The United States stands with Israel in “its duty and responsibility” to defeat Hamas, President Joe Biden’s administration publicly emphasizes. But while he outwardly expresses his support for Israel and blames the radical Palestinian militia for the hostage exchange failure, behind the scenes he is urging his ally to change tactics in his war in Gaza. The second phase of the offensive in southern Gaza, Washington insists, must include much greater protection for an even more concentrated civilian population in a smaller area.
The return to hostilities, and in particular the way Israel behaves therein, represents a crucial test for the United States. The White House, with Biden himself at the helm, insists that the strategy pursued since the outbreak of the crisis , “embracing” Israel is the right thing to do and will allow him to influence the behavior of this government. It points, among other things, to the arrival of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip or to the seven-day ceasefire, which Netanyahu had initially completely ruled out.
It is a position in which it is not alone: in the prism of the European Union, which maintains that Israel has the right to defend itself but respects international law, there are member states such as Spain, Belgium, Ireland or Luxembourg, much more critical to the violations of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. And others, such as the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany – with certain nuances – and Hungary, which support Israel almost without breaks and have led the opposition in the community club to a common demand for a permanent humanitarian ceasefire.
But Israel’s resumption of bombing since Friday and Israel’s withdrawal of its negotiators in Qatar call into question the extent to which Washington can control its ally.
Nathan Sachs, director of the Middle East Center at the Brookings think tank, points out via videoconference: “The pressure is really to have a plan of what to do.” [Israel] want to do”. And he adds: “Israel has partially achieved its objectives in the northern Gaza Strip; The question now is the South, where there are a large number of people: not only its residents, but also refugees from the North, and what will happen now? 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are now concentrated in the south after bombings in the north forced most residents there to flee.
During and before the seven-day ceasefire, US authorities insisted that they would support an Israeli military offensive in southern Gaza only if it was accompanied by measures to protect civilians and prevent new massive population displacements, rather than attacks on basic infrastructure, including hospitals. The Biden administration appears unwilling to let the second phase of fighting reach the level of death and destruction that the first phase left in its wake in the north. According to Gaza’s health ministry, which the UN considers credible, more than 15,000 Palestinians, including many children, have died in Israeli bombings.
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It’s a message that Biden himself already conveyed directly to Netanyahu in his most recent conversation last weekend, and that Secretary of State Antony Blinken repeated to the War Cabinet during his whirlwind trip to the Middle East this week. Israeli on Thursday. “We discussed the details of Israeli planning and I emphasized that it is critical for the United States to ensure that the massive loss of civilian life and displacement in the south is not repeated.” [forzosos] at the level we saw in northern Gaza,” the foreign minister stressed in statements after that meeting.
Among other things, Washington has called on Israel to reduce the size of the combat zone and tell Palestinian civilians where they can seek refuge from fire in the southern area. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby noted this week that U.S. military advisers had briefed Israeli commanders on the experiences of U.S. soldiers in urban combat in places like Fallujah and Mosul during the war in Iraq, so that the allied country’s forces would not the same errors would be made.
“Israel has one of the most modern armies in the world. “It is capable of neutralizing the threat posed by Hamas while minimizing harm to innocent men, women and children,” Blinken said at a news conference in Tel Aviv after his meeting with Israel’s War Cabinet.
In addition, the USA is trying to plan possible ways out of the conflict together with Israel and the Arab states. A perspective that I wanted to improve through the ceasefire and that now seems more complicated than ever. Washington favors a two-state solution negotiated between Israel and a revived Palestinian Authority; something that contradicts the wishes of Netanyahu’s right-wing government.
“Israel refuses to discuss in detail what will happen after the conflict,” explains Itamar Rabinovich, former Israeli negotiator with Syria and former ambassador to Washington, current Brookings analyst, also in a video conference. But “the only viable solution is for the Palestinian Authority to return to Gaza, from which Hamas expelled it in 2007. This is an anathema to the Israeli right.”
According to Steven Cook of the Council for Foreign Relations in a conversation with journalists, “The outcome, if there is one, will likely be a temporary occupation of Gaza. The Israelis have made it clear that they want to establish a security regime there.”
A group of Palestinians take to the streets after the Israeli bombing of the Hamad housing complex in Khan Yunis, Gaza, December 2. AHMED ZAKOT (Portal)
On the ground, NGOs and civilians report that the bombing has resumed with greater intensity than before. The number of deaths since the ceasefire collapsed is already in the hundreds. At the same time, the United States continues to supply weapons to its allied country. According to the Wall Street Journal, these shipments in the past two months included 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells, including a hundred large bombs designed to destroy bunkers, each weighing a ton.
A return to the tactics of the first phase of the war would put the United States in a complicated situation. In addition to criticism from abroad, particularly from Arab countries, over its proximity to Israel, the government must contend with calls from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and some unions for a permanent ceasefire.
The Muslim and Arab American community, small but important in key states like Virginia and Michigan and which largely supported Biden in 2020, is threatening to abstain from next year’s presidential election, which could have serious consequences for Democrats. Even within the government, there are disagreements – manifesting themselves in meetings and open letters of protest – over the wisdom of seemingly giving the Netanyahu government a blank check.
Even American public opinion appears to be weakening the unconditional support for Israel that it expressed after the October 7 Hamas attacks in which 1,200 Israeli citizens died. A Gallup poll shows that 50% – including 71% of Republican voters – support the Israel Defense Forces offensive, while 45% oppose it. Six out of ten Democrats say they oppose this military campaign.
This position is also maintained in the European countries that support Israel, although the breach of the ceasefire has led to this support becoming quieter. Meanwhile, the tone towards Netanyahu has hardened among some of his partners, for example in France. Citizen mobilization has also increased in view of the unbearable images from the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s strongest support within the EU ensures that the Community Club and several member states with good relations with Israel have spoken to Netanyahu to curb attacks on Gaza. In response to the concerns, Israel has responded by concentrating its attacks as much as possible. But as the weeks pass and the Gaza Strip finds itself once again in a critical situation, the Gaza massacre has once again exposed a division in the EU that is unlikely to disappear at a time when Brussels begins to discuss the day after to speak conflict.
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