Team Biden Needs a Reset on Israel

Back in 2001, in a visit to the illegal West Bank settlement of Ofra, an out-of-office Benjamin Netanyahu, apparently unaware he was being recorded, boasted to his hosts that “America is a thing you can move very easily — move it in the right direction.”

At the time, Mr. Netanyahu was talking about his experience with the Clinton White House; he had undermined Washington-led peace efforts during his first stint as Israel’s prime minister. But more than 20 years later, Mr. Netanyahu’s assessment feels uncomfortably familiar.

Since the Biden administration pledged its early and unwavering support to Israel following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks, Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly slow-walked Washington’s behind-the-scenes requests regarding the war, including that Israel use greater restraint in prosecuting its war in Gaza, avoid provoking a broader regional conflagration and work to forge a postwar path toward peace.

As a result, as the war has enteed its fourth month, the Biden administration has achieved almost none of its goals regarding Israeli policies and actions. More than 23,000 Palestinian civilians, including over 10,000 children, have been killed so far, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, and the threat of mass starvation and disease looms. Israel’s government has rejected any horizon for peace, and, after an initial pause in fighting and a hostage/prisoner exchange, such talks seem now to be at an impasse. The only “success” the United States can claim is in its steadfast support for Israel. And yet the unconditional nature of that backing stands in the way of any prospect of achieving its other policy goals and finding a path out of this horror.

It’s true that in recent days, Israel has signaled a certain shift in its war strategy, using fewer troops and focusing more on central and southern Gaza. These steps appear partly driven by the need to keep down Israeli losses in the close quarters of urban combat, to offer some relief to Israel’s suffering economy — and possibly in preparation for an escalation on Israel’s northern border. Such shifts don’t seem intended to dial back the snowballing regional tensions, nor will they prevent the increasing humanitarian suffering. President Biden has sounded increasingly exasperated by developments on all of these fronts, frustrations echoed in comments by his secretary of state, Antony Blinken, during his latest visit to the region.

Rather than slowly amplifying expressions of disquiet, Team Biden should make a course correction — starting with exercising the very real diplomatic and military leverage at its disposal to move Israel in the direction of U.S. interests, rather than vice versa.