Israel, the spoiled nation

Israel asks and the United States gives. All of it. Since the war began, the flow of weapons — including precision missiles and bunker buster bombs — has not ceased, going through congressional control only on two occasions. That is in stark contrast with the freezing of aid to Ukraine thanks to a Republican blockade in Congress that the White House is barely able to evade. There is only one thing Netanyahu doesn’t ask for or want: advice. When he receives it, he ignores it. And even more so if this advice is formulated in public, as Europeans usually do.

There are many forms of leverage that Washington could use to subdue such a surly prime minister, but it chooses not to use any of them. Let us imagine for a moment that it stops sending weapons, renounces its veto in the Security Council, withdraws the air and maritime forces that are preventing escalation in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean and monitoring Syria, Iraq and Iran; and that it even increases the punishment against settlers who terrorize Palestinians in the West Bank and the politicians who represent them in Netanyahu’s government and in the Knesset. None of these tools has been used by Biden to moderate an unfriendly government that is extremist and hostile to his presidency, and willing to facilitate Trump’s campaign so that the recommendations of compassion and common sense are replaced by applause for the permanent occupation of Gaza, the expulsion of its inhabitants and the establishment of new Jewish colonies in Palestinian territory.

The last U.S. message is no longer advice but a red line; that is, an order from Biden that Netanyahu does not intend to follow. It is about Rafah, which Israel will only be authorized to invade if it has a credible plan to protect the population. The patience of the White House seems infinite: since Israel does not have a plan, let’s create it with the launch of humanitarian aid by parachute or through a maritime corridor organized by our allies. It is a slow and insufficient initiative and also tragically contradictory in light of the bombs being supplied by the United States, which fall along with the flour, the canned food and the medicines.

Netanyahu has also drawn his own red line, which challenges Biden’s. It is the entry into Rafah without conditions, essential for the destruction of Hamas. He calls it a total victory, but what it really represents is his own political survival and his judicial lifeline. He admits a pause before attacking, but not the six-week truce that Washington wants and even less the definitive one that Hamas is asking for. That would be a personal defeat for him, even if disguised as Israel’s defeat.

Despite the neglected advice on Rafah, Biden has insisted on reaffirming the dogma on Israel’s security as a state policy for Washington, as if it were possible to blow and sip at the same time. There are those who choose to view such a paradoxical warning as a surreptitious threat to limit military aid strictly to weapons of self-defense and not to kill Palestinians. It would be the first and most decisive step to convince Netanyahu, but it is hard to believe that such a weak father can win this fight against such a spoiled son.

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