For Netanyahu, Gaza dispute with Biden offers risk and reward

TEL AVIV – A day after US President Joe Biden voiced his strongest criticism of the Israeli government since the war in the Gaza Strip began, many Israelis were moving past the public rupture on Dec 13.

Some suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might seek political benefit from escalating a fight with the American leader.

The disagreement between Israel and its closest ally over what a post-war Gaza should look like poses risks for the Netanyahu government, analysts said.

It raises questions about how long the United States will continue to offer untrammelled support for the invasion of Gaza.

But it also offers Mr Netanyahu an opportunity to repair his sagging domestic ratings by presenting himself as a leader unbowed by foreign demands.

“He’s looking at a potential election campaign a few months down the road,” said Mr Itamar Rabinovich, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington. “This is going to be his platform: ‘I am the leader who can stand up to Biden and prevent a Palestinian state.’”

On Dec 12, in some of his most pointed comments about Israel’s conduct of a war that has killed thousands of civilians,

Mr Biden said Israel risked losing international support

because of its “indiscriminate bombing” in Gaza.

He also criticised Mr Netanyahu’s far-right government, which he said does not “want anything remotely approaching a two-state solution” to the country’s long-running conflict with the Palestinians.

The Biden administration has proposed that after the war, the Palestinian Authority, the body that administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, should also take charge of Gaza as part of a process that could lead to a Palestinian state.

But hours before Mr Biden spoke on Dec 12, Mr Netanyahu all but ruled that out.

He dismissed the idea of turning Gaza into what he called “Fatahstan”, a reference to the Palestinian group, Fatah, that controls the Palestinian Authority.

“Yes, there is disagreement about ‘the day after Hamas’,” Mr Netanyahu said.

That dispute will form the backdrop to an upcoming visit to Israel by Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, who is expected to arrive in Jerusalem this week to discuss the war and its aftermath with Mr Netanyahu.

The Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment for this article.

Israeli commentators discussed whether Mr Netanyahu’s reproach might encourage the Biden administration to place modest limits on the US’s support for Israel.

This has included billions of dollars in annual aid, munitions, diplomatic cover at the United Nations, and – until now, at least – full-throated backing for the invasion.

But those issues may be of secondary concern for Mr Netanyahu for the moment as he tries to rebuild his ebbing popularity, Mr Rabinovich said.

The prime minister’s security credentials have been badly damaged by his government’s failure to prevent the

Hamas-led raid on southern Israel

that killed an estimated 1,200 people and led to the abduction of roughly 240 others.

To his critics, Mr Netanyahu’s failure to assume full responsibility for the disaster has compounded a sense that the prime minister has placed his personal interests above those of the state.

Mr Netanyahu’s refusal to resign despite being prosecuted on corruption charges left the country divided, created huge political instability, and led to five elections in less than four years.

Since Oct 7, Mr Netanyahu’s right-wing party, Likud, has fallen far behind that of his main rival, Mr Benny Gantz, a former military chief who – in a bid to foster national unity – has joined Mr Netanyahu’s Cabinet for the duration of the war.

The latest poll, published on Dec 11 by Channel 13, one of Israel’s main television channels, found that Mr Gantz’s party would win 37 seats in a snap election, far ahead of the 18 seats that Likud was projected to take.

And a survey conducted in November by the Jewish People Policy Institute found that 55 per cent of respondents had strong trust in Mr Gantz, as opposed to only 32 per cent for Mr Netanyahu.

Analysts say Mr Netanyahu is trying to regain the backing of long-time Likud voters by doubling down on traditional right-wing policy positions.

These include opposition to a Palestinian state and rejection of the Oslo Accords, the interim peace agreements between Israelis and Palestinians that led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority.

“I will not allow Israel to repeat the mistake of Oslo,” Mr Netanyahu said in a statement on Dec 12. “Gaza will be neither Hamastan nor Fatahstan.”

In past elections, Mr Netanyahu won public support by presenting himself as the only leader experienced enough to protect Israel from myriad foreign threats, and as the politician best placed to maintain Israel’s relationship with the US.

The debacle of Oct 7, coupled with Mr Netanyahu’s growing tensions with Mr Biden, have forced the Prime Minister to find another approach, according to Mr Nahum Barnea, a veteran commentator for Yedioth Ahronoth, a centrist Israeli newspaper.

“He failed as Mr Security and he failed as Mr America,” Mr Barnea wrote in a column on Dec 13. “Maybe he’ll succeed as Mr Never Palestine.”

Despite their differences on other issues, Mr Biden has offered unwavering public support for Mr Netanyahu’s primary war goals: removing Hamas and freeing the hostages in Gaza.

And even amid his criticisms on Dec 12, Mr Biden renewed his pledge to help Israel “finish the job” against Hamas.

Mr Netanyahu does have a history of changing position under US pressure.

During his first term as prime minister in the 1990s, he continued with the Oslo process, even handing over control of parts of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority, despite fiercely opposing such moves when he was in the opposition.

During his second term, a decade later, Mr Netanyahu responded to pressure from the Obama administration by agreeing to a months-long freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank and renewing peace negotiations with the Palestinian leadership.

And in 2009, he made a speech in which he set out the terms under which he would accept the creation of a Palestinian state.

“Bibi has no problem reversing course,” said Mr Rabinovich, the former ambassador, referring to the Prime Minister by his nickname.

“The one guiding principle,” Mr Rabinovich said, “is: ‘I must stay in power.’ If he comes to the conclusion that staying in power requires changing course on these issues, he’ll do it.” NYTIMES