“Bibi, I love you, but I don’t agree with a damn thing you had to say.” That’s what President Joe Biden wrote on a photo he once gave to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the former said in a speech at the White House’s Hanukkah celebration this week. – It is about the same today, said Biden. The war in Gaza has highlighted ever-growing differences between Israel and its most important ally, the United States. The United States will prevent an escalation of the war. Israel wants to destroy Hamas. And they disagree about what the goal is for Gaza if they win. Several Western countries are turning against Israel, and there is great division within the Biden administration. Warned Netanyahu President Joe Biden said on Monday that the US will continue to provide military aid until Israel defeats Hamas – but warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel is about to lose international support as a result of the massive offensive in Gaza. He has also, in his own conversations with Israel’s leader, urged Netanyahu to limit civilian casualties and allow emergency aid to arrive. So far, 18,787 Palestinians have been killed since October 7, according to Palestinian health officials. However, Israel has made it clear that it will continue the war as long as necessary – and rejected the Americans’ proposal for a two-state solution after the end of the war. – After the great sacrifices of our civilians and our soldiers, I will not allow entry into Gaza for those who educate terrorism, support terrorism and finance terrorism, Netanyahu said this week, according to CNN. The US says it will reject any suggestion that Israel has control over Gaza. HUG: Biden and Netanyahu embraced each other when the former visited Israel to show support on October 18. Photo: Evan Vucci / AP Long history The two world leaders now face an enormous political game, both internally and internationally. But the relationship between the two was strained long before 7 October. – Since Biden became president, Netanyahu has barely received a single invitation to the White House, in stark contrast to the time with Trump, says Middle East expert Hilde Henriksen Waage to news. Biden and Netanyahu’s relationship goes back to the time when the former was a young senator and the latter was head of the Israeli embassy in Washington. Netanyahu then became ambassador to the UN, before becoming prime minister in 1996. Since then, he has held power in Israel – either as leader of the government or the opposition. However, it was only when Biden was vice president in Barack Obama’s government that the relationship cooled. After the Gaza War in 2008–09, Obama’s attempts at peace negotiations and a solution to the conflict created major disagreements between the two governments. In 2014, The Atlantic wrote that the relationship between Israel and the US was on the brink of “full crisis”. When Republican Donald Trump took the White House, the alliance became stronger. In 2018, Netanyahu hailed Trump’s “bold decision” to pull the US out of the Iran nuclear deal. The Israeli leader strongly opposed the deal, which was brokered by the Obama administration in 2015. CLOSE ALLIES: Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington in 2021. Photo: Brendan McDermid / Reuters – Biden does not switch sides With the Democrats back in the driver’s seat, the pipe has got a different sound. Biden has been outspoken in his criticism of Netanyahu’s government, which includes far-right parties. This week he referred to the government as “the most conservative in Israel’s history”. The US has also criticized the Israeli government’s expansion of the illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank. In July, the country adopted parts of a controversial legal reform which, among other things, deprives the Supreme Court of the ability to stop political decisions. The reform has long caused major protests in Israel. – Like many strong supporters of Israel, I am very worried. They cannot continue on this path, Biden said in March this year. On X/Twitter, Netanyahu responded by accusing the US of meddling in the nation’s politics. – Israel is a sovereign country that makes its decisions according to the will of the people and not based on pressure from abroad – not even our closest friends, he wrote. But that Biden wants to stab Netanyahu in the back is an out-of-the-box scenario, says Hilde Henriksen Waage. EXPERT: Hilde Henriksen Waage, professor of history at the University of Oslo and senior researcher at the Oslo Institute for Peace Research (Prio). Photo: Martin Tegnander / PRIO – It will never happen if the Democrats are to be re-elected. Switching sides would mean the end of Biden’s political career. She explains that the majority of the American electorate is positive about Israel. At the same time, the Republicans and former President Donald Trump are crystal clear on their support for Netanyahu – and Trump is surging ahead in the opinion polls. – Here he has to balance domestic and international interests, and he is given less and less leeway to get out of this in one piece. Corruption accusations The war is also creating headaches for Netanyahu at home. About 80 percent of Israelis believe Netanyahu and his government are to blame for Hamas’s terrorist attack, according to a poll by the Hebrew newspaper Maariv. After 7 October, several members of the opposition have advocated demanding that the prime minister resign. At the same time, there are still a three-digit number of Israeli hostages in Gaza. Several of the hostages’ families believe the government is not doing enough to get the hostages released, according to Reuters. On Friday, the Israeli Defense Forces also stated that they had mistakenly shot and killed three of the hostages. – But Netanyahu’s government has been unpopular long before this war. He knows that when this is over, he is politically dead and buried, Waage believes. Then a corruption charge against the Prime Minister awaits from 2019, and a trial that has been repeatedly delayed. – Netanyahu knows that as long as the war is going on he gets to keep his position. He is fighting a bitter war for his own political life.
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Growing ice front between Biden and Netanyahu – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
