The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza distances Biden even further from Netanyahu

“A good speech” that raised “concerns” of “many Americans.”

President Joe Biden thus praised the devastating words of the Democratic leader in the US Senate, Chuck Schumer, with which this week he had called for new elections in Israel and had described the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as an “obstacle to peace.” ”.

The praise represents the latest indication, in a list that grows by the day, of the drastic deterioration of a relationship between both leaders that, if in October it united them in a hug in Tel Aviv, now seems on the verge of breaking after five months of war in the Gaza strip.

After the attacks by the radical Palestinian militia Hamas on October 7 in Israeli territory, which left more than 1,200 dead, Biden aligned himself side by side with Israel even when Palestinian civilian victims began to number in the thousands in the Strip.

The American president, who maintains a decades-long relationship with the allied country and its leaders, has sometimes declared himself a “Zionist.”

In part, that support was a matter of political tradition and necessity: American public opinion is overwhelmingly pro-Israel, and the Republican Party is willing to take advantage of any gap opened by the Democrats to gather votes among that powerful electoral bloc.

But, above all, it was a matter of conviction, very deep since he visited the country in the seventies.

But now "something is changing in the US Administration," concluded a senior European official during the visit this week of the EU's high representative for foreign policy, Josep Borrell, to Washington.

Biden and the Democratic Party remain married to the allied country — “I will never abandon Israel,” the president promised a week ago — but they do not hide their desire to divorce the prime minister.

Netanyahu and Biden have not spoken directly for a month.

The unrest has been accentuated as the deterioration of the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Strip has worsened, where more than 31,000 Palestinians have died due to Israeli bombings, there is a lack of water and medicine and famine looms over 2.3 million of inhabitants, while talks for a temporary pause in the fighting remain stalled.

“There are no excuses” to continue blocking the entry of humanitarian aid, the president warned two weeks ago.

The distance has also grown as discontent has skyrocketed among the Democratic bases: 62% of these voters believe that the Israeli offensive in Gaza has gone too far, and just over half criticize Biden's management of the conflict. , according to a survey for the AP agency in January.

Dozens of the party's parliamentarians support a permanent ceasefire, but the White House is limited to supporting a temporary truce.

A campaign launched by progressive groups and the Arab-American community, which calls for punishing the president with the equivalent of a blank vote in the Democratic primaries, targeted more than 100,000 ballots at the end of February, 13.2% of the total cast. in the State of Michigan, where Biden defeated Donald Trump in 2020 by just 150,000 votes.

After Michigan, the initiative has also scored significant percentages of votes in half a dozen other states, from Massachusetts to Washington on the west coast, in a warning to the White House that its pro-Israeli positions could cost it key hinge states and with them, the presidential elections next November.

This Thursday, representatives of the Arab American community refused to participate in a meeting in Chicago with Biden's advisors.

In just two weeks, the gestures of discontent from the Democratic Administration towards the Israeli Government have multiplied.

Vice President Kamala Harris received Benny Gantz, Netanyahu's political rival, at the White House, accentuating the difference in treatment with the prime minister.

Faced with Israeli obstacles to allowing the entry of humanitarian aid by land, reduced to a mere trickle, the White House announced the launch of packages from the air and the construction of a temporary port.

In a comment captured by an open microphone, Biden promised a full-on conversation with Netanyahu about the war;

In an interview, she warned that the prime minister “harms Israel more than he helps.”

Schumer's speech, and Biden's approval of him, has been the icing on that cake.

The senator is the highest-ranking Jew in the American political hierarchy and a pro-Israel hawk whom no one can call anti-Semitic.

His comments open the door for other democrats to openly criticize the Israeli prime minister and his government.

“Israel is not a banana republic”

In Israel, such criticism has stung.

“Israel is not a banana republic,” declared Netanyahu's Likud party after Schumer's speech.

The prime minister, and extremist members of his coalition, insist that, despite pressure from the United States in this regard, they are not going to give in on issues such as allowing the Palestinian Authority to govern the Strip after the war, or the establishment of a Palestinian state.

If Biden warned him that an offensive against the city of Rafah would be a “red line,” Netanyahu responded that his “red line” is “not to repeat another October 7.”

But, despite the anger, there are limits that Biden does not seem willing to cross.

Unlike Schumer, he has not called for new elections in Israel.

The president has ruled out playing his key asset, the suspension of military aid to his partner - to which Washington allocates 3.8 billion dollars annually and for which it has asked Congress for an extraordinary allocation of another 14 billion -, despite the fact that legislators members of his party have urged him to freeze or condition it.

A dozen Democratic senators are drafting an amendment requiring that US weapons received by any country be used “in accordance with US law,” which requires limiting collateral damage to civilians.

“If the United States does not use its levers to condition military aid, it appears that the US Congress is giving Israel a blank check while undermining important US policies, such as efforts to reduce harm to civilians.

“That is going to have an impact on the strategic interests of the United States in other conflicts in the future, not just this one,” warned this week Michelle Strucke, former deputy assistant secretary of Defense and director of the Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Human Rights Studies. International Strategic Organizations (CSIS), in an event organized by this

think tank

.

But imposing conditions on military aid to Israel would spell trouble for the president.

The Democratic Administration does not want to create loopholes that the Republican Party can take advantage of to present itself as the great unconditional friend of the Jewish State: immediately after Schumer's speech, opposition legislators launched a shower of criticism.

And the president does not want to leave Israel unprotected against possible threats from other fronts, including Hezbollah attacks from Lebanon.

“All things considered, the United States and Israel are unlikely to abandon their broader regional security strategies, despite their recent divergences,” Brian Katulis of the Middle East Institute in Washington says in a commentary.

It is something that does not seem to be going to please the Democratic bases.

In statements to the MSNBC television network, Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, the city with the largest proportion of Arab population in the United States, was skeptical about Schumer's speech and the changes in Biden's position: “ “Words are not enough, what we want is a real change in policies.”

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