The conversation could get awkward. But it’s a conversation the U.S. and Israel need to have.
Shortly after President Joe Biden delivered his State of the Union address, he ran into Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado as he made his way out of the House chamber. The microphones picked up what was meant to be a private conversation about the most sensitive of topics: Biden’s relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. « I told him, Bibi, and don’t repeat this, but you and I are going to have a ‘come to Jesus’ meeting, » the president said.
That « come to Jesus » moment could occur next week, when Netanyahu’s most trusted ministers travel to Washington for talks with U.S. officials on what to do about Rafah, the Palestinian city near the border with Egypt, and the last major urban area the Israeli military has yet to comb through for Hamas militants. This sudden meeting was the byproduct of a phone call Biden had with Netanyahu on March 18, in which he yet again pressed Israel to do more on the humanitarian front. With famine in Gaza’s north projected to occur sometime this spring, the Biden administration is frantically trying to mitigate food insecurity with periodic airdrops and the building of a temporary pier off Gaza’s coast to scale up aid deliveries.
The U.S. and Israel are united on the ultimate objective: degrading Hamas to the point where it can’t execute a similar campaign of slaughter like it did on Oct. 7. But the two close partners are at loggerheads over crucial details.
The U.S. would like Israel to take a far more targeted approach to Rafah, which is teeming with refugees previously driven from their homes and serves as the main gateway for whatever humanitarian aid comes into the enclave. In the U.
