US relations with Israel’s governing coalition may well be at their worst point in recent memory as a key ally of President Joe Biden in the US Senate went on TV on Sunday and publicly trashed Benjamin Netanyahu’s wartime leadership and accused him of harming the peace process.
Senator Chris Coons, a centrist Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation this weekend and defended Mr Biden’s response to the conflict in Gaza while painting Mr Netanyahu as an unreliable partner for the United States.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu has been an exceptionally difficult partner,” Mr Coons said on Sunday, while adding that Mr Biden “did the right thing” by traveling to Israel to stand with the US’s ally following the terrorist attacks of 7 October.
“What has been a real challenge is the big gap between most of us in Congress and the president, who believe a two-state solution is the only way forward, and Prime Minister Netanyahu who has done everything he can to undermine a positive vision for peace for Israel.”
It was a stunning declaration to hear from a US senator typically aligned with the centre-left of the Democratic Party (and the general DC consensus) on the issue of Israel-Palestine relations.
American lawmakers and elected officials rarely place such direct blame on their Israeli counterparts for the failure of the two sides to reach a peaceful resolution to their decades-long conflict.
Such a statement is indicative of a growing rift between the US government and Israel’s right-wing coaltion of leaders, who found themselves closely aligned with the Trump administration but facing more vocal critcism from Democrats — particularly the party’s progressive arm.
Mr Coons’s statement also puts the Biden administration in a somewhat awkward position, as White House and State Department officials have been defending the US’s supposed ability to push Israel to take steps to avoid civilian casualties in response to an outcry on the left against the Israeli military campaign in Gaza and calls on Capitol Hill for the US to condition arms sales to the country.
“[W]e know the intent is there by the Israelis to limit civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure but sometimes the results don’t always come out that way,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said last Thursday at a news briefing.
Mr Biden himself has warned that Israel is losing good will around the world with what he called an “indiscriminate” bombing campaign being undertaken in civilian areas.
Israel’s military has denied this, and claims to be targeting Hamas militants with precision despite the relatively low number killed or captured so far.
Meanwhile, more than 19,000 people have died in Gaza since the war effort began, according to Palestinian authorities.
