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On 24 June, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of the US Congress. Customarily, the Vice-President of the United States attends the session. This time, however, Vice-President Kamala Harris, was conspicuously absent on the grounds that she had a scheduling conflict with her presidential campaign. She did, however, meet with him separately, as did President Biden.
The Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, had invited Netanyahu to address this joint session. Unlike most invitations to Israeli leaders, this one had not enjoyed widespread bipartisan support. After publicly expressing reservations about Netanyahu’s political leadership as well as his policies in the Gaza Strip, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer did attend the joint session.
Netanyahu’s speech to the two houses of Congress was nothing short of incendiary. He contended that Israel's war in Gaza was a clash between “barbarism and civilisation”. He also went on to admonish critics of his policies and referred to thousands of pro-Palestinian protestors who had gathered in Washington, DC as “idiots”.
Despite this unyielding defence of his policies, many in Congress and the US citizenry in general remain unconvinced. They do not see a clear-cut endgame in sight and nor do they accept his view that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have minimised Palestinian casualties.
Significantly, there are also visible rifts within the American Jewish community. Of course, the community has never been monolithic and has long had internal disagreements on various issues involving Israel.
However, on this occasion, a segment of the community now believes that he is more concerned about saving his own political skin than ensuring a swift return of Israeli hostages from Gaza and ending the war. The most biting criticism, quite unsurprisingly, has come from those whose children or relatives are hostages in the hands of Hamas. Others, however, remain supportive of him and his policies.
Some in the journalistic world in the United States are now suggesting that while support for Israel remains robust across the political spectrum, Netanyahu himself may not enjoy such shared regard. Biden, after initially expressing unequivocal support for Israel following the Hamas attack, had slightly back-pedalled delaying the supplies of some highly lethal weapons.
Vice-President Harris, however, following her meeting with Netanyahu, in a press conference pressed for an end to the war. Specifically, she stated, “We cannot become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent”. Quite predictably, the most right-wing members of Netanyahu's cabinet, the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Minister of National Security Affairs, both lashed out at Harris’s comments with the latter saying, “There will be no truce, Madam Candidate”.
Their bluster probably was probably directed toward two audiences, both domestic. The first, no doubt, was directed toward Netanyahu, reminding him that he needed their support to stay in office, lest he waver in his resolve. The other, of course, was to their own unyielding domestic constituencies, who are like them, have no interest in a negotiated settlement to the present, let alone, the underlying, conflict with the Palestinians. Instead, they harbour millennial visions of eventually seizing both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Despite this intransigent stance on the part of the Israeli government, the war in Gaza may lead to some reassessment of American policy toward Israel without undermining the long-term, fundamental commitment that the US has had to ensure its territorial integrity and national security. That bond goes back decades and enjoys widespread bipartisan support. Consequently, it is hard to envisage any drastic change on that front.
Biden’s relationship with Israel was long-standing and harked back to his decades in the United States Senate. Harris, however, though clearly sympathetic toward Israel, has no such deep-seated ties as a newcomer to American politics.
Furthermore, unlike Biden, whose political career is now in its twilight, she needs to be far more attuned to the changes in the demographics of support for the Democratic Party as well as the presence of certain members of Congress who have significant reservations about the present government in Israel, its policies toward the Palestinians and especially its conduct of the war in Gaza.
Netanyahu, of course, is aware of these shifts that have taken place in the American political landscape. Consequently, he remains hopeful that Trump will return to office this November. If Trump were to assume the presidency once again, it is entirely possible that he will give carte blanche to this government in Israel to do pretty much what it pleases. To that end, on 26 July, he flew down to Trump’s private estate, Mar-a-Lago, in Florida, to show his obvious fealty to the former president.
Biden’s decision to walk away from the presidential race is fraught with significance for Netanyahu’s government but not so much for the future of the robust US-Israel alliance. The election results of November will have considerable bearing on how much support Netanyahu can personally count on from the incoming administration.
(Sumit Ganguly holds the Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations at Indiana University, Bloomington and is a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
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