Biden Criticises Netanyahu In Order to Offer Him a Lifeline

 September 04, 2024

By Nasser Kandil

• Despite repeatedly falling into the same trap, some persist in doing so. Each time U.S. President Joe Biden, who has openly proclaimed his Zionist beliefs, offers even mild criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, certain influential and respected voices quickly advance the notion of an “American-Israeli conflict”. They argue that “Washington is growing weary of Tel Aviv” and that “America wants to avoid being drawn into a war that Israel is pushing for”.
• Suddenly, a political or security event occurs, and Washington rolls out a new political initiative, leading to calls not to miss the opportunity and to open up to Washington. Or we see American forces amassing in the region under the pretext of protecting the entity, sparking discussions about how Washington is embarrassed by every attack on the entity, which is supposedly trying to drag it into a war it does not want. The advice then is to avoid confrontation and miss the chance for escalation.
• This has happened repeatedly. We have witnessed how what was presented to us as pressure by the U.S. Secretary of State on Netanyahu during his visit to Tel Aviv turned out to be an American trap, disguised as a new proposal that was nothing more than a repackaging of Netanyahu’s demands. We saw this when Netanyahu ordered the assassinations of leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Fuad Shukr in Tehran and Beirut, and Washington claimed it was coming to protect the entity. Voices emerged, advising against giving Netanyahu the war he desires and from which Washington supposedly wants to escape, arguing that retaliation for the assassinations would force the U.S. into a war Netanyahu seeks. But then, the proposed agreement on the table turned out to be just another version of Netanyahu’s demands, a different face of the assassinations and American mobilisation within a well-coordinated plan.
• This time, President Biden didn’t even bother to elaborate. He simply answered “No” when asked if Netanyahu was doing what was necessary to reach an agreement. This single “No” triggered an Arab media campaign, endlessly discussing the so-called American-Israeli rift. Then, Biden announced he would prepare a negotiation proposal to break the deadlock, prompting talk about the need to engage with Biden’s new proposal.
• In reality, what does a new proposal mean other than taking the hypothetical agreement already offered to Hamas by mediators – which Hamas accepted on July 2 but Netanyahu rejected – and merging it with Netanyahu’s latest demands into a third version? This new version would grant Netanyahu at least half of his new demands while stripping the resistance of half its rights. The expectation is that we won’t notice this recurring negotiation tactic, which consistently extracts more concessions from the resistance and the Palestinians.
• Hamas’s stance is correct in asking, “What is the need for new proposals when there is already a draft agreement on the table?” Instead of waiting for tomorrow or the next new proposal, why not tell Netanyahu now: either accept the existing deal or face the cessation of U.S. arms shipments? Ultimately, the so-called maximum American threat to Netanyahu is merely the threat to withdraw from mediation. This would likely lead the ‘American-Israeli conflict’ proponents to advocate for “waiting it out until Biden rescinds his withdrawal threat”, urging him to remain a mediator because they “find solace in his involvement and feel adrift without it!”.