Why Biden Is in a Bind on Israel

One of the great myths about the U.S.-Israel relationship is that the United States doesn’t intervene in Israeli politics, and Israel doesn’t intercede in U.S. politics. I had a ringside seat in both Republican and Democratic administrations that sought to influence the outcome of an Israeli election and pick favorites in the prime ministerial sweepstakes.

That said, U.S. President Joe Biden’s recent effort to put his thumb on the scale in response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul is unique in the annals of U.S. interventions in Israeli politics, largely because the situation he confronts is so unprecedented.

But there are clear limits to what Biden may be willing and able to do when it comes to intervening in the politics and governance of a close ally. And there are several very good reasons why pushing beyond those limits would be both unwise and counterproductive.

As I’ve written previously, Biden’s deep support for Israel goes all the way back to his first visit to the country in 1973, and he feels an intensely personal connection to Israel’s story and struggles. That long history of engagement has created in Biden a familiarity and even affection for Netanyahu that is hard to break.

Biden also learned some hard lessons on the perils of taking a more confrontational approach toward Netanyahu from his time as former U.S. President Barack Obama’s vice president. Biden saw the downsides posed by the former president calling out Netanyahu publicly on settlements without a willingness to follow up the words with action. He also understood the advantages of trying to avoid public fights with the Israeli leader. Indeed, the presidential model for Biden in dealing with Israel isn’t Obama but Bill Clinton, whose pro-Israel sensibilities were deeply ingrained.

All of this means that although Netanyahu is annoying the hell out of him, Biden’s inclination is not to confront but to find some way to accommodate.

Biden may have woken up to the fact that this isn’t the Netanyahu of old—risk-averse, cautious, and unwilling to push the envelope with Washington—and that he’s now dealing with a risk-ready politician desperate to stay in power and willing to allow his radical ministers to undermine Israel’s democracy as well as pursue policies toward the West Bank that are annexationist in everything but name.

And yet the president has no intention of going to war with Netanyahu. You saw it in Biden’s July 9 interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria. After blasting the extremist ministers in Netanyahu’s government, the president added, using Netanyahu’s nickname, that “hopefully, Bibi will continue to move toward moderation.” Even the White House statement describing the passage of the first phase of the judicial overhaul as “unfortunate” could have been a good deal stronger. It didn’t even mention Netanyahu by name.

Biden clearly has had it with the prime minister, but he still loves Israel. How to undermine the first without damaging the second is a tricky challenge for a president whose regard for Israel runs deep in his emotional and political DNA.

There was then-U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s 1975 threat to reassess U.S.-Israel ties over the Israeli government’s unwillingness to agree to a second Sinai disengagement agreement with Egypt; former U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s temporary suspension of delivery of F-16s in 1981 over Israel’s bombing of an Iraqi nuclear reactor; and former U.S. President George H.W. Bush’s 1991 denial of housing loan guarantees over Israel’s settlement expansion.

Unlike those instances, though, today’s crisis—and it is a crisis—cuts to the core of the value affinity that has driven the U.S.-Israel relationship for decades. Indeed, the undermining of Israeli democracy from within by a right-wing, fundamentalist government undercuts one of the key adhesives that has bound the two countries together since the founding of the state. Strip that away, and the image of Israel in the minds of Americans as a country committed to liberal, pluralistic, democratic values erodes, and the special character of the relationship is reduced to one based solely on common interests—which are also diverging in some areas.

That the present imbroglio turns on internal Israeli politics and governance of a sovereign state reduces the options for external intervention, even if Biden were inclined to move beyond his rhetorical virtue-signaling encouraging Netanyahu to go slow and work to build a consensus.

Even more constraining—since the crisis was triggered by the election of legitimate government that shows no sign of being replaced—is that the tensions it inspired are likely to drag on for some time. The average length of an Israeli government since independence is about 1.8 years. And since the polls show that Netanyahu could not form a government if elections were held today, he has no choice but to succumb to the demands of his extremist ministers. In short, Biden will likely be dealing with this government until at least the end of 2024, if not longer, with few good options for ameliorating the situation.

Former Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford fought with Israel over the 1973-75 negotiations leading to disengagement diplomacy with Egypt and Syria, which paved the way for former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s historic trip to Jerusalem; Jimmy Carter wrestled with Israel in 1978-79 on the way to a historic peace treaty with Egypt; and George H.W. Bush fought with Israel about settlements en route to the successful 1991 peace conference in Madrid.

Biden has no such opportunities. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is light-years away from any potential breakthrough, and by his own admission, any Israel-Saudi Arabia normalization deal is a long way off. Moreover, the domestic political environment that Biden faces on Israel is toxic. The Republican Party has emerged as the Israel-right-or-wrong party, eager to paint Biden and the Democrats as hostile to Israel. And Republicans are already hammering his administration for what they see as inappropriate intervention into Israel’s politics.

Given what’s already on his plate abroad—including Russia’s war in Ukraine and U.S.-China tensions—as well as his focus on reelection at home, it makes no sense for Biden to throw himself into a fight with Netanyahu over the judicial overhaul—or, frankly, for what would almost certainly end up a failed attempt to achieve a breakthrough between Israelis and Palestinians.

One is hard-pressed to identify what steps Biden might take to ameliorate the volatile internal politics in Israel that wouldn’t make matters worse. He is likely to keep the invitation to Netanyahu to visit the White House in the deep freeze, and he’ll doubtless continue to make the importance of consensus a key part of his and other senior administration officials’ talking points with Israeli officials.

But it’s hard to imagine punitive steps being taken. Netanyahu wants U.S. help in getting a normalization accord with Saudi Arabia. Would Biden consider linking the two issues? Perhaps, but if such a normalization deal were actually possible, it’s hard to see Biden making U.S. help conditional on Netanyahu rolling back his judicial overhaul.

The Biden administration has wisely let the Israeli protesters do the walking and talking. Biden’s rhetorical interventions to date have been correct and necessary, and may have even slowed down—but not stopped—the Netanyahu juggernaut. That is hardly surprising given the prime minister’s obsession with remaining in power. This isn’t a 100-yard dash. The battle for Israel’s democracy is a marathon. And in the end, no matter how much Biden cares about the future of Israel, the fate of Israeli democracy must surely be left in the hands of Israelis.