DANIEL WILLIAMS
When US President Joe Biden, upon arrival in Israel last week, gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu what Americans call a “bro hug”, commentators interpreted the gesture as a show of solid support for Israel in its war with Hamas.
One commentator on Israeli TV offered a subtler and, it has turned out, reality-based analysis. Besides showing support, Biden’s gesture also meant, “You’re totally in my hands.”
It’s a reality being digested not only by Israel but also Ukraine, which Biden visited in February and had pledged full backing for its war with Russia. Whether it’s Biden saying “We stand with Israel” or a promise to do “Whatever it takes” to help Ukraine, there are caveats.
In both cases, he is playing chaperone in struggles that each country considers vital to their interests, if not existence. It makes for tense times between allies.
Even before he arrived in Tel Aviv, Biden cautioned Israel to fight within the bounds of the “rules of war” and spare civilians from harm, advice Israel thought it, as a democracy, didn’t need.
On October 25, Biden took a swipe at two of Netanyahu’s long-standing policies: rejection of Palestinian statehood and expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
“Israelis and Palestinians equally deserve to live side-by-side in safety, dignity and peace. When this crisis is over, there has to be a vision of what comes next,” Biden said. “And in our view, it has to be a two-state solution.”
Biden added criticism of attacks on Palestinians by “extremist settlers” in the West Bank, which amounted to “pouring gasoline” on the already enflamed Middle East.
He also aimed to mold Israel’s Gaza Strip retaliation tactics to his liking. This week, reports from Washington indicated Biden prevailed on Israel to delay a ground invasion, for which Netanyahu has mobilized 360,000 troops.
Washington asked for time to find a way to free some 220 hostages who are in the hands of Hamas, 20 of whom are American citizens.
Composite of hostages held in Gaza by Hamas after the incursion into Israel on October 7, 2023, in which 1,400 people were slaughtered and some 220 taken captive.
Israel had wanted to impose a medieval-style siege on the Gaza Strip by barring deliveries of food, water and fuel into Gaza. Washington objected and the bans on food and water supplies were lifted.
Deliveries have been miniscule and fuel shipments are still banned. Hospitals are worried that their petroleum-fueled electric power equipment will soon run out of power.
Biden’s messaging had much to do with his desire to assure allies and other friendly countries that he can persuade Israel to avoid wanton punishment of Palestinian civilians.
Netanyahu has steered clear of directly rejecting Biden’s advice. In a televised speech on October 25, the Israeli leader suggested his ground offensive simply requires a bit more planning.
“We are preparing for a ground invasion. I will not elaborate on when, how or how many. I will also not elaborate on the various calculations we are making, which the public is mostly unaware of and that is how things should be,” he said.
Experts suggested that Israel may not have needed Biden’s prodding to delay its offensive: it is simply not yet ready to move, having been surprised on October 7 and fearing another debacle.
“That’s a huge added dose of anxiety and tension into what is already a tense and anxious, and what is a politically fraught, moment,” said Robert Satloff, an expert in US Middle East policy at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies. “Add it all up and they haven’t made a decision to go in yet.”
Biden himself faces some political pressures at home. Less than a week into the war, dozens of lawmakers urged him to ensure protection for both Israeli and Palestinian civilians. A few lawmakers called for a ceasefire, something Israel has opposed.
Palestinian authorities claim more than 5,000 Gazans have died. Hamas does not segregate military from civilian deaths in their casualty figures. Israeli civilian deaths are up to 1,300.
Destruction of the Palestine Tower in Gaza after an Israeli strike in October 2023.
Dissension has erupted inside Biden’s administration. Critics contend Biden is giving Israel too much of a free hand in assaulting Gaza. Last week, a State Department official resigned, saying he could no longer back a “one-sided” policy that favors Israel.
Ukraine – the other war protagonist Biden is trying to manage – has run into different restraints. There have been disagreements between Kiev’s desire for certain types of weapons versus decisions in Washington about what arms to provide and when.
American and allied aid has been fundamental in thwarting Russia’s plan to quickly conquer much of Ukrainian territory. But Ukraine complained that Washington’s micro-management is making the process slow and crippled Ukraine’s effort to expel the Russians from its territory this year.
“Breaking through a well-prepared defense requires an extraordinary number of capabilities, many of which Ukraine lacks despite generous Western aid,” said Frederick Kagan, an American military expert and frequent critic of Biden’s war management.
“It requires tanks, armored personnel carriers and artillery systems in sufficient numbers to absorb heavy losses while retaining enough combat power to exploit a been penetration. It requires air superiority,” Kagan said.
There have been unexplained gaps between Ukrainian requests for weapons and US decisions to supply them. For example, Biden delayed sending cluster bombs, which Ukraine requested last year until this spring.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky thought the cluster bombs, which are launched by artillery shells that release them in mid-air, would help break through Russian infantry defenses.
The US also declined to provide long-range missile systems that can reach distant Russian weapons that are out of range of Ukraine’s current batch of rockets.
There was a big political disappointment for Zelensky, too. He had hoped Washington would endorse a date for Ukraine’s NATO membership. At a July NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, another post-Soviet state, NATO declined.
Even before he arrived in Lithuania for the summit, Zelensky expressed intense frustration. “It’s unprecedented and absurd when [the] time frame is not set neither for the invitation nor for Ukraine’s membership,” he said. “Uncertainty is weakness.”
After the meeting, Biden told a television interviewer that there was no “unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now, at this moment, in the middle of a war.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is introduced to the US Congress by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on March 16, 2022, in Washington, DC.
Later, Biden said individual countries could make bilateral security treaties with Ukraine if they chose. None have done so to date, leaving Ukraine without solid guarantees of steady future support.
On occasion, US officials have suggested that Ukraine’s goal should not be to oust the Russians totally but rather to take enough territory to be in a strong position to negotiate. That idea counters Zelensky’s goal to oust the Russians entirely.
General Mark Milley, who recently retired as Biden’s military chief of staff, said Ukraine had only a “slim chance” of defeating the Russians.
“If the end state is Ukraine as a free, independent, sovereign country with its territory intact, that will take a considerable level of effort yet to come,” he said. “That’s going to take a long, long time, but you can also achieve those objectives – maybe, possibly – through some sort of diplomatic means.”
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