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We've been trying to get to this for several days, but it's tricky, and there's been a lot of other news. Anyhow, in the last week, the Gordian knot that is Israel got even tougher for Joe Biden to unravel (if that is possible). There have been three major storylines; we'll take them in chronological order.
First, as we wrote last week, there is a ceasefire proposal that is backed by the White House and that was endorsed by the U.N. Security Council. At various times, it was reported that Israel was on board but Hamas was not, or that Hamas was on board but Israel was not. We found both sets of reporting to be questionable, and pointed out that despite these various claims, the fighting was still underway. Clearly, someone was not on board.
Since then, a lot more information has come out, some through official channels, some through leaks. It is clear, first of all, that neither side has actually signed off on the ceasefire proposal, because the ceasefire proposal is essentially in draft form. It somewhat lays out what the first phase of what a ceasefire process would look like, has some information about the second phase and has not much about the third phase. No combatant, in any war, is going to go all-in on a plan that is part vaporware.
To take one particularly significant example, Israel wants to retain the right to resume the war in Gaza once hostages have been exchanged, assuming that a workable peace plan cannot be hammered out. Hamas is unwilling to exchange hostages unless there is a permanent cessation of hostilities. These are mutually contradictory positions. There cannot be both a contingent cessation of hostilities and a permanent cessation. It has to be one or the other. If you'd like a further discussion of how the two sides are not on the same page, and maybe not in the same book, this piece is pretty solid.
Then, if things were not messy enough, over the weekend Hamas added new demands to their list, some of which are literally impossible to accommodate. For example, the militant group says that on the first day of a ceasefire, it wants all Israeli troops withdrawn from the populated areas of Gaza. This is not something that can be done on such a short timeline. Several of the other new demands from Hamas are equally unrealistic. In response, Secretary of State Antony Blinken pointed out that if one of the sides in a negotiation keeps changing their terms, including on things they have already agreed to, then they aren't really negotiating.
Moving on to the second story, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu dissolved the Israeli war cabinet late Friday (U.S. time). With the resignation of Benny Gantz, the cabinet was down to two full members (Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant) along with three observers (government ministers Aryeh Deri and Gadi Eisenkot, and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer). Now it's down to zero members. Netanyahu will replace the war cabinet with a more informal six-person "kitchen cabinet" made up of people chosen by him.
On one hand, this looks like an effort to replace critics with cronies, so that the PM is less constrained. And maybe it is, although of the four members of the kitchen cabinet who are already known, three (Netanyahu, Gallant and Dermer) were also part of the war cabinet. The only new member of the team, so far, is National Security Council head Tzachi Hanegbi, who is a close ally of Netanyahu, but is known for being fairly moderate. Meanwhile, dissolving the war cabinet allowed Netanyahu to put an end to calls to add hard-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to the body. So while this change in approach is clearly meaningful, it's not yet clear exactly what the impact will be. It may afford Netanyahu a freer hand, but it might also allow him to keep the war from expanding.
And finally, the most recent news is, for lack of a better term, the pi**ing contest that has been going on between Netanyahu and the White House for the past few days. As readers will recall, the Biden administration chose to withhold some heavy bombs back in May. Although great care was taken to avoid pointing the finger at the Israeli government, the White House took the position that the bombs carried the risk of killing a lot of civilians, and that the U.S. was not willing to go down that road until there was a better plan for containing the damage done. Other than that, there have been no delays and, in fact, $15 billion in sales of F-15s was approved this week.
Nonetheless, Netanyahu publicly blamed Biden on Tuesday for the slow progress of the Israeli offensive in Rafah, and decreed: "It's inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel." Netanyahu is under increasing pressure internally (see above, for one example), and this allows him to shift some of the heat to Biden. It is not a coincidence that the PM's speech before Congress is coming up soon; that will give him another opportunity to say the same thing before an even bigger global audience.
The White House was not happy about Netanyahu's remarks, but there isn't too much Biden can do. He obviously has no power to shut the PM up. And he can't push back too aggressively due to domestic political concerns. The administration did cancel a planned meeting between Biden and Netanyahu at the White House. And Antony Blinken has been doing a PR blitz, telling anyone and everyone that the weapons are being supplied as normal.
In the end, the fundamental problem is this: Between Biden, Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, only Biden is under massive time pressure. He would prefer a resolution yesterday, and he would really, really prefer a resolution before oh, say, Tuesday, November 5. At the moment, Netanyahu and Sinwar are not time constrained. They both want and need a big win, and they both think that is possible. Under such circumstances, they are not likely to agree to a Korean War-style "let's just all go home" truce.
Eventually, things will change. Maybe the domestic pressure will become too much for Netanyahu. Maybe the international pressure will become too much for both sides. Maybe one side will score the total victory they think is possible. But most likely, as with Korea, it will require a lot of attrition, and severe war exhaustion on one or both sides. If that is the case, then take a look at how long the Korean War ran, or how long the Ukraine War has been going on, or at any of a dozen wars of the last half-century or so, and you know the odds that things will unfold on Biden's preferred timetable. Put another way, if he's going to win reelection, he's likely going to have to do it despite a lack of success in the Middle East. (Z)