Israel’s far-right prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced on Thursday that he told the White House he will not accept a Palestinian state after the war, nor cede security control of any territory west of the Jordan River. “The prime minister needs to be capable of saying no to our friends,” Netanyahu added, pointedly.
Yet that sentiment cuts both ways. The US, Israel’s staunchest and most important ally, has repeatedly attempted to discuss “day-after” scenarios with Israel and potential paths toward a two-state solution that include both a future Palestinian state and considerations for Israel’s security, only to be rebuffed.
When the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, returned to Israel in mid-January for the fifth time since the 7 October attack, he brought a definitive message from Saudi Arabia to Netanyahu: the Saudis are ready to recognize Israel – only if Israel will finally recognize a Palestinian state by its side and start implementing a plan to make it so.
But Israel’s rightwing-led government opposes such a path. And Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas’s weakened regime doesn’t have the power presently to deliver this vision in the parts of the West Bank the Palestinian Authority controls, let alone in Hamas-controlled and war-ravaged Gaza. Nor, of course, at present, is Hamas willing to lay down its arms.
A path toward long-term peace would be a monumentally historic achievement for the Biden White House. The question is how to get there.
The first challenge is moving Israel past Netanyahu’s toxic reign. That’s the only way to reach the second step, which is to bring all of the Arab states – including Qatar, which sponsors Hamas, and the Saudis, who are key to the Palestinian future – together with the US and the European Union to bolster a plan for Palestinian self-rule along with Israeli security.
Just as Blinken left Israel, a weekly poll there showed that public support for Netanyahu has continued to erode. Asked whom they support, the Israeli public responded as they have since the outbreak of the war: if an election were held, Benjamin Gantz’s National Unity Party would swamp Netanyahu’s far-right Likud.
Trends continue to point toward Gantz beating Netanyahu and being able to gather a government without Likud or the hard-right parties. That government will at the very least take the idea of regional peace agreements seriously, along with the word of the Biden White House.
A more forceful US approach, importantly, will give inspiration to the abundance of Israelis seeking new elections. Joe Biden could get elected prime minister in Israel in a minute. He is one of the most popular US presidents since Israeli statehood was declared.
The compassion he has shown to the Israeli public since the 7 October attack, along with the delivery of arms and other financial support, may have hurt his standing among some American progressives, but have made him more popular in Israel than any global leader – and more popular than many Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu.
Biden must leverage his popularity for US geopolitical interests.
First, he must continue to achieve necessary US policy goals: a cessation of the war, with agreement between Hamas and Israel to get all of the hostages, dead and alive, back to Israel as soon as possible, along with a credible day-after scenario. This means making clear to the Israeli government that an end-game for the war needs to be established. The US needs to tell Netanyahu that Israel doesn’t have a green light for indefinite war without resolution, as Netanyahu has insinuated he may pursue. Indeed, Blinken has been in Davos this week at the World Economic Forum, once again promoting a day-after scenario that Netanyahu refuses to entertain.
Accordingly, Biden must state clearly and publicly what America’s red lines are. That includes the US publicly slamming down statements by Israeli ministers who continue to call for reoccupation of Gaza, or vague plans promoted by the Netanyahu government to ask local family clans in Gaza to take over civil administration there, while Israel controls everything else.
That also includes demanding that Israel transfer the tax revenue it collects for the Palestinian Authority to the Authority. (The Israeli finance minister is refusing this transfer even as he is using his office to funnel aid to Jewish settlements in the West Bank.) And as Biden administration officials seek to reform the Palestinian Authority – to rid it of corruption, promote internal elections and revamp its institutions for better governance – it should encourage other donors to do the same, openly and publicly.
It’s time for Biden to speak directly to the Israeli public through Israeli media, not just through indirect and closed diplomatic doors or press leaks, to clarify that there must be a political pathway opened between Israel and the Palestinians. He can offer the Israeli public the Biden vision for their future, go on Israeli television, speak truth to a public exhausted with Netanyahu’s distortions.
He must also stand firm about getting urgent and large-scale emergency humanitarian aid into Gaza. The Israeli public, hardened and fearful after the 7 October attacks, is being shielded by self-censoring Israeli media – especially the television press – from the full realities of civilian deaths in Gaza and the grave humanitarian disaster there.
In speaking directly to the Israeli people, Biden can say: We are with the Israeli people – but as a global leader, we are also with the Palestinian people. This is about children on both sides of this war, the US president must say. It is in the American and global interest to ratchet back moves by actors and nations like Iran to turn this into a wider regional war. This means necessary engagement with and support for a future for the Palestinian people, in addition to security for Israel.
As long as Netanyahu and his allies hold power, they must be held fully accountable for their actions counter to US interests. None of this is easy. Biden confronts an Israeli leader holding onto his seat for dear life, as Netanyahu, in addition to the war, tries to ride out domestic criminal corruption charges. Biden must also deal with a sharply divided Congress in an election year – not to mention an election opponent named Trump – all of which he’ll face if he more forcefully challenges Netanyahu.
But Biden enjoys wide support among Jewish Americans; Netanyahu is as unpopular among this population as he is among Israelis. Listen to the Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro, who in November told NBC News that Netanyahu is “a terrible leader” who “has driven Israel to an extreme that has been bad for Israel and bad for the stability in the Middle East”.
Shapiro added that he considers Hamas “pure evil”, but also that “‘How do we create a two-state solution?’ is a conversation that needs to be had right now, led by the United States.”
By virtue of the US’s longstanding relationship with Israel as well as Biden’s own heavy political and security investments, Biden has a significant stake in this conflict. He has both the responsibility to assert US interests more forcefully and the incentive to see an outcome that could finally lead the two peoples on a path to peace.
A second-term Biden administration could forge a foreign policy legacy – a durable path toward two states – that has eluded numerous US administrations. But, first, there must be a credible end to this war that is negotiated toward providing security to Israel along with a hopeful future to the Palestinian people.
Jo-Ann Mort writes frequently about Israel/Palestine for a range of publications. She is the co-author of Our Hearts Invented a Place: Can Kibbutzim Survive in Today’s Israel?
