Netanyahu comes to Washington on a ‘wing’ and a prayer

Wing of Zion—Israel’s homemade version of Air Force One—touched down at Joint Base Andrews on July 22, carrying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the United States on a journey of firsts. The refurbished Boeing 767, on its maiden transport of an Israeli premier, escorted Netanyahu on his long-awaited first visit to Washington since President Joe Biden took office in 2021. Their White House meeting on July 25 was Biden’s first interaction with any foreign leader since withdrawing from the presidential race.

The turbulence of the current political climate cannot be overstated. Netanyahu’s schedule has been plagued by constant turmoil. Biden’s recent bout with COVID-19, the campaign obligations of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, and confusion about who would preside over—or even attend—the joint session of Congress convened in the prime minister’s honor have all complicated logistics. This, at a time when the upcoming US elections in November are already absorbing the vast share of America’s attention. None of this commotion detracts from the importance of high-level engagement at this critical juncture.  

In his face-to-face encounter with Biden, Netanyahu had a pivotal opportunity—which one hopes that he didn’t squander—to synchronize Israeli and American objectives for the remaining six months of the Biden presidency. He would have done wisely to move beyond pithy slogans and platitudes and, instead, provide detailed outlines of his plans for the future of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, the festering conflicts with Lebanon and Iran, and the drive to further Israel’s integration into the Middle East. Coordination with the United States is a force multiplier for Israel. Discord weakens its hand.

Netanyahu is advocating what his aides have dubbed a “new way” of confronting Iran—the same country that featured prominently in his previous, and no less controversial, appearance on Capitol Hill in 2015. Summoning memories of Pearl Harbor and Winston Churchill to draw parallels between World War II and the present moment, he appealed to Congress on July 24 for the United States to take a more aggressive approach toward combatting the Islamic Republic by bolstering support for Israel’s war on Hamas and helping to craft a new Abraham Alliance to “counter the growing Iranian threat.” That plea comes on the heels of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s July 19 warning that Iran is “probably one or two weeks away” from producing enough fissile material to manufacture a nuclear weapon.

The general themes of the prime minister’s case will undoubtedly resonate with the president. But significant gaps endure. The pace of ongoing negotiations to facilitate freedom for the captives in Hamas custody and an end to the fighting in Gaza has fallen short of Biden’s expectations. The US has also been known to encourage Israel toward restraint when responding to the provocations of Iran and its regional proxies.

When Netanyahu and Biden met privately in the Oval Office, both leaders came armed assuredly with extensive wish lists. The prime minister will have beseeched the president to continue having Israel’s back for as long as it takes the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to defeat its enemies resoundingly. (They likely disagreed on what that actually entails.) More specifically, Netanyahu will have repeated his request for unimpeded access to American weaponry and asked that the Biden administration remain steadfast as a bulwark to prevent the imposition of international sanctions against Israel. He will have sought US backing for his vision of a demilitarized and deradicalized Gaza—one where Israel will maintain security oversight while Palestinians who favor coexistence with their Israeli neighbors exercise civilian control—and for Israeli measures to defend against threats from Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. Above all else, he will have implored Biden to leverage the full weight of America’s power in order to halt Iran’s malign influence and thwart its nuclear ambitions.

The president will have pushed the prime minister to line up behind US-sponsored efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and win the release of all those being held hostage. He will also have pressed Netanyahu to contribute to de-escalating rising tensions across the region. In that context, Biden will have reiterated his call for Israel’s government to articulate a pathway that can lead to eventual Palestinian statehood as a prerequisite to the creation of a broader multinational framework—analogous to the “Abraham Alliance” which Netanyahu previewed before Congress—that can function as a means to counter Iranian belligerence decisively.

Echoes of Biden’s words to Netanyahu would have surfaced in the prime minister’s subsequent conversation with Harris, who has now stepped further into the limelight as the senior-most administration figure to deliver public comment on the discussions with the Israeli leader. That said, the White House readout of her meeting with Netanyahu included a pointed reference to “extremist settler violence and settlement expansion” as destabilizing elements in the West Bank. Where the vice president appears also to have deviated from Biden is in the intensity of her reaction to Gaza’s humanitarian predicament, about which she intoned on July 25 that “we cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and I will not be silent”—prompting a senior Israeli official to express concern that her remarks could “be interpreted by Hamas as daylight between the US and Israel, thereby making a deal harder to secure.”

The clock is ticking. Biden, no longer inhibited by the constraints of a re-election bid, is primed to make legacy moves and determined, by his admission, to “keep working to end the war in Gaza, bring home all the hostages, and bring peace and security to the Middle East and end this war.” Caveats notwithstanding, these are all objectives that Israelis can embrace wholeheartedly. Given the uncertainty of what may transpire after January 20, Netanyahu—whose political legacy hangs in the balance—should hasten to roll up his sleeves, attach Israel’s wagon to Biden’s train, and pray it reaches that destination.

Shalom Lipner is a nonresident senior fellow for Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council. From 1990 to 2016, he served seven consecutive premiers at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem. Follow him on X: @ShalomLipner.

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Image: U.S. President Joe Biden meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., July 25, 2024. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz