Apr.05

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Israel's Support Continues to Erode

We really don't like writing about Israel, because it's such a delicate situation, and we are just not versed in all the nuances and subtleties. If you'd told us on Sunday we'd be writing an Israel item every day this week but one, we might well have called in sick for the week and gone fishing. But we didn't, and we go where the news takes us.

Predictably, the killing of seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) workers has been an ongoing PR disaster for Israel. WCK founder José Andrés has joined a chorus of voices claiming that the workers were deliberately targeted. That is hard for us to accept, since the terrible optics of the tragedy were entirely foreseeable, and since it's not clear how killing innocent aid workers would benefit Israel in any way. On the other hand, we find very reasonable the assertion, raised by Slate's Fred Kaplan and others, that the incident speaks to the Israeli Defense Forces' (IDF) general carelessness about deconfliction (which is a fancy word used to describe efforts to avoid accidental conflict and/or killing, primarily through communication). In any event, the incident made Israel look either bad, or really, really bad, depending on which position you take. Further, it has led to a suspension of all humanitarian efforts, heightening the suffering in Gaza. So again, ongoing PR disaster. And, frankly, one that does not figure to abate anytime soon.

It is not getting much attention yet, but the day before the attack, the White House authorized the transfer of 2,000 more bombs to the IDF. Obviously, those weren't the bombs used in the killings of the WCK workers, but it's really unfortunate timing for the Biden administration, nonetheless. Whether it will blow up into a big story is anyone's guess.

In any event, Joe Biden got on the phone with Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday, and read the Israeli PM the riot act. The general point was that the IDF needs to come up with a "clear" and "concrete" approach to protecting humanitarian workers and to ensuring the flow of humanitarian aid, or the U.S. will reevaluate its support. Secretary of State Antony Blinken put it this way: "If we don't see the changes we need to see, there will be a change in our policy." Exactly what that means is not clear. And it doesn't mean anything unless there's some follow-through from Israel, or from the Biden Administration, or both.

That said, strong words from the White House (whether or not they are backed by strong actions, like no more shipments of thousands of bombs) are not the only evidence that Israel's position has grown considerably weaker this week. Here are some other developments worth noting:

• Pro-Israel Democrats: One of the most outspoken supporters of Israel in the U.S. Senate is Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), who serves on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Yesterday, he said that he is now willing to consider placing conditions on aid to Israel. Here are his exact words:

  I've never said that before! I've never been here before. I've been a strong supporter of Israel the whole time I've served in Congress. We just appropriated another $3.3 billion of support in the last appropriations bill we did. The challenge is to make it clear that we support the Israeli people, that we want to and will continue to have a strong and close relationship with Israel, but that the tactics by which the current prime minister is making these decisions don't reflect the best values of Israel or of the United States.

  Similarly, George Latimer is one of the candidates that AIPAC recruited to try to knock off a member of the Squad (in this case, Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-NY). Yesterday, he expressed outrage over the WCK deaths, and said "there's no defense for that."
  
  
• Donald Trump: Trump, of course, has always been staunchly pro-Israel. That is not because he cares, one way or another, but because that's what the evangelicals in his base demand. But he's also cognizant of which way the political winds are blowing, and so he's been more critical of Israel in the past couple of weeks. Yesterday, he talked with Hugh Hewitt and said Israel was:

  [R]eleasing the most heinous, most horrible tapes of buildings falling down. And people are imagining there's a lot of people in those buildings, or people in those buildings, and they don't like it I don't know why they released wartime shots like that. I guess it makes them look tough. But to me, it doesn't make them look tough They're losing the PR war. They're losing it big. But they've got to finish what they started, and they've got to finish it fast, and we have to get on with life.

  On two occasions, Hewitt asked Trump if he was "still standing 100 percent with Israel," and both times Trump refused to answer the question.
  
  
• McDonald's: You're probably not surprised to see "Trump" and "McDonald's" appear in close proximity to each other, but you probably are surprised that it comes in the context of U.S.-Israel relations. In any case, as many readers will know, the great majority of McDonald's franchises are independents, with corporate merely providing raw materials, marketing support and, quite often, the premises (the McDonald's Corporation makes the majority of its income charging rent to franchisees). Given the semi-autonomous nature of McDonald's locations, the chain's 225 Israeli franchises have been giving unwavering support to the IDF. This is not great PR for (many of) the 41,000 non-Israeli McDonald's locations. As you may know, 41,000 is considerably more than 225. And so, McDonald's has reached agreement to buy back all of its Israeli locations. This does not mean that the locations will be shut down, but it does mean that they will now operate in a manner that is more politically neutral.

Again, this is far removed from our area of expertise, but even we can read these foreign policy tea leaves. (Z)