(OPINION) The last time Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu got into a public spat as ugly as this one was 14 years ago. In March 2010, Biden traveled to Jerusalem to push President Barack Obama’s ambitious peace plans on Netanyahu — the prime minister whom the then-vice president, upon landing, called his “close, personal friend of over 33 years.”
Obama wanted a freeze on construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank to avoid depriving the Palestinians of land for a future state as U.S. special envoy George Mitchell restarted Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. But upon Biden’s arrival, Netanyahu’s government suddenly announced the construction of 1,600 new Israeli apartments in the disputed territory.
This humiliated and enraged Biden, who retaliated by keeping his close personal friend “Bibi” waiting for an hour and a half at dinner that night. Biden publicly criticized Netanyahu for the move, but he also insisted that things be smoothed over, pressing Obama not to turn the contretemps into a major incident.
The current dispute between the two men is very different. In recent weeks, after months of Netanyahu openly defying Biden’s calls for restraint in Gaza, the president launched an unprecedented and very public pressure campaign. He slapped sanctions on Israeli settlers and settlements.
He invited Netanyahu’s chief rival, Benny Gantz, to the White House to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris. He issued a National Security Council memo suggesting that military aid to Israel should be conditioned on the delivery of humanitarian aid.
And he told MSNBC that Netanyahu was “hurting Israel more than helping Israel,” all the while reportedly fuming in private about what an “asshole” Netanyahu had become.
Earlier this month, after his State of the Union speech, Biden said it was finally time to have a “come to Jesus” talk with Netanyahu, and in recent days he praised Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer for effectively advocating Netanyahu’s ouster.
What changed? A lot obviously — not least that the post-Oct. 7 crisis is far worse than anything Israel and the U.S. have faced before, especially with 1,200 Israelis and nearly 32,000 Palestinians dead (according to the Gaza health ministry), famine looming, the entire Mideast about to blow up, and Biden’s reelection threatened.
But it is also apparent that Biden and his administration believe that Netanyahu has played the United States for far too long. And while Biden has built up huge credibility with the Israeli public over the decades, the same is not true of the Israeli leader’s stature in Washington — especially within the Biden administration.
After months of being ignored and defied, Biden now recognizes that he may have put too much stock in his personal relationship with his old pal Bibi. (CONTINUE)
