Jun.24

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Odds of Peace in Israel Anytime Soon Are Getting Longer by the Day

We wrote last week that if Joe Biden is going to win reelection, it is exceedingly likely he will have to do it despite the situation in Gaza, because a resolution there anytime soon is becoming a remote possibility. There were even more developments on that front over the weekend.

First up, fresh on the heels of declaring publicly that the White House is withholding armaments, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu made two announcements. The first announcement is that he's backing away from the various ceasefire proposals out there, including the one backed by Biden and the U.N. Security Council. That means that both Hamas and the Israeli government are officially "out" when it comes to the Biden proposal, as currently constituted. The second announcement is that the Israeli army will soon wind down the most "intense" phase of the war with Hamas, so that Israel can focus on its border with Lebanon.

What explains these two shifts in posture? We are not expert enough to say with any certainty. But what we can do is share some theories, one or more of which may be the answer:

• Hezbollah: It is not much of a secret that Hezbollah, which is Lebanon's radical Islamic faction, is prepping to get violent. This weekend, thousands of militants who are not Lebanese, but who are backed by Iran, made clear they are willing and eager to join in. If this is going to happen, Netanyahu does not want to be caught with his pants down, and he certainly doesn't want Hezbollah to be able to grab a bunch of hostages.
  
  
• Unwinnable: We've written a couple of times that a "win" in Gaza for the Israelis is improbable, since for every radical you kill, you inspire two more people to become radicalized. It is possible, of course, that we have no idea what we are talking about. However, that is probably not true of Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, who is a high-ranking member of, and a spokesman for, the Israeli Defense Forces. And over the weekend, he sat for an interview in which he opined that "The idea that it is possible to destroy Hamas, to make Hamas vanish—that is throwing sand in the eyes of the public." Publicly, the Netanyahu administration pushed back against this. But privately, if the PM thinks he's got a budding quagmire on his hands, then Hezbollah allows him to back out while saving face.
  
  
• Right-wing Rebellion: Over the weekend, Netanyahu was warned by hard-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich that if he reaches any agreement with Hamas, they will pull out of the governing coalition and cause his government to collapse. This certainly is a big part of why the PM is no longer interested in any ceasefire proposals, and it might also explain his shift in focus to Lebanon.
  
  
• U.S. Politics: There are two potential factors here. First, obviously, is that Netanyahu knows that if Donald Trump wins back the White House, Trump will give Israel a blank check to do whatever it wants. Second, there are some signs that American Jewish voters are growing unhappy with Biden. Either or both of these things could be encouraging Netanyahu to take a harder line with the White House.

If you want to look for good news for Biden here, you have to squint really hard, and even then you might not find it. The best we can come up with is that if hostilities in Gaza really do wind down, then maybe there will be a dramatic reduction in the horrors there, and some angry American voters (e.g., the protesters) will become less angry.

On the other hand, if you want to look for bad news for Biden, that's easy to find. His ceasefire proposal is effectively dead, and it's hard to see what alternative might make headway. On top of that, whatever partnership he had with Netanyahu looks to be fraying, and the PM clearly has no problem poking Biden in the eye, with his speech before Congress just a month away. And finally, if this somehow goes from being one ugly war to, effectively, being two ugly wars, then... yikes. What a mess for the White House. (Z)