Netanyahu is set to meet Joe Biden – if the president has
recovered from COVID-19 – and address a joint session of Congress, the only
foreign leader to do so for a fourth time.
The trip offers him a platform for a reset with Washington
after months of tensions over his hardline approach to the war, and an
opportunity to try and convince Israelis that he hasn’t undermined relations
with their most important ally.
But it is overshadowed by President Biden’s decision not to
seek re-election, highlighting political uncertainties about Israel’s next
partner in the White House and possibly eclipsing some of the attention on
Netanyahu’s visit.
The prime minister got a lot of unwelcome attention in
Israel until the moment he boarded the plane.
A
drumbeat of protests demanded that he stay home and focus on a ceasefire deal
with Hamas to free Israeli hostages.
“Until he has signed the deal that's on the table, I do not
see how he picks up and flies across the Atlantic to address the American
political chaos,” said Lee Siegel, one of the family members who has come out
to demonstrate. His 65-year-old brother Keith is a captive in Gaza.
The trip is a political move, he added, unless Netanyahu
stops being a hurdle and signs the ceasefire agreement.
Siegel reflected a widespread view that Netanyahu is
slow-rolling the process for his own political reasons, roiling his negotiators
when he recently threw new conditions into talks that seemed to be making
progress.
The prime minister has been accused of bowing to pressure
from two far-right cabinet ministers who’ve threatened to bring down his
government if he makes concessions to Hamas.
These perceptions have added to frustrations in the White
House, which announced the latest formula for talks and had been expressing
optimism an agreement could be achieved.
Biden remains one of the most pro-Israel presidents to sit
in the Oval Office, a self-declared Zionist who’s been lauded by Israelis for
his support and empathy, cemented by his flight to Israel just days after the
Hamas attacks on October 07, 2023.
But since then, he’s grown alarmed at the cost of
Netanyahu’s demand for a “total victory” against Hamas in Gaza.
The
administration is frustrated with the Israeli prime minister for rejecting a
post-war solution that involves pursuing a Palestinian state.
It’s angry with him for resisting appeals to do more to
protect Palestinian civilians and increase the flow of aid to them. It’s facing
a domestic backlash over the mounting death toll in Gaza. And it’s worried that
the conflict is spreading to the region.
As Joe Biden’s presidency weakened in the swirl of
controversy over his abilities, analysts said there might be less room for him
to keep up the pressure on the Israeli prime minister.
Biden’s decision to drop out of the race could actually have
strengthened his hand, says Ehud Barak, a former Israeli prime minister and a
critic of Netanyahu.
“He is not a lame duck in regard to foreign policy, in a way
he's more independent (because) he doesn't have to take into account any impact
on the voters,” Barak told the BBC.
“With regard to Israel probably he feels more of a free hand
to do what really needs to be done.”
Barak
believes it was a mistake for Congress to invite Netanyahu to speak, saying
that many Israelis blame him for policy failures that allowed the Hamas attack
to happen, and three out of four want him to resign.
“The man does not represent Israel,” he said. “He lost the
trust of Israelis...And it kind of sends a wrong signal to Israelis, probably a
wrong signal to Netanyahu himself, when the American Congress invites him to
appear as if he is saving us.”
Whatever politics he may be playing, Netanyahu insists
military pressure must continue because it has significantly weakened Hamas
after a series of strikes against the military leadership.
In comments before departing Israel, he suggested that would
be the tone of his meeting with President Biden.
“It
will also be an opportunity to discuss with him how to advance in the months
ahead the goals that are important for both our countries,” he said, “achieving
the release of all our hostages, defeating Hamas, confronting the terror axis
of Iran and its proxies and ensuring that all Israel’s citizens return safely
to their homes in the north and in the south.”
He’s expected to bring the same message to Congress,
“seeking to anchor the bipartisan support that is so important to Israel”.
The
reality is that Netanyahu’s policies have fractured that bipartisan support.
The Republicans are rallying around him, but criticism from Democrats has
grown.
The
Democratic Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer caused a small earthquake in
Washington recently when he stood up in the chambers and said Netanyahu was one
of the obstacles standing in the way of lasting peace with Palestinians.
“I hope the prime minister understands the anxiety of many
members in Congress and addresses them,” the former US ambassador to Israel,
Thomas Nides, told the BBC at the weekend. He’d been addressing one of the many
rallies demanding a hostage release.
That includes “on humanitarian issues and to articulate that
this fight isn’t with the Palestinian people, it’s with Hamas."
It’s a message that Kamala Harris would repeat if she were
to become the Democratic nominee. There’d be no change in US policy, a
commitment to Israel’s security while pushing for an end to the Gaza conflict
and a plan for the Day After embedded in a regional peace with Arab states, but
there might be a difference in tone.
Kamala Harris does not share Biden’s long history with and
emotional ties to Israel. She’s from a different generation and “could more
closely align with the sentiments of younger elements of the Democratic
party," says Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense
for the Middle East.
"That’s a stance more likely to include restrictions on
weapons, on munitions from the United States for use in Gaza," he said.
Netanyahu
could very well use the visit to steer the conversation from the controversy
over Gaza to the threat from Iran, a topic with which he’s far more
comfortable, especially after the recent escalation with Iran-backed Houthi
rebels in Yemen.
But his main audience will be domestic, says Tal Shalev, the
diplomatic correspondent at Israel’s Walla News.
He wants to revive his image as “America,” she says, the man
who can best present Israel to the US, and to restore his image which was
shattered by the October 07 attacks.
“When he goes to the US and speaks in front of Congress and
[has] a meeting in the White House, for his electoral base, it's the old Bibi
is back again,” she says, referring to the prime minister by his nickname.
“This is not the failed Bibi who was responsible for the seventh of October.
This is the old Bibi who goes to the Congress and gets the standing ovations.”
It also gives him an opportunity to pursue connections with
former President Donald Trump at a time of great political flux in Washington.
“Netanyahu
wants President Trump to win,” she says, “And he wants to make sure that he and
President Trump are on good terms before the election.”
There is a widespread view that Netanyahu is playing for time, hoping for a
Trump win that might ease some of the pressure he’s been facing from the Biden
administration.
“There is a near-universal perception that Netanyahu is
eager for a Trump victory, under the assumption that he will then be able to do
whatever he wants,” writes Michael Koplow of Israel’s Policy Forum.
“No Biden pressuring him on a ceasefire or on West Bank
settlements and settler violence... There are many reasons to doubt this
reading of the landscape under a Trump restoration, but Netanyahu likely
subscribes to it.”
The question is whether that pressure from Biden will ease
as he steps away from the presidential race, or whether he will in fact use his
remaining months in office to focus on achieving an end to the Gaza war.
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