Aaron David Miller & Adam Israelevitz
Foreign Policy / July 25, 2024
The Israeli leader defended the war in Gaza, but his visit was overshadowed by U.S. politics.
Having defied and humiliated a genuinely pro-Israel president for nearly 10 months and alienated large swaths of a largely pro-Israel Democratic Party and a good bit of the American public to boot, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu still managed to secure a long-withheld White House meeting and even bested British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s three addresses to a joint session of Congress by giving a fourth. It’s doubtful that this Washington foray will do much to boost his lackluster polls at home, and the decision by U.S. President Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race overshadowed his visit—even in Israel.
Indeed, the visit was important not so much for what it actually achieved but much more for what it reflects. And that’s this: What we call the U.S.-Israel operating system is, well, still operating. U.S. domestic politics and policy are still shaped by a profound commitment to the security of a Jewish state in a hostile neighborhood, a reality that sustains Israel’s leverage on the United States and reduces the United States’ on Israel. But that system is under severe stress as Netanyahu’s Israel has become a deeply partisan and divisive issue in U.S. politics. Whether a putative Harris administration would adopt a tougher approach toward Israel, especially regarding its policies toward Palestinians, remains to be seen. But for Netanyahu, who has allied himself with the Republican Party, repairing his ties to Donald Trump has become more important than ever.
The Israel-can-do-no-wrong party
Right now, a mainstay of that U.S.-Israel operating system is the Republican Party. Let’s be crystal clear. Netanyahu would not have been invited to Washington had it not been for the GOP—the veritable Israel-can-do-no-wrong party. And if the GOP has now become the party of Trump, it has for some time been the preferred party of Netanyahu. Indeed, a large part of Netanyahu’s strategy for dealing and managing the U.S.-Israel relationship depends on cementing the bond between an Israel that has moved ever rightward under his various tenures and a Republican Party that, unlike Democrats, not only supports Israel but does so uncritically and even blindly. Netanyahu cultivated that relationship not just to facilitate pro-Israeli policies while Republicans controlled the White House but also to gain support against Democrats when they’re in charge. Netanyahu’s relationships with Democratic presidents have been stormy, to say the least. Bill Clinton, exasperated with the brashness of the newly minted prime minister and his tendency to lecture, exploded to aides following their first official meeting: “Who’s the fucking superpower here?”
And make no mistake, Netanyahu’s ties with Republicans are symbiotic. Republicans eagerly court Israel to curry favor with evangelicals and try, to the extent they can, to attract American Jews with their strong pro-Israel credentials. It was Republican House Speaker John Boehner who invited Netanyahu to address Congress in 2015 to stymie, if not undermine, the Obama administration’s nuclear negotiations and deal with Iran. And there’s little doubt that current House Speaker Mike Johnson’s invitation to Netanyahu this year to speak before Congress was an effort to paint the GOP as the only reliably pro-Israel party and to box in Democrats. Only last week, Johnson asserted that the GOP was the only pro-Israel party and threatened to arrest anyone who disrupted the prime minister’s address.
Still, not everyone in GOP land is happy with Netanyahu. In fact, Trump was reportedly angry with Netanyahu in 2020 for not supporting his claim that the 2020 U.S. presidential election had been stolen and for congratulating Biden in a video message. “Fuck him,” Trump said to Axios reporter Barak Ravid during an interview in which he complained about the video. Trump hasn’t said much about Gaza, though he faulted Israel for being caught unprepared, urged the country to get the war over quickly, and complained that Israel has been losing the public relations war. Netanyahu knows he has a problem, so he created a new video message, this time expressing his support and prayers for Trump in the wake of the recent assassination attempt. Their meeting at Mar-a-Lago on Friday may well be the most important accomplishment in a trip that is unlikely to pay many dividends. Based on Trump’s first term, Netanyahu knows that Trump would be less inclined to pressure Israel and more willing to give it free hand when it comes to security issues. That Trump posted a letter he received from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whom he praised, however, should remind Netanyahu that Trump can be quite unpredictable.
Democrats: Down on Israel but by no means out
Democrats play a key role in sustaining the U.S.-Israel operating system, too. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, despite giving a speech in March that all but called for Netanyahu’s removal, still signed on—together with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries—to the Republican invitation to Netanyahu to address Congress. Democrats, clearly fearful of alienating much of their pro-Israel constituency, fell into Johnson’s trap without much of a fight. With Israel fighting a militant group holding and abusing hostages, the Democratic leadership was not going to hand the Republicans a brush to paint the party as anti-Israel by not signing on to Johnson’s invitation, despite their reservations about Netanyahu.
And there are reservations aplenty and not just among progressive Democrats. Mainstream Democrats such as Sens. Chris Van Hollen, Chris Murphy, and Chris Coons have called for tougher policies toward the Netanyahu government. (All three have proposed conditioning some military assistance to Israel.) Most Democrats remain erstwhile supporters of Israel, especially in its war against Hamas. The updated Democratic Party platform is essentially mainstream, avoiding much criticism along the lines of what more progressive members of the party might have wished for. Nonetheless, the outpouring of Democratic no-shows during Netanyahu’s congressional address, estimated at roughly 135 absentees (more than double the 58 absent from Netanyahu’s 2015 address), reflects deep dissatisfaction and estrangement from Netanyahu’s Israel and signals a real, forthcoming debate within the party over what exactly it means to be pro-Israel.
The Hamas factor
If U.S. domestic politics tends to constrain an administration’s use of pressure and leverage against Israel, the nature of the Israel-Hamas conflict serves to limit it further and boosts Israel’s room for maneuver. Israel is engaged in a sustained conflict—now 10 months and counting—against a group designated by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization. Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, which claimed the lives of 1,200 Israelis and was accompanied by serial sexual violence, rape, mutilation, torture, and the taking and abusing of hostages, has created an unprecedented situation for the Biden administration. Hamas’s surge, along with the threat posed by Hezbollah, another U.S.-designated terrorist group, has resulted in the displacement of 200,000 Israelis and only reinforced the already deep pro-Israel sensibilities of the president and the majority of elected representatives. Indeed, it’s clear in the way Biden reacts to the conflict that he conveys much deeper empathy toward Israeli losses than those suffered by Palestinians. And this strong pro-Israel, anti-Hamas sentiment shapes Washington’s reluctance to bring serious pressure to bear on Israel over its tactics in waging the war.
Schumer in his March speech all but called for replacing Netanyahu and described Hamas’s actions as “pure and premeditated evil,” blaming the group for the deaths of so many innocent Palestinian civilians. And Johnson likewise described Hamas as “barbaric and evil” and the conflict between Israel and Hamas as one “between good versus evil, between light versus darkness.” Unlike in 1973, in the wake of Egypt’s attack on Israel in Sinai, where the United States used its leverage to press for a cease-fire three weeks into the war, Hamas’s attack and its holding of hostages, including eight Americans, have by and large tethered the Biden administration to Israel’s war aims and reduced its leverage to change Israeli policies to which it was opposed. The fact that Iran is Hamas’s strongest backer further strengthens Israel’s argument for continuing the war by rallying much of Congress, notorious for its hawkish views on Iran, to its side.
Netanyahu’s game: Buy time and remain in power
Netanyahu did not come to Washington to negotiate or make concessions on a possible cease-fire. Instead, he came to boost his political stock at home, manage tensions with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, and mend ties with Trump. His address to Congress became a prop in his self-congratulatory victory lap to demonstrate his political staying power before a domestic audience. There were no surprises in his address. It was a tough and indignant defense of Israel’s war aims, a performative speech designed to secure his right-wing base, please Republican stalwarts, and highlight that he alone is indispensable to managing and standing up to Israel’s enemies. No one should have expected anything otherwise.
The visit was not what Netanyahu hoped for. Overshadowed by Harris’s rise as the presumptive Democratic nominee and Biden’s putative departure, he was not the main event of the day in the United States—and perhaps not even in Israel. Biden’s Oval Office address explaining his reasons for not seeking a second term was the history-making address of the day, not Netanyahu’s. As for his official meetings in Washington, Netanyahu has been forced to thread a delicate needle between maintaining a functional relationship with an outgoing president and establishing a rapport with a possible new one, all while pandering to get back into the good graces of a former one.
Whether or not Netanyahu succeeds may well be beside the point. His strategy is to buy time. This weekend, the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, goes into summer recess, returning after the Jewish holidays toward the end of October. If Netanyahu were inclined to agree to a cease-fire deal, then would be the time to do it. A Knesset recess insulates Netanyahu from a vote of no confidence by coalition partners Itamar Ben-Gvir or Bezalel Smotrich, both of whom have threatened to bolt Netanyahu’s coalition if there is a deal. Netanyahu may try to extract as many hostages as possible in phase one of the deal (during a six-week cease-fire) and would then have the option—based on the all-too-likely assumption that Hamas would break the accord—to restart the war to keep his right-wing partners in the coalition. The goal would be for Netanyahu to close ranks and keep his slim parliamentary majority intact while the United States is preoccupied with the presidential campaign and its own elections.
Ambitious? Certainly but not out of the question. As long as Netanyahu can hold his coalition through the Knesset recess, the earliest call for any new elections would be in early 2025—conveniently aligning the Israeli and U.S. political calendars. Indeed, Netanyahu would then be in a position to adjust his strategy and tactics based on who the next U.S. president is.
Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former U.S. State Department Middle East analyst and negotiator in Republican and Democratic administrations; he is the author of The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President
Adam Israelevitz, a junior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
