Israel’s war on Gaza is testing US-Israeli ties like never before. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is at the center of rising tensions between the two close allies. Netanyahu’s push to carry on with the massive destruction of the Gaza Strip, regardless of the horrific scenes, has become the indelible hallmark of this war.
US President Joe Biden has made no secret of his frustration with Netanyahu and his far-right coalition’s provocative and confrontational policies. Netanyahu’s Gaza war has become a US election issue, stripping Biden of much-needed young and progressive Democratic votes. Netanyahu’s rejection of Biden’s red line on the imminent offensive against Rafah has brought ties between the two men to an inflection point.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the most prominent US Jewish legislator, publicly rebuked Netanyahu’s handling of the Gaza war and called for new elections in Israel. Biden noted that Schumer delivered a good speech, leaving Netanyahu to retort that the senator’s statement was “inappropriate.”
Several Western leaders have stopped short of singling out Netanyahu. Still, they have made sure to criticize Israel publicly for hindering the flow of aid to Gaza, which is resulting in mass starvation and famine across the enclave and the death of Palestinian babies because of malnutrition and a lack of access to medical care.
Countrywide, Netanyahu’s approval ratings had been low even before the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. They remain low, even though a majority of Israelis continue to support the war and the destruction of Hamas, all while calling for new elections. Netanyahu’s refusal to approve a new hostage exchange deal has polarized Israeli society even further and weakened his far-right partners in the polls.
Netanyahu has also rejected Biden’s postwar plans for Gaza. He is refusing to consider handing over administration to the Palestinian Authority, withdrawing from Gaza, and embracing the two-state solution, which he says rewards Hamas. In return, he has baffled his war Cabinet partners by failing to provide a realistic postwar scenario.
Israeli longest-serving Prime Minister Netanyahu has always been defiant and unconventional. Soon after the signing of the Oslo Accords, he sought to clinch the premiership by denouncing then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and any settlement with the Palestinians. He single-handedly took Israel off the peace path by empowering settlers and aligning himself with the ultranationalists and ultra-religious fanatics.
He saw an opportunity to play one Palestinian faction off against the other In the aftermath of the 2007 Hamas takeover of Gaza. He propped up Hamas in Gaza against the PA for years by allowing Qatar to bring tens of millions of dollars into the blockaded enclave through Israeli checkpoints.
As the US and most Western countries supported his war on Gaza, Netanyahu and his army failed to secure a swift end to the onslaught. The war has dragged on and the piles of dead Palestinian civilians, including women and children, became too much to stomach for Netanyahu’s Western allies, who faced angry voters at home. The tide had turned and his closest Western friends began pressuring him to end the war.
Netanyahu ignored such calls. Israel faced charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice and accusations of deliberately starving millions of Palestinians; all while feeling almost total abandonment by the UN Security Council and the body of nations. Tel Aviv’s claim that it was the victim in all this had collapsed.
Netanyahu’s calculations are now at odds with his allies at home. His war Cabinet stands divided and several rivals are vying for his place. The Israeli political establishment now views him as a liability. The families of the hostages see his rejection of any deal to return their loved ones as a betrayal