It’s true. While US Democrats, who have long called for conditions to be imposed on arms transfers, say Biden has underestimated Washington’s influence, the history of US-Israeli relations suggests its influence cannot be -not be as big as some progressives think. Sometimes bare-handed pressure works, sometimes it doesn’t – and especially less so when Israeli leaders believe their actions are fundamental to their national security.
Indeed, Netanyahu is just the latest in a long line of Israeli leaders who have openly ignored American presidents. Ben-Gurion, the country’s first prime minister, engaged in a battle of wills with Kennedy over Israel’s nuclear program. Reagan was furious with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin over Israeli bombing of west Beirut in 1982, nine weeks after Israel’s invasion of Lebanon began (although Reagan’s suspension of delivery brought Begin back to the normal). And George HW Bush was one of several US presidents who tried to stop Israeli settlement encroachments in the West Bank, without success.
In 2007, Olmert himself targeted a suspected nuclear reactor at Al Kibar in Syria, after then-U.S. President George W. Bush said America would not bomb the site and told him asked not to do that as well. “When Bush told me, ‘I’m against you taking action in Syria, I won’t act in Syria, and I urge you not to,’ I said, ‘Mr. President, with all due respect, I will decide what is good for Israeli security,” Olmert recalled.
And he suspects Bibi now thinks she’s in a win-win situation. “He thinks it all helps him.” On the one hand, he can please his base by boasting that he is the only one who can tell the President of the United States: “Get out of the way.” I will do what I want and you will not force me to do otherwise. On the other hand, he will be able to excuse the lack of total success that he had promised, not because of his failure, but because of pressure from the United States of America,” he said .
For Likud MP and former Israeli envoy to the UN, Danny Danon, this criticism is, however, unfair. “We have to finish the job,” he told POLITICO. “We must finish off the enemy because, ultimately, there can be only one winner in this war. We cannot allow Hamas to claim victory. If this happens, it becomes an existential threat. . . because all the enemies around us will be strengthened. This is something we cannot allow,” he said.
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