President Joe Biden came alive when he saw the Israeli journalists enter the Oval Office. "I warned the Israeli press about how you guys come in with your boom mics," he joked about the giant microphones that almost reached his and President Isaac Herzog's heads when the two met last week. Biden sat down slowly on his chair and spoke so weakly that there was no choice but to bring the microphones up close.
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"I'll say this 5,000 times in my career — the ironclad commitment the United States has to Israel [is] based on our principles, our ideas, our values. They're the same values," the president said, sparing Herzog the well-known sotry of him meeting with Golda Meir on the eve of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
Biden loves Israel, his heart is with us; his reasoning and politics are with the Palestinians. That's how things are with his generation in the United States. But with his people, it is the opposite; their hearts are full of compassion for the Palestinians living under "occupation;" their reasoning tells them they cannot turn their backs on Israel.
But neither Biden nor his people raised any reservations about the right-wing government Netanyahu could put together (they met before Tuesday's elections). The name Itamar Ben-Gvir wasn't mentioned either. In addition to Biden, Herzog also met with the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (whose husband was attacked in their home in San Francisco a few days later), Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, as well as other senior officials.
Even though the possibility that Ben-Gvir would be part of a Netanyahu government was known to all of them they didn't see fit to raise the subject. Blinken was the only one to talk indirectly about the elections in Israel, although he didn't mention any names. In any event, Herzog spoke of the importance of respecting the results, whatever they may be.
Anybody that says that the Americans will clash with Israel because of Ben-Gvir – something that several journalists have done this week – is spreading fake news to poison ties between the countries. The method is familiar.
What will happen? The Americans are likely to express their reservations about the Otzma Yehudit chairman. But even if he is boycotted by the administration, he wouldn't be the first. In 2019, when Avigdor Lieberman was foreign minister in the Netanyahu, he had no contact with Washington and its representatives for many months. Israel didn't collapse. Ben-Gvir, by the way, is a far more sophisticated politician and he may find a way to gain legitimacy with the US without upsetting his voters.
One way or another, Netanyahu – if he returns to Balfour shortly – is expected to come across a Democratic administration that is conciliatory and relaxed. It will be nothing like the traumatic days of presidents Barack Obama or Bill Clinton. The Biden administration would have preferred the Bennett-Lapid government which was comprised mostly of left-wing parties, but its complex structure also made things complicated for them. Sometimes, Americans found themselves running between Benny Gantz, Yair Lapid, and Naftali Bennett to figure out who is responsible for what. With Netanyahu, there was and will be a clear address.
Biden and his people – Blinken, Iran envoy Robert Malley, Middle East envoy Hedy Amr, and others – are graduates of the Obama administration. They learned that imposing moves on Netanyahu doesn't yield anything other than a bust-up. Not to mention the fact that there are far bigger and more important issues on the table at the moment, such as China, Russia, Iran, gas prices, the climate, and more. So with all due respect to Ben-Gvir, there are things that are a little more important.
It is clear that on the Palestinian issue the administration has no solution in reach and no intention of imposing any kind of plan. Mahmoud Abbas is weak, the Palestinian Authority is on the verge of collapse, terrorism is surging and so is the number of Palestinians killed in the crossfire. The American side has serious grievances against Israel because of the number of casualties and the deterioration in the situation. There are already disputes on this point and they may intensify, but nobody is deluding themselves that there is a magic formula to solve the overall problem.
Biden's people were there when John Kerry imposed. They do not intend to repeat that mistake. Therefore, the policy of "managing the conflict" that began when Biden entered the White House in January 2021 during the previous Netanyahu government and continued throughout the Bennett-Lapid era will not change with Netanyahu's return.
Some of the demands inherent in "managing the conflict" are not always convenient for us. For example, the European-financed unrestrained Palestinian construction in Area C, or demands that the IDF employ stricter rules of engagement. There will definitely be disputes on these issues and we can only hope that this time Netanyahu will do what he failed to do in his previous governments – put an end to the creeping Palestinian annexation of Area C.
A full-blown confrontation with the Americans similar to what happened during the Obama administration is not imminent. Biden doesn't want that. His people understand there is no point.
On the other hand, because of the frustration over their failures, the Americans will want to hear what Israel has to offer in the long term, what its vision is, and what the head of a stable coalition wants to happen in the territory that Israel has held for the past 55 years. They want to talk about what will happen, not what won't happen.
If on the Palestinian front the administration is helpless, on the Iranian front it faces a complete dead end. The American strategy vis-à-vis Iran has crashed on the rocks. Not only is there not a "longer and stronger" agreement as Blinken promised, there is no nuclear deal at all. The Americans offered a lot to Iran, but that wasn't enough for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Now that Iran is helping Russia and violently suppressing street protests, the American desire to sign an agreement with Iran has hit rock bottom.
The nuclear deal is dead in the water. The new Israeli government will find an attentive American audience attentive to any suggestions by Jerusalem. If the idea is "maximum pressure" which was the Trump administration policy, the Biden administration claims that it has not lifted any of the sanctions imposed by the previous president. On the contrary, almost every week there are new sanctions against senior regime officials leading the suppression of the protests.
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But maximum pressure didn't deter the Iranians. As we already know they stand on the cusp of being a threshold state. So what is the solution? Even a military operation, which the Americans are prepared to undertake if the Iranians breakout to a bomb, is not a long-term solution in their view. So what is?
In another month or two when Netanyahu comes to the White House for his first meeting with President Biden as is standard for every new prime minister at the beginning of his term, these are the questions he will be asked.
Netanyahu will meet a president who is physically and politically weak – Biden is expected to sustain a bitter defeat in the midterm elections next week. From Netanyahu's perspective, as he begins a new term with Otzma Yehudit, the president's condition is not just a challenge, but an opportunity.
