destruction" by Aluf Benn, editor-in-chief of the Israeli national paper, Haaretz, and "The Strange Resurrection of the Two State Solution" by Martin Indyk, the the much respected former American Ambassador to Israel.

Benn notes previous crises have led to surprising progress: after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Egypt and Israel began to establish  a relationship; the first Intifada was followed by the Oslo Peace accords. 

However he's dubious of any repeat today as Netanyahu and his allies continue to ignore the Palestinians. The Prime Minister, he writes, has no post Gaza war plan and insists he'll never  accept a two state solution.  

"Israel cannot expect stability,"  Benn argues, if it continues to " ignore the Palestinians and reject their story and even their presence.”

Indyk is a bit more optimistic while recognizing the  challenges. It requires, he writes, an active Biden role in pressuring Israeli acceptance of moving towards a Palestinian state.

To speculation about forcing out Netanyahu, the experienced Israeli expert cautions: "Bibi's survival skills are unmatched."

Any plan has to be utilizing American leverage, holding  up re-supplies of military  assistance and working on a new United Nations resolution.  

There is no one I admire more on this subject than Indyk.  But I suspect that even with pressures and threats Bibi would shrewdly try to run out the clock waiting for a Trump victory in November. (Trump was angry when Netanyahu, like almost every other world leader, recognized Biden's 2020 Presidential victory. These two scoundrels would have little trouble making up. )

If Biden broke with Netanyahu, Trump predictably would accuse him of being weak and anti-Israel.  Actually this would show strength and just might force a change in Israel. No American public official has been more supportive of Israel over half a century than Joe Biden. 

I think this would be understood by much of the American Jewish community.  A recent poll of Jewish voters by leading poll taker Jim Gerstein --who also has done work in Israel --shows very strong support for Biden and high negatives for Trump. 

The overwhelming majority of American Jewish voters say you can be pro-Israel while at the same time be  critical of its government policies (91%) and also critical on how Netanyahu is conducting the war against Hamas (76%). 

If Biden continues with half steps and rhetorical warnings, which Netanyahu brushes aside waiting to collect $14 billion more in no strings attached military assistance from the U.S., it may be a hot summer for Democrats with anti war protests.  The mid August party convention in Chicago could see a reprise of the terrible 1968 convention.