Last December Professor Emeritus of International Relations at Oxford University Avi Shlaim wrote in Foreign Policy that at some point in President Biden’s administration he would have to address the ongoing problem of Israel/Palestine.
That time has come, of course not at Biden’s choosing and likely sooner than Shlaim expected. His oped recalled a story about Moshe Dayan, Israel’s then-defense minister, just before the 1967 War. Dayan told the founder of the World Jewish Congress Nahum Goldmann, “Our American friends offer us money, arms and advice. We take the money, we take the arms, and we decline the advice.”
Goldmann responded, “What would happen if ever America were to tell you: you can have the aid only if you also take the advice?” Dayan said, “Then we would have to take the advice, too.”
That, Shlaim wrote, “epitomized Israeli triumphalism.”
Even as early as 2001, then form Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on a hot mic, “I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in their way.”
It turns out that Israel has indeed taken American advice historically. These examples serve as a roadmap for the administration and a reset of relations are ripe, now that Israel has elected a new prime minister.
When President Barak Obama hit an impasse with Israel in 2012, Christian Science Monitor’s Christa Case Bryant reported several examples of American influence to reign in Israel. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956 without consulting or informing President Eisenhower. Britain, France, and Israel conspired to enable Israel to launch an invasion in the Sinai Peninsula. The UN Security Council issued a resolution calling on Israel to withdraw forces. When Israel didn’t fully comply, Eisenhower threatened to withhold more than $100 million in aid. According to Bryant, it was less than a month before “all Israeli troops had left.”
President Gerald Ford later pressured for a full retreat, strong-arming Israel by freezing an arms delivery in March 1975. Now it’s Biden’s turn to carry forward that precedent.
Many members of Congress are calling for more decisive action. The recent war in Gaza, tensions in Jerusalem around the Al-Aqsa mosque, and the forced displacement of Palestinians from the Shiekh Jarrah neighborhood have all lent to a shift in stance.
In April Rep. Betty McCollum introduced House Resolution 2590, the “Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act.”
According to the Congressional website, the act would “ensure that United States taxpayer funds are not used by the Government of Israel to support the military detention of Palestinian children, the unlawful seizure, appropriation, and destruction of Palestinian property and forcible transfer of civilians in the West Bank, or further annexation of Palestinian land in violation of international law.”
Last month Josh Ruebner, Salih Booker, and Zaha Hassan wrote, “After many years of increasing U.S. military aid to Israel, members of Congress are beginning to debate the wisdom and morality of writing a blank check for weapons – some of which are used against Palestinians living under military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in violation of U.S. laws.”
That same day, Rep. Mark Pocan tweeted, “We cannot just condemn rockets fired by Hamas and ignore Israel’s state-sanctioned police violence against Palestinians – including unlawful evictions, violent attacks on protestors & the murder of Palestinian children. U.S. aid should not be funding this violence.”
In late May, Pocan and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Rashida Tlaib introduced a Joint House Resolution to block a $735 million weapons sale to Israel, including kits to refurbish regular bombs into precision-guided missiles.
The same day the measure was introduced, the White House released a readout of a conversation between President Biden and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Biden told Netanyahu that “he expected a significant de-escalation today on the path to a ceasefire.”
Yet Netanyahu insisted that he was “determined” to continue the offensive in Gaza. What’s more, in one of his last campaign speeches before losing his position to a rotational government headed by now Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, Haaretz described a man spiraling as he lost his grip on power. Netanyahu “compared the American government under Joe Biden to Iran and Hamas, depicting all three as threats to Israel.”
If Biden doesn’t want to affirm Israel’s long-held understanding that they can “take the money and arms” and “decline the advice,” he needs to establish conditions as previous presidents did.
Alas, we may be reaching the point where Israel could threaten to use Israeli aid as leverage on the U.S. I’m not sure the U.S. and Israeli military industrial complexes are distinguishable from each other –
https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2013/02/28/us-israel-military-relations/
The U.S. stands to benefit immensely from Israel’s rocket defense R&D efforts. Both the Iron Dome (operational) and David’s Sling (soon to become operational) systems offer capabilities that no other country in the world has. The Israeli firm Rafael developed the Iron Dome system, and has since partnered with Raytheon to produce it for U.S. allies, and perhaps for the U.S. military. Given Iron Dome’s successful track record to date, there have been requests on the U.S. side for co-production or technology sharing. Similarly, Raytheon and Rafael have collaborated in the development of David’s Sling in order to meet U.S. and Israeli operational requirements and it may also be procured by the U.S. military….Looking forward, U.S.-Israel rocket and missile defense cooperation is likely to deepen further through continued U.S. support and engagement in the development of the Arrow III system. U.S. funding of the Arrow III exo-atmospheric interceptor, to be fielded in 2015, will provide Washington with key insights into the development of a system that, according to senior U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) officials, “will be more capable than anything the United States has on the drawing board,” as reported in the Eisenstadt and Pollock study, Asset Test: How the U.S. Benefits from its Alliance with Israel.
It is doubtful Biden will be able to exert much political pressure on Israel so long as he can’t on Hamas. Lacking understanding on politics in America, Sinwar will not allow for safe political ground for Biden, or other politicians to operate from. The view from inside a fishbowl is distorted.