To say that the Biden administration is frustrated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be a significant understatement.
The hardline prime minister heading up an even more hardline ultranationalist government has humiliated President Joe Biden continuously, whether it's over Israeli military strategy in Gaza, how Gaza will be administered after the war against Hamas is over, or how much aid should be sent into the enclave. The fact that the U.S. military had to resort to dropping food parcels into Gaza was perhaps the biggest insult of them all—the Biden administration wouldn't be going to such drastic measures if its advice was getting through to the Israeli government.
Biden and his senior advisers understand what's happening around them. Israel's defiance isn't great optics, so they've chosen to speak out more sternly than before. On March 3, Vice President Kamala Harris pressed for an "immediate ceasefire" of at least six weeks in order to get the remaining Israeli hostages out of Gaza and greater humanitarian aid in. The situation inside Gaza, she said, was simply deplorable. Biden followed up two days later, telling the White House Press Corps there were "no excuses" to getting additional aid to where it needed to go. While none of this may concern Netanyahu, it's apparently worrying Benny Gantz, a key member off his war cabinet, who left his meetings in Washington surprised about the depth of U.S. criticism.
The charged words, however, aren't having an impact. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are preparing for an offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than half of the enclave's population now resides, despite U.S. entreaties to the Israelis about having a viable plan to get civilians out of the area before an operation starts. According to the Pentagon's chief spokesperson, the U.S. still hasn't seen a plan. Netanyahu is also resisting more land corridors into Gaza. The civilian casualties continue to pile up by the day, with the death toll now creeping close to 31,000 since the war started.
If the stronger rhetoric is meant to push Israel into adopting policies more to Washington's liking, then the verbal campaign isn't working. The Biden administration will have to rely on actions, not words, if it wants to increase the odds of achieving that objective. The nuclear option would be suspending U.S. military aid shipments to the IDF, which a growing number of Democrats are recommending. But given Biden's self-professed love for Israel throughout his political career—he has repeatedly referred to himself as a Zionist—this is about as likely as Rand Paul waking up one morning and not caring about the national debt. For proponents of the idea, daydreaming about Biden suspending military aid to Israel—or even conditioning military aid to Israeli policy changes—is a bit like a child daydreaming about becoming an astronaut—sure, it's nice to think about, but how practical is it?
Evidence suggests it wouldn't be practical at all, not because it couldn't be done, but because it won't get past Biden's desk. Although Biden called a conditioning of aid "a worthwhile thought" in November, it only took a few days for his administration to jump on television and rule it out. U.S. officials reiterated that no-strings-attached position in December, telling CNN that there were no plans to use U.S. military aid as leverage. Even after the White House rolled out a new policy framework last month requiring recipients of U.S. security aid to provide Washington with credible assurances that humanitarian law was being respected, the White House stressed that U.S. military assistance to Israel wouldn't be effected.
Were Biden to change tact and order conditions on aid to Israel, the reaction would be one of shock, disgust, or elation depending on who you talk to. But regardless of whether one supports or opposes such a decision, the decision itself wouldn't be unprecedented. There have been times when U.S. presidents prioritized the stick over the carrot in its dealings with Israel. In December 1981, former President Ronald Reagan suspended a U.S.-Israel strategic accord that was signed weeks earlier in order to register displeasure with the Israeli government's annexation of the occupied Golan Heights. After Israel bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, Reagan suspended the delivery of 14 F-16s (he later relented and allowed the transfer to take place). And in 1983, Reagan held back on delivering 75 F-16s until Israel withdrew its forces from Lebanon.
His successor, George H.W. Bush, wasn't shy about employing the stick either. When former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir insisted on bilateral peace Middle East negotiations instead of the multilateral format the Bush administration was organizing in 1991, Bush blocked $10 billion in loans to push Shamir into showing up. It worked, even if the 1991 Madrid Conference ended without much to show for it.
Biden isn't doing any of that. In fact, he's doing the exact opposite, having delivered more than 100 individual foreign military sales packages to Israel since its war with Hamas began on Oct. 7. Pretty soon, more people will have to start asking the obvious question: Why would the administration expect Israel to change its behavior if the U.S. is unwilling to change theirs?
Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist at the Chicago Tribune.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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