Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Tuesday
As support within his own party continues to collapse, if President Biden needed one more humiliation he can look forward to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit to Washington next Wednesday. In an unprecedented affront to Biden, Bibi accepted an invitation by Biden’s Republican opposition to address a joint session of Congress. It all likelihood, he solicited it.
Biden’s tribulations and Trump’s triumphal convention have knocked Israel’s destruction of Gaza off the front pages for now, but the subject demands our attention. Biden keeps going out of his way to support Bibi and pour in military aid, despite the fact that Bibi ignores Biden’s terms and keeps playing Biden for a fool.
In the latest round of this dance, Biden declared that a hostage deal between Israel and Gaza was all but complete, except for the details. Netanyahu, predictably, kept escalating his demands and once again sabotaged the deal. (Cheat me once, shame on you. Cheat me twice, shame on me.)
Given Trump’s slavish support for Netanyahu, it’s evident that the Israeli prime minister would prefer Trump to win. Before Biden was diagnosed with COVID, there were tentative plans for Biden and Bibi to meet. But they are on hold. Bibi may even meet with Trump, as Hungarian chief Viktor Orbán did a week ago at Mar-a-Lago.
Biden’s candidacy for re-election is finished. It’s only a question of the timing and the choreography. Biden needs to find a way to exit with dignity.
He could do one huge good deed, for his legacy, for his successor, and for humanity. In stepping aside, Biden could make it clear that Netanyahu has played his cynical game once too often and end offensive military aid. That would spare Biden’s successor from having to wrestle with this question and would put Bibi on the defensive for once.
If he does not act, Biden will be handing his successor a live grenade. There will be disruptive protests at the Democratic National Convention in August, Republicans will have a field day rubbing raw the divisions among Democrats, and campus demonstrations will pick up in September reinforcing the Republican posture as the party of law, order, and (spare me) love for Jews.
When Biden steps aside—and he will—he need not govern as a lame duck. He can spend his last six months, freed of the need to win re-election, as a true statesman.
