Tensions are appearing in the historically close relationship between the White House and Israel as the war in Gaza becomes a worsening humanitarian disaster.
Visible tensions are appearing in the historically close relationship between the White House and Israel, as the war in Gaza becomes a worsening humanitarian disaster and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resists the Biden administration’s push for a change in course.
While Biden vocally supports Israel’s stated goals of defeating Hamas and rescuing the hostages that the Palestinian militant group took captive during its Oct. 7 rampage in southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people, he and other administration officials have expressed increasing criticism of the way in which Israel is carrying out its operations in the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s relentless aerial bombardment and expanding ground invasion, as well as the cutting of Gaza’s water and power supplies, have killed more than 30,000 Palestinians there, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas. And Israeli restrictions on the aid that can enter the besieged enclave, which is blockaded on all sides, have pushed more than 500,000 people into famine, according to the United Nations.
Still, the Biden administration has rejected pulling back the military aid it is providing for Israel, and consistently provides diplomatic cover for it at the U.N., often being the sole country vetoing international demands for a cease-fire.
Biden has also stressed what his administration says is the need for an independent Palestinian state as part of the path to a durable peace — something Netanyahu ardently opposes. The right-wing Israeli leader has also rejected Biden’s proposals of a leading role for the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority in Gaza’s future once the war ends.
„These and other divisions are putting the entire ’special relationship‘ between the U.S. and Israel under pressure I have never seen before in my lifetime,“ Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, told CNBC. „The relationship [between Biden and Netanyahu] is absolutely terrible.“
A report by Politico in early February cited unnamed Biden administration officials describing the president calling Netanyahu a „bad f—ng guy.“ His spokespeople have denied it, saying that the leaders have „a decades-long relationship that is respectful in public and in private.“
The reported rift appeared to worsen as Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz, a longtime rival of Netanyahu and considered to be more moderate, paid a visit to Washington this week at the invitation of the White House.
