How Biden might try to force Israel to change its war strategy
As the Biden administration increasingly clashes with Israeli leaders over the war in Gaza, the question often arises as to whether U.S. officials will try to exert some form of tougher influence if Israel ignores their pleas.
They could do this, critics say, to try to get Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza teetering on the edge of famine, to scale back its military campaign or to refrain from invading the city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, where many civilians have fled.
Since Hamas’ terrorist attacks on October 7, which killed about 1,200 Israelis and took about 240 hostage, Israel’s attacks have killed more than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry. President Biden has tried behind the scenes to influence Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while showing strong support for Israel. Yet confrontations are lurking.
Israeli officials are expected to meet their American counterparts in Washington next week to express opposing views on plans to invade Rafah. And a growing number of former US officials say Biden must exert influence to distract Israel from what they call its disastrous war.
The Biden administration has done that increasingly spoken of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and mentioned this, among other things, in a draft resolution on the war that the country presented to the United Nations Security Council this week. The resolution called for an “immediate and lasting ceasefire” if Hamas releases all hostages – repeating the government’s position but with stronger language. Russia and China vetoed the resolution on Friday. Many countries have called for a ceasefire without conditions.
Mr. Biden would not be the first president to use hard levers if he chooses. Four administrations, from Gerald R. Ford’s to George HW Bush’s, have all withheld some form of aid or diplomatic agreement or strongly threatened that they would, said Martin S. Indyk, a special envoy to Israel -Palestinian negotiations in the Obama administration.
“In recent years, the willingness to use the aid relationship as leverage has declined dramatically,” he said. “The dependency relationship is there, ready to be used.”
American influence on Israel falls into three main categories. We’ll start with gun assistance, the most important.
Shipments of weapons
The United States is by far the largest supplier of military aid to Israel. In 2022, aid amounted to $3.3 billion. Since the war began, the Biden administration has urged Congress to pass funding legislation that would include $14 billion in additional aid, but that has been halted mainly for reasons unrelated to the war.
Israel is running out of much of its ammunition and needs the American shipments. The US government is working to approve new weapons orders and has accelerated orders that were in the pipeline before the start of the war.
Between October and around December 1, 2023, the United States transferred about 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells to Israel, US officials said late last year. From Dec. 1 to now, those total transmission numbers have increased by about 15 percent, a U.S. official said.
There have been more than a hundred transfers since October, but almost all of them have taken place without notice Congress over loopholes in disclosure rules.
Last December, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken twice invoked rarely used emergency authority to send tank munitions and artillery shells to Israel without congressional review. These were the only two times the administration has publicly reported government-to-government military sales to Israel since October.
If Mr. Biden were to order a slowdown or halt some or most arms transfers, Israeli leaders would get the message, current and former U.S. officials said.
Mr. Biden has indicated he is aware of the concerns. He issued a memorandum in February, it established standards for compliance by all countries receiving US weapons, including compliance with international humanitarian law, and required countries to submit signed letters to the State Department pledging to commit would follow the rules.
Some supporters of the tougher approach argue that Biden should declare that Israel is violating a section of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, which states that the United States cannot provide weapons or other assistance to a country that “directly prohibits or otherwise restricts” it . or indirectly, the transportation or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.” Eight Democratic senators sent a letter to Mr. Biden on March 11, urging him to do so.
They noted that the law does not prevent the U.S. government from providing defensive supplies to a country that violates the law, such as interceptor missiles for Israel’s Iron Dome.
Josh Paul, a former official at the State Department’s political-military bureau, which oversees arms transfers, said that if Mr. Biden were to take this action, Israel would face a difficult choice between continuing his campaign in Gaza or the stockpiling of ammunition for deterrence. must maintain against other hostile forces, especially Hezbollah and Iran.
“Cutting off certain weapons would force Israel to think about what the urgent needs are for its national security – is it using as many weapons as possible in Gaza?” said Mr Paul, who resigned in October in protest against the government’s war policy.
The State Department has not approved a request from Israel for 24,000 assault rifles, an order that The New York Times reported in November was being scrutinized by some U.S. lawmakers and State Department officials because of the potential for guns would fuel extremist settler violence against Palestinians. in the West Bank.
Many arms transfers involve weapons systems that Israel bought and paid for years ago and will soon be delivered, a former U.S. official and a current U.S. official said. At any given time, there are hundreds, possibly thousands, of open contracts for sale to Israel, the current US official said. The two Americans argued that it could be difficult to slow or suspend specific sales, and that such actions could expose the U.S. government to legal liability under contract law.
The former US official argued that halting the transfers could send a message to Iran and its partners that the United States is willing to abandon Israel in times of need. But this official was not aware of any formal intelligence assessment of the effect of such action.
Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat who heads the Armed Services Committee, made clear this week that he opposed putting conditions on military aid to Israel to try to influence its operations in Gaza.
“This is not the time to talk about conditioning,” Mr. Reed said. “We are Israel’s ally. They are our ally.”
The diplomatic shield
The United States has been a staunch ally of Israel in international institutions, where many countries have expressed outrage over civilian casualties in Gaza.
This is especially true at the UN. The Biden administration has shielded Israel from diplomatic condemnations and from resolutions calling on Israel to immediately end or suspend its war.
Less American support for Israel would open the country to stronger formal charges in the UN
Since the start of the war, the United States, as a member of the UN Security Council, has used its veto power to block three council resolutions calling for an immediate ceasefire without conditions.
Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations called the US-backed resolution a “hypocritical initiative” before blocking it on Friday.
The United States has also been outspokenly critical of the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The court issued an interim ruling in January calling on Israel to prevent its armed forces from engaging in acts that would violate the 1948 Genocide Convention.
Sanctions
The Biden administration has refrained from imposing sanctions on Israeli officials but may be giving itself more leeway to do so. Such measures would likely be more aimed at curbing Israel’s policies and actions in the West Bank, where the current government has encouraged settlement expansion at the expense of Palestinians, than at curbing military operations in Gaza.
In late February, Mr. Blinken announced that the Biden administration deemed new Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories “contrary to international law” — a reversal of Trump administration policy and a return to a long-standing legal review by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
On March 14, the ministry imposed sanctions on three Israeli settlers in the West Bank, accusing them of “extremist violence” against Palestinians. The Biden administration took similar action against four Israelis on February 1.
Tough US sanctions have failed to change the behavior of leaders in a range of countries, from Russia to Iran and North Korea. But sanctions against Israeli officials, or the threat thereof, could have a greater impact because Israel is a U.S. partner, and because many Israeli officials have assets and family members in the United States and travel there frequently.
Farnaz Fassihi contributed UN reporting