Biden Sidelined as Israel Reshapes Middle East
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
WASHINGTON—As Israel prepares a retaliatory strike against Iran, the Biden administration increasingly resembles a spectator, with limited insight into what its closest Middle East ally is planning—and lessened influence over its decisions.
White House officials say they have been coordinating closely with their Israeli counterparts and are hopeful Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will limit a likely attack against Iran in response to a barrage of missiles Tehran fired at Israel on Tuesday.
Israel’s air defenses were able to parry the Iranian attack, which caused only minor damage to one of its air bases. Israeli officials have conveyed that they don’t feel the need to retaliate immediately or in a massive way, according to White House officials.
U.S. and Israeli officials have been discussing potential targets, including Iran’s oil facilities. President Biden said on Wednesday that he opposed any strikes on Tehran’s nuclear facilities, but on Thursday left open the possibility that he would support an Israeli attack on the oil infrastructure, remarks that sent oil markets surging.
But Israel has not yet made a final decision about what its response will look like—and the White House has been blindsided repeatedly by Israel’s decisions in recent weeks.
Netanyahu ordered the airstrike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah from a New York hotel room, even as Biden administration officials scrambled at the United Nations a few blocks away to avert a widening Middle East war last week.
The decision to approve the Sept. 27 strike from U.S. soil without alerting the White House beforehand—and later to make public a photo of himself issuing the order—underscored the growing divergence between Netanyahu’s government and the White House.
In the short term, Israel’s unilateral decision-making about striking Iran risks embroiling the Biden administration in another unpopular regional conflict. In the longer term, it could be another flashpoint for critics who say the U.S. gives Israel too much leeway, not using its leverage to rein in its ally.
Earlier in September, White House envoy Amos Hochstein met with Israeli officials in the Israeli military’s Tel Aviv bunker to urge them not to launch a large-scale operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon. He implored them to give efforts to broker an agreement that would push Hezbollah back from Israel’s northern border a chance.
Hours after Hochstein’s meeting with Netanyahu, hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah militants exploded across Lebanon in an unprecedented attack that killed dozens of people, including children, and wounded thousands more. The following day, bombs in walkie-talkies set off a second wave of explosions.
A barrage of Israeli airstrikes followed, killing more than 500 people in the deadliest day in Lebanon in nearly two decades.
U.S. officials said they didn’t have advanced knowledge of the pager operation, and tried to distance themselves from the attack. It escalated the limited border strikes that Israel and Hezbollah have been waging for almost a year to a more perilous level.
With the presidential election just over a month away, Biden and his team frequently find themselves looking like bystanders, unwilling or unable to rein in an ally they continue to back politically and provide with critical military support.
Since the start of the Gaza war nearly a year ago, Biden has repeatedly called the U.S.-Israel bond unbreakable. But his nearly 50-year relationship with Netanyahu has steadily deteriorated, cleaved by their clashing political agendas and conflicting war aims. Biden hasn’t spoken to Netanyahu since Aug. 21.
“Biden and Netanyahu have taken each other’s measure, and Netanyahu seems to consistently judge that he has more space than Biden thinks he does,” said Jon Alterman, director of Middle East programs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The U.S. “seems to be treated by the Israeli leadership as either a nag or a back-seat driver who doesn’t understand the requirements at the moment.”
U.S. attempts to rein in Israel in Gaza yielded only limited results, analysts say. In Lebanon, Netanyahu has appeared even less constrained. White House officials aren’t unhappy at the blows Israel has delivered to Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terror group. Nor are they eager a month before the U.S. presidential election to be seen as reining in an attack on Tehran.
For almost a year, senior Biden officials have shuttled across the region to prevent Israel’s war against Hamas from spiraling into a broader conflict. U.S. officials cited incremental progress—an agreement to allow some humanitarian assistance into Gaza, the withdrawal of some Israeli troops from the strip—as evidence that the Israelis were willing to listen to its warnings about the danger of a regional war.
But as Israel seized the chance to dismantle Hezbollah in an attempt to end the group’s attacks on its northern border and allow tens of thousands of displaced Israelis to return home, Netanyahu has repeatedly disregarded U.S. calls for restraint.
Driving the shift in the U.S.-Israel relationship is the transformation in Israel, traumatized by the Hamas terrorist attack and led by a prime minister bent on shoring up his support among Israelis who favor aggressive military moves to deliver lasting defeats to adversaries.
“Oct. 7 changed everything,” says David Schenker, who served as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs during the Trump administration. “We are dealing with a new Israel that is going to relentlessly pursue its security objectives with less regard for U.S. sensitivities.”
At the same time, the political landscape in the U.S. has also changed. Netanyahu, a keen observer of U.S. politics, knows that Biden officials are hamstrung by the coming presidential election.
“You’re not going to find an American negotiator, weeks before one of the most consequential elections in modern American history, pushing and pressing the Israelis, particularly on a front that involves Iran,” says Aaron David Miller, a former State Department Middle East official.
U.S. officials have worked for months to head off an escalation of the Israel-Hezbollah fighting in Lebanon, fearing it could draw in Iran and force the U.S. to become more deeply involved militarily.
As Israeli airstrikes pounded Lebanon last month, American and French diplomats in New York for the annual U.N. General Assembly raced to find a way to stop the violence.
Israeli officials backed a statement from the U.S., France and other countries calling for a 21-day cease-fire to allow negotiations between Israel and Hezbollah, according to U.S. officials. But Netanyahu backed out of the U.S.-brokered cease-fire plan after the opportunity arose to target Nasrallah, with his office declaring in a Sept. 26 statement that he had directed Israeli forces to “continue fighting with full force.”
Israel had been “fully informed and fully aware of every word” in the cease-fire proposal, an exasperated White House spokesman told reporters. After the airstrike that killed Nasrallah on Friday in Beirut, U.S. officials said Israel had only informed them of the imminent attack when the planes were in the air.
Top Biden officials quickly adjusted, saying afterward that they welcomed Nasrallah’s death. As Israel began preparing to send ground troops across the Lebanese border, the administration said it was confident that the incursion would be limited.
“I’m comfortable with them stopping,” Biden said when asked Monday if he was aware that Israel looked set to launch a limited ground invasion into Lebanon.
Hours later, Israeli armored tanks rolled across Lebanon’s southern border, as the Israel Defense Forces began what it called “limited” and “localized” raids to dislodge positions held by Hezbollah militants. On Thursday, Israeli forces were pressing deeper into Lebanon.
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While Biden dithered, Netanyahu began taking out Israel's enemies and has reshaped not only the middle east but his own standing as Prime Minister.
Since when does a country, protecting itself, have to vet all it's operations through the US and a clueless clown like Biden?
JFK said something about never negotiating out of fear.
Netanyahu has been the leader of the free world the last year.
God help us.
Biden is what you get when you vote against America.
Trump will have a lot of work to do this time.
Isn't that the Temu version?
He has done a far better job than the "leader" of the United States.
Gaza? What Gaza? And just like that, a year long political problem disappears. Palestinian protests on college campuses, Blinken blank check diplomacy, and the marvelous, magic two state solution have been wiped off the news cycle. Poof politics at its best.
Too bad Benjamin Netanyahu can't run for President. We need a leader in these uncertain times. Oorah.
Without the explicit backing of the United States , mostly through the might of our military, Israel might not exist as we know it today. The threat of unleashing the fury of American firepower has tampered Arab inclinations against Israel ever since 1948.
It is hubris for Netanyahu to act as if he doesnt need America anymore. I hope he doesnt get a lot of people killed.
Israel has always fought its own wars. Netanyahu is fighting to win.
Joe Biden is playing politics
With American supplied equipment and technologies.
US warships assisted Israel in shooting down Iranian rockets just days ago.
Hezbollah has enough missiles and rockets to overwhelm the Iron Dome defense system , potentially causing catastrophic damage and death within Israel.
Are they restrained from that by fear of the Israeli air force or fear of America annihilating them on Israel's behalf?
Biden put a pause on weapons for Israel if you recall. The House even passed a bill which would prevent Biden from withholding, halting, reversing or canceling weapons transfers that have been approved by Congress from the United States to Israel, and requires any that have been withheld to be delivered to Israel within 15 days of the bill’s enactment. Schumer, A JEWISH AMERICAN, wouldn't take up that bill in the Senate.
About 50% of the rocket force has been taken out by Israel already.
Are they restrained from that by fear of the Israeli air force or fear of America annihilating them on Israel's behalf?
Nobody fears Joe Biden. He is weak & feeble and beyond that he caters to the left wing of the democrat party.
Trump had Iran so broke it couldn't fund Hezbollah or Hamas. Biden still coddles Iran.
Specific long range munitions. The US is still the largest supplier of Israeli arms.
That's right, to protect Rafah, the last bastion of Hamas.
What types of weapons does Hezbollah still have?
Hezbollah has an arsenal of more than 150,000 rockets and missiles as well as surveillance and explosive drones of different types.
Over the past year, Hezbollah has used a small type of guided missile known as Almas, or Diamond, as well as short-range Falaq and Burkan rockets from areas several kilometers (miles) from the border. Over the past week, Hezbollah introduced the middle-range Fadi rockets, attacking the outskirts of Tel Aviv and the northern city of Haifa.
Hezbollah has yet to use all the weapons it is believed to possess, including its precision-guided missiles and surface-to-sea missiles such as the Russian-made Yakhont.
Israeli officials say its bombardment of large swaths of Lebanon over the past week aimed to take out Hezbollah’s supplies of weapons . However, since the escalation began, Hezbollah has continued to launch attacks across the border and even unveiled new types of weapons.
On Tuesday, Hezbollah said it fired middle-range Fadi-4 rockets toward the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. Hours later, the group said it fired similar rockets toward an air base in a Tel Aviv suburb. The group has used surface-to-air missiles and shot down or chased off Israeli drones on several occasions — including in the past week.
Most of the incoming fire has either been intercepted or landed in open areas. But Israeli military officials warn that the country’s air defenses are not hermetic.
What to know about Hezbollah's capabilities after its recent losses | AP News
You do know that Hezbollah's command & communication structure has been destroyed?
Their weapons stockpiles are now being hit.
They can't even launch a counterattack.
I'm afraid the big bogeyman is dying.
To protect civilians after the IDF was dropping arial bombs on crowds. Since neither side wants peace I don't give a shit about who wins the desert sandbox death-a-thon 2024, but it's incorrect that Biden is absent and/or blocking weapons to Israel. Biden ordered a second ship into the gulf prior to Iran's last bombardment this week. Current policy joins the US and Israel at the hip.
Hamas surrounds itself with civilians. They put command centers under hospitals and schools.
Who is to blame for the civilian deaths?
What Biden should have done was hold Iran responsible for the actions of its proxies.
Blame is shared by those that put civilians in harms way (Hamas) and those that indiscriminately use large munitions to take out small targets (Israel).
So you're for an all out war with Iran and its allies?
Everyone.
All leaders are pretty much ignoring Joe until it comes time for one of them to find him and bring him back for the group photos. No one is afraid of his leading from behind or whisper softly and carry a small twig strategy.
Yeah, we know Europe won't do a damned thing. Europe only begs from the United States. Without explicit backing by US taxpayers, the whole of western civilization would collapse.
Maybe its time to focus more attention on Central and South America and let Europe take care of itself. The western hemisphere has enough resources to be self sufficient. The rest of the world wants to migrate to our hemisphere anyway.
I'd say he's doing just fine without the US.
So Israel won't need Biden's Iron Dome anymore?
The idea of the "Iron Dome" began in 2004. Back when Biden still had a functioning brain.
Has anyone noticed that the Arab world is not threatening Israel? The Arabs are standing back and letting Israel do its thing. And Netanyahu and Israel have been careful to avoid pissing off the Arabs.
In spite of Biden peeing down his legs, the Middle East doesn't seem to be on the brink of exploding. Apparently the Abraham Accords are the real deal. IMO the US recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel had a little to do with that, too. Arabs seem to have accepted coexistence with Israel.
Iran stands alone in this fight. Saudi Arabia certainly won't rush to Iran's aid. Russia is tied up in Ukraine, Iraq doesn't matter any longer, Turkey sees the writing on the wall, Afghanistan is tired of fighting, and Pakistan doesn't care. China, as usual, will sit it out until Iran implodes and can be picked off on the cheap.