Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo
Anti-war activists march to the White House during a pro-Palestinian demonstration calling for cease-fire in Gaza, at Freedom Plaza in Washington, January 13, 2024.
Asked last week about his repeated rebuffs to President Biden’s requests that he accept a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conundrum, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “The prime minister needs to be able to say no, even to our best friends.”
Which, substituting the word “president” for “prime minister,” is precisely what Joe Biden needs to say to Netanyahu. There is no reason why the United States should continue to support a government so bent on ethnic cleansing that it rejects the offers of almost every major Arab nation to recognize Israel if only it accedes to the establishment of a Palestinian state. There is no reason why the United States should continue to support a government determined to wage its war when multiple Israeli military leaders say, and an increasing share of Israelis believe, that that war will never get the hostages back and that the only way to do so is to declare a cease-fire. There is no reason why the United States should continue to support a government determined to rule from the river to the sea when such rule will extinguish Israel’s democratic character, which, in fact, is the goal of the far-right members who hold sway in Bibi’s Cabinet. And there is no reason why the United States should continue to support a government whose leader—the above-mentioned prime minister—is keeping the war going at least partly because he fears its cessation might enable Israel’s citizens to bring down his government.
Does Biden have the political space to make such a break? To condition U.S. aid to Israel on the government accepting the only plausible long-term solution to its relations with Palestinians, on the government maintaining and strengthening the nation’s democratic character, on the government ceasing its block-by-block demolition of Gaza?
Of course he does. Last week, 15 Jewish Democratic House members, including such long-standing AIPAC-backed true believers as the San Fernando Valley’s Brad Sherman, condemned Bibi for rejecting a two-state solution. The only member of the U.S. Senate to have actually lived and worked on a kibbutz—Bernie Sanders—has argued against the unconditional $14 billion aid package to Israel, as it would be put to such purposes as the continued destruction of Gaza and attacks on West Bank Palestinians.
Politically, Biden’s ongoing support for the war has clearly dimmed his prospects of getting the kind of support from young voters that enabled him to beat Donald Trump in 2020. But there’s another damaging aspect to his back-and-forths with Bibi that has gone largely unacknowledged.
The administration has been busily and very visibly endeavoring over the past several months to get Israel to curtail its massive bombardment of Gaza. It has been busily and very visibly lining up Arab support for recognizing Israel if only Israel will recognize a Palestinian state. It has assembled an impressive coalition of diverse nations to put those proposals before Netanyahu, much as it assembled an impressive coalition of diverse nations to support Ukraine against Putin’s invasion. Netanyahu has proved to be as intractable as Putin—the difference, of course, being that he’s our ally with whom we still do not break.
So Biden comes knocking and Bibi says, go away. Biden comes imploring—we still will back you, but hear us out, here’s why our proposal will benefit Israel—and Bibi says, get lost.
In short, in Bibi, Biden has found the international equivalent of Joe Manchin. Here’s this proposal, Joe/Bibi. Here’s why you should do this, Joe/Bibi. I’ve been at this for months, Joe/Bibi, and everyone has seen it, and has seen your rejections.
In short, what the Biden-Bibi back-and-forth conveys is what the Biden-Manchin back-and-forth conveyed: the image of Biden’s ineffectuality, which only bolsters the misgivings that people have about Biden’s age.
Yes, yes, Manchin finally came around on one key compromise, as Bibi isn’t likely to do. And yes, Biden was effectual as all get-out in getting a minuscule congressional majority to enact some landmark legislation. But I fear the more indelible image that casual viewers of American government took away during 2021-2022 was of Biden being repeatedly rebuffed by Manchin. I fear that image is now reinforced by his similar rebuffs from Bibi, and the fact that Biden is not conditioning our support for Bibi’s government on its acceptance of his proposals, which seem to me to offer the only way that Israel can survive as a democracy.
Enough with the unconditionality, Joe. Make the break. It’ll be good for Israel, good for the Middle East, good for democracy, good for America, and good for you. You do have an election coming up.
