Biden’s Israel dilemma: Few good options to counter Netanyahu’s defiance over judicial Bill
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Mr Biden (left) faces the challenge of pressuring Mr Netanyahu to avoid more weakening of the judiciary, while keeping US-Israeli relations from derailing.
PHOTOS: REUTERS
Follow topic:
WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden is in a political bind as he crafts a US response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defiantly pushing through the first part of a divisive judicial overhaul.
Despite Washington’s long-time status as Israel’s top ally and biggest weapons supplier, Mr Biden appears to have few good options.
Direct and sometimes pointed appeals from Mr Biden and senior aides failed to dissuade Mr Netanyahu and his religious-nationalist coalition from ramming through Parliament on Monday
The White House, in a terse statement, called the Knesset vote “unfortunate”
Mr Biden, having professed his love for Israel during much of his decades-long political career, faces the challenge of pressuring Mr Netanyahu to avoid more weakening of the judiciary while keeping US-Israeli relations from derailing.
“Biden does not want an open fight with Israeli leaders. It’s too politically costly,” said Mr Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator under Democratic and Republican administrations. “So he’s stuck… with a difficult balancing act.”
Re-election bid looms in 2024
Weighing heavily on Mr Biden is the 2024 presidential election. He and fellow Democrats realise they can ill afford to give Republicans ammunition to paint them as anti-Israel, which could hurt him with independent voters and alienate some Jewish donors.
Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates have quickly accused Mr Biden of meddling in Israel’s domestic affairs. They are appealing in part to a large Christian evangelical following, one of Israel’s strongest US constituencies.
“This preoccupation of Democrats, which literally goes back decades, of trying to micromanage what’s happening in the domestic politics in Israel is wrong-headed,” former vice-president Mike Pence, a Republican presidential contender, said on the Hugh Hewitt Show before Monday’s vote.
At the same time, there are widening divisions over Israel within Mr Biden’s Democratic Party. A handful of Democratic lawmakers boycotted a speech to Congress last week by Israel’s largely ceremonial President Isaac Herzog
One main reason for Mr Biden’s limited leverage is that he has ruled out any response that would reduce the billions of dollars in annual US military aid to Israel, US officials said.
Mr Biden is also hamstrung by Washington’s own security needs, including helping to maintain Israel’s military edge against Iran.
A threat by some Israeli military reservists opposed to the judicial overhaul to resist reporting for duty caught Washington’s attention because it raised questions about Israel’s future military readiness.
But Mr Biden may still have some lesser pressure points at his disposal.
One is the administration’s work on normalising relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia,
“So will Biden be less committed (to that effort)? We don’t know,” said Mr David Makovsky, of the Washington Institute and a former senior US adviser on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during the Obama administration.
In addition, the Biden administration last week announced it was opening a review period to decide whether to grant Israelis the coveted privilege of travel without visas to the US, a decision that could be complicated by diplomatic strains.
Tense talks
Mr Biden, who has had frosty relations with Mr Netanyahu compared with former president Donald Trump, gave an unsubtle dig to the Israeli leader last week with a lavish Oval Office welcome
Mr Netanyahu’s aides had been pushing for a meeting all year but were rebuffed by the White House because of concerns over Mr Netanyahu’s judicial plan and Jewish settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, US officials said.
In a phone call before hosting Mr Herzog, Mr Biden finally invited Mr Netanyahu for an official visit
One White House official said Mr Biden, having known Mr Netanyahu for decades, can be especially blunt with him in private. Mr Biden used their latest call to again press Mr Netanyahu to slow down the judicial overhaul, but that failed to avert Monday’s vote.
Mr Biden has made no secret of his concerns that Mr Netanyahu’s coalition, the most far-right in Israeli history, is risking the independence of the judiciary.
Mr Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption charges that he denies, insists the judicial changes are needed for balance among branches of government.
Further complicating matters, Mr Tom Nides ended his posting as ambassador to Israel last week, leaving the US without its most senior diplomat on the ground.
Mr Biden is expected to move cautiously to see whether Mr Netanyahu makes good on a promise to seek agreement with the opposition on further judicial changes by the end of November.
What Mr Biden is likely to avoid is the kind of response that could cause his relationship with Mr Netanyahu to become as antagonistic as between the Prime Minister and then President Barack Obama.
Mr Biden, as Mr Obama’s vice-president, witnessed first-hand Mr Obama’s fraught dealings with Mr Netanyahu over the 2015 international nuclear deal that Mr Obama spearheaded with Iran and US displeasure with Israeli settlement expansion on occupied land the Palestinians want for a state.
“Biden is not Barack Obama,” said Mr Miller, now an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
“He had a ringside seat to what happens when the US president decides to take on Israel.” REUTERS
