Josh Marshall in a Back Channel report from March 11, 2024 is looking at information coming out of Israel:
I find it very hard to make sense of what the likely outcomes are. But I wanted to point your attention to a series of developments in the Biden-Netanyahu relationship and the U.S.-Israel relationship that could escalate dramatically very soon. First there’s this article in Haartez which says the U.S. might suspend the sale of offensive weaponry to Israel by later this month. (Unfortunately the piece is paywalled.) The tripwire is a national security memorandum Biden signed last month which gives Israel until March 25th to provide the U.S. with written assurances that weapons sales from the U.S. will only be used in accord with international law and that it will pledge to facilitate and not obstruct aid deliveries into Gaza.
emphasis added
I haven’t seen anything about this elsewhere, until a report in The NY Times this morning:
Barack Obama drew one for Syria. George W. Bush drew several, for North Korea and Iran. Now President Biden has drawn one for Israel. The hard part is figuring out what to do when they are crossed.
The main thrust of The NY Times article by David E. Sanger is that U.S. Presidents don’t fare well when they try to set red lines. Marshall is more nuanced. (Full access link.)
...Biden had alrady upped the ante in his SOTU speech, in his hot mic comments after the speech and then further in his interview with Capehart. The key line that got Netanyahu’s attention was Biden saying that Netanyahu is now hurting rather than protecting Israel. This is part of a broader White House messaging tactic, trying to distinguish between its support for Israel, which it says is ironclad, versus Netanyahu, which is fading. That’s a message with domestic and international audiences. It’s also directed to an audience in Israel. Poll after poll has made clear that Netanyahu’s political standing has never recovered from the shattering impact of October 7th. He hasn’t necessarily gotten less popular recently. But the reluctance to hold major public protests against him has disappeared. He’s able to remain in power by a brittle but still holding consensus that the country can’t go to elections in wartime. Biden’s message is that Netanyahu’s continuance in office is hurting Israel’s security.
...Netanyahu has pushed Biden to the breaking point over the last few months. It’s not only the war itself, or perhaps not even primarily that. He has absolutely rejected all of the U.S.’s post-war planning proposals and been at best passive and indifferent to the humanitarian situation in Gaza. All together these have put Biden in a tough position domestically and internationally. Netanyahu has taken everything Biden has given, which is a ton, and stiffed him on almost everything. So over and above the policy imperatives, Biden has a lot of interest in some level of breach with Netanyahu. He almost needs it.
Netanyahu said over the weekend that he’s going to break through Biden’s red line in Rafah. But an actual look at the situation on the ground suggests that’s not happening.
Read the whole thing.
There’s no question the Gaza situation and Biden’s support for Israel despite what Netanyahu has been doing is hurting Biden with groups in key swing states and among other elements of the Democratic base. There’s the risk of alienating the pro-Israel groups within the base if he does. There’s also the problems for Netanyahu among Israeli voters. International condemnation is not good either.
Is Biden going to cut off arms shipments to Israel? Is Netanyahu going to blink?
A lot of people have attacked Biden for pulling out of Afghanistan, as the agreement Trump set up demanded. Chaos ensued — yet, there does not seem to be a consensus that the U.S. should have stayed. It was a tough call but there was never going to be an easy exit out of the quagmire. Biden got it done after years of kicking the can down the road.
Biden has shown he is willing to take hard actions and deal with the consequences. Netanyahu should keep that in mind.
UPDATE: 3-12-24 10:20pm ET
David Corn writing at Our Land commented on something relevant to the situation. Remember the Abraham Accords and Jared Kushner?
...This past week, the Anti-Defamation League, the leading crusader against antisemitism in the United States, bestowed an award upon Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of Donald Trump.
The ADL honored Kushner for his work as a Trump White House official negotiating the so-called Abraham Accords that normalized relations between Israel and both the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain—and set the stage for a similar deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia (which was placed on hold following October 7). This diplomatic achievement was fine. Under the agreement, Israel could engage in commerce, tourism, and cultural exchanges with these Arab states. Trump, Kushner, and their pals hailed the accords as a breakthrough that would bring peace to the region. But these pacts left out a key element: the Palestinians. The accords did not mention them and included nothing to address the fundamental source of conflict in the region: the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian standoff. (Naturally, Palestinians across the Mideast protested the accords.) In overselling these deals, Trump and Kushner ignored the problem at the heart of the never-ending crisis. That did not help.
emphasis added
However badly Palestinians have been treated at the hands of Israel, it should not be forgotten that the other Arab states in the region have not exactly opened their borders to them. That also contributes to the instability in the region. Corn goes on to document the extensive history of antisemitism by Kushner’s father-in-law, Donald Trump. (He links to a Washington Post partial compilation.) By giving Kushner the award, they’ve effectively given Trump a pass on it.
The actions by the Netanyahu government, it should be noted, are also dividing the Jewish community. As Corn notes, other actions by Jonathan Greenblatt, the Anti-Defamation League’s CEO, are tangling the arguments over what is antisemitism and what is anti-Zionism, and it’s not just about giving Kushner the award.
...In the post-10/7 stretch, Greenblatt has spurred questions about whether the ADL has strayed from its core mission, as he has slammed media coverage of Israel’s bombing of Gaza and pushed the noxious notion that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. This has caused some staffers and others to complain the nonprofit was undermining its counter-extremism work. And in November, Greenblatt oddly praised billionaire alt-right bad-boy Elon Musk for his supposed “leadership in fighting hate”—after Musk’s own brushes with antisemitism. (Greenblatt apparently did so because Musk said the “from the river to the sea” slogan used by advocates for Palestinians implied “genocide.”) This all makes it seem that Greenblatt is equating defense of Israel with combatting antisemitism.
Whatever is happening within the ADL, hailing Kushner—as Trump runs for reelection on an amped-up agenda of bigotry and extremism—sends the wrong signal. When a leading Jewish organization embraces a top adviser of a racist demagogue who has winked at antisemitic conspiracy theories and promoted illiberalism, division, and prejudice, that is bad for the Jews.
It’s difficult to see any clear path through this minefield — for anyone.
David Corn is well worth reading. As with so many other independent news media efforts, Corn reports they really need paying subscribers. As Atrios remarked, “Information wants to be free — but the rent wants to be paid.” You can subscribe to David Corn’s newsletter Our Land here.