By Arshad Mohammed, Matt Spetalnick and Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an ultimatum on Thursday: protect Palestinian civilians and foreign aid workers in Gaza or Washington could curb support for Israel in its war against Hamas militants.
The message, after months of US calls for Israel to change its military tactics that have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, follows an Israeli attack that killed seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid workers and sparked violence. global outrage.
Israel admits the attack was a mistake.
The White House has not said exactly what steps it would like Netanyahu to take, nor what it would do if he didn’t take them. But analysts say the implicit threat was to slow U.S. arms transfers to Israel or moderate American support for the United Nations
“This is as close to a ‘come to Jesus’ moment as we can get,” said analyst Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, referring to Biden’s comment last month that he and Netanyahu were headed toward a point turning point of the genre.
Dennis Ross, a veteran US diplomat now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said: “The president is, in effect, saying meet these humanitarian needs or I will have no choice but to condition (military) assistance “.
Biden, up for re-election in November, has struggled to balance pressure from progressive Democrats, dismayed by the Palestinian civilian death toll, to rein in Netanyahu with the risk that he could alienate most pro-Israel independent voters. He has so far refused to place conditions on arms transfers.
The war began after Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli counts, prompting an Israeli invasion that devastated much of the densely populated territory and forced most of its people to flee. 2.3 million people.
According to the Ministry of Health, more than 33,000 Palestinians have died in Hamas-ruled Gaza, most of whom were women and children. Israel accuses Hamas of using civilians as human shields.
Describing their call, the White House said Biden asked Israel “to announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers.
“He made clear that U.S. policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel’s immediate action on these steps,” the White House added in a statement.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was more blunt.
“Look, I’ll just say this: If we don’t see the changes we need, there will be changes in our politics.”
On Thursday evening, a few hours after the appeal, the Israeli government announced several measures to increase aid flows to Gaza, including opening the port of Ashdod and the Erez crossing in northern Gaza and increasing deliveries of aid from Jordan. It was unclear whether the steps would be sufficient to meet U.S. demands.
TURNING POINT
The turning point for Biden, an ardent supporter of Israel, was Monday’s deadly Israeli attack on workers at celebrity chef Jose Andres’ WCK charity group.
This came as the Biden administration was ramping up pressure on Israel to consider alternatives to a threatened ground offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, the last relatively safe haven for civilians in the coastal enclave.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source close to the talks said the 30-minute phone call was tense at times, with Biden voicing his concerns and Netanyahu defending his approach on Gaza.
A senior White House official described the conversation as “very direct, very simple,” saying it included Vice President Kamala Harris, national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Blinken.
As for what the US expects, the official said: “We need a comprehensive plan for them to do a much better job here. They can’t kill aid workers and civilians.”
While Biden has long avoided reducing US support for Israel, he may finally have reached his limit.
“There was always going to be a point where the Biden administration felt that the domestic and international cost of supporting the Israeli campaign in Gaza outweighed the benefits of what Israel was able to achieve on the ground,” said Mike Singh, former National Security official. Middle East Council Official.
“What is remarkable is not that this is happening, but that it has taken so long.”
Singh, now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that if Israel did not meet Biden’s conditions, the most likely step would be for the United States to negotiate a U.N. Security Council resolution like the one that ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah conflict.
“Imposing conditions on arms transfers is more politically complicated, would likely face stiff opposition on Capitol Hill, and could leave Israel vulnerable to attacks by Hezbollah or other Iranian proxies,” he added.
However, Biden may have telegraphed his thinking last month when, after saying an invasion of Rafah would be a “red line,” he said he would never cut “all the weapons so we don’t have the Iron Dome (missile defense system) to protect them.”
He has not explicitly made such assurances about offensive weapons, fueling speculation that he could impose conditions on such arms transfers to Israel, which relies heavily on US weapons.
Jonathan Panikoff, a former deputy national intelligence officer in the Middle East, said Biden was unlikely to take drastic actions to reverse U.S.-Israel ties, such as withholding high-value weapons or abandoning Israel entirely at the United Nations.
But it could place conditions on smaller military assets and take further measures against extremist Jewish settlers involved in attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
“Biden’s frustration with the way the war is being waged, and with Prime Minister Netanyahu himself, has reached a fever pitch,” Panikoff said.