A Losing Game: Netanyahu is turning against Biden

It looks as if President Biden will be running in two races this year: one in America against Donald Trump and one in Israel against Benjamin Netanyahu. Maybe Trump could name Netanyahu his running mate and we could save a lot of time. Biden’s support for the Israeli leader is costing him with his own progressive base, while Netanyahu is now turning on Biden in ways that could win Trump fresh support from right-wing American Jews. Trump-Netanyahu 2024 — that has a certain ring to it, not to mention an air of truth.

Why do I say this? Because at a nationally televised news conference on Thursday, Netanyahu made clear something he had only hinted at in recent weeks. Despite the disastrous Hamas attack on Oct. 7 happening on his watch, he is going to frame his campaign to stay in power with this argument: The Americans and the Arabs want to force a Palestinian state down Israel’s throat, and I am the only Israeli leader strong enough to resist them. So vote for me, even if I messed up on Oct. 7 and the Gaza war is not going all that great. Only I can protect us from Biden’s plans for Gaza to become part of a Palestinian state, along with the West Bank, governed by a transformed Palestinian

ity.

I know what you’re asking: You mean Netanyahu would actually run for re-election by positioning himself against the American president who flew over to Israel right after Oct. 7, where he put a protective arm around Bibi and the whole Israeli body politic and basically gave Israel a green light to try to destroy Hamas in Gaza, even if it led to thousands of Palestinian civilians’ being killed in the process? You mean to save his own political skin, Netanyahu would actually run on a platform that would guarantee Israel had no American, Palestinian, Arab or European partners to help Israel govern or exit Gaza or get its hostages back? Yes, I am seeing and saying both. Although Israel has been at war with Hamas for over 100 days and still has over 100 hostages to recover, Netanyahu’s No. 1 focus is Netanyahu. He’s searching for the most emotive political message to get him just enough votes from the far right to remain prime minister and stay out of prison, should he lose any of the three corruption cases against him. Let me walk you through the sequence of events that transpired this week that led to this conclusion, as I was a close-up witness to part of them.

I interviewed US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, first offstage for this column and then before a large audience at the Davos World Economic Forum. I asked him to explain something I had discussed in private with him: why it feels as if Israel is losing on three key fronts and why Israel could turn things around on those fronts if it had a legitimate, effective Palestinian partner. The three fronts where Israel is losing:

First, even though Hamas started this war by murdering, maiming, kidnapping and raping Israeli civilians just across the border, Hamas seems to be winning the global narrative war on social media because of the thousands of civilian casualties in Gaza caused by the Israeli bombing of Hamas fighters who had deliberately embedded themselves in tunnels and next to homes of Palestinian civilians.

Second, Netanyahu still has not defined a political outcome for Gaza, a plan for keeping the peace and overseeing governance and security, or a legitimate Palestinian partner to help make it all happen. Without that, Israel could be stuck in Gaza forever.

And third, Israel is being attacked from afar by pro-Iranian nonstate actors, particularly the Houthis from Yemen and Hezbollah from Lebanon. And the only way for Israel to deter and counter their threats, particularly when it is still tied down fighting in Gaza, is with the help of global and regional allies.

The answer to all three challenges, I argued to Blinken at the public session, was for Israel to find and help build a credible, legitimate, effective Palestinian partner, whether that is a reformed version of the current Palestinian

ity based in Ramallah — which has embraced the Oslo peace accord with Israel and worked with Israeli security forces — or some completely new institution named by the Palestine Liberation Organization, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

If the P.L.O. — with the help of the Americans, the Europeans and the pro-American Arab states and the encouragement of Israel — is able to help stand up and sustain an effective Palestinian governing authority that has legitimacy in the eyes of Palestinians, this could answer all three of Israel’s problems. It would seize the narrative from Hamas, Hezbollah and their Iranian backer by proving that Israel was not out for just revenge or conquest in Gaza. It would provide Israel with a political authority to govern Gaza for the long run that Israel could work with to ensure that a defeated Hamas could not come back. And a legitimate Palestinian partner would give cover for a regional alliance of Americans, NATO and pro-Western Arab states that could help deter Hezbollah and confront the Houthis. Right now, only the Americans and the British have been willing to push back on the Houthis for disrupting global shipping and firing rockets at Israel, in part because others are worried about looking to be doing Israel’s bidding while it is hammering Gaza. If Israel were engaged with a Palestinian partner, Iran and its local puppets would be on the defensive, I argued.

In response to this argument, Blinken said at our public discussion: “You now have something you didn’t have before, and that is Arab countries and Muslim countries even beyond the region that are prepared to have a relationship with Israel in terms of its integration, its normalization, its security, that they were never prepared to have before and to do things, to give the necessary assurance, to make the necessary commitments and guarantees, so that Israel is not only integrated but it can feel secure.”

But the only way to achieve that alliance-in-waiting, Blinken added, is by respecting the “absolute conviction by those countries — one that we share — that this has to include a pathway to a Palestinian state, because you’re not going to get the genuine integration you need, you’re not going to get the genuine security you need, absent that. And of course, to that end as well, a stronger, reformed Palestinian

ity that can more effectively deliver for its own people has to be part of the equation.”

Friedman is an Opinion Columnist