Jewish Insider Daily Kickoff

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at the growing daylight between the White House and Jerusalem and how that could affect Israel’s operations in Gaza, and spotlight this week’s AIPAC convening in Washington. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Sir Leonard Blavatnik, Sen. John Fetterman and Eden Golan.

There are growing signs that President Joe Biden is beginning to soften his support for Israel and its mission to defeat Hamas in Gaza, even as the White House is publicly telegraphing that the disagreements are with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, not the Israeli public, Jewish Insider Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar writes.

After a State of the Union address where Biden sounded more animated over the humanitarian situation in Gaza than over Israel’s ability to defeat Hamas, he gave an interview to MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart where he warned an Israeli operation going into Hamas’ final stronghold of Rafah was a “red line” for him.

“[Bibi]'s hurting Israel more than helping Israel, by making the rest of the world — it's contrary to what Israel stands for. And I think it's a big mistake. So I want to see a cease-fire. And I'm starting with a major, major exchange of prisoners for a six-week period,” Biden said in the interview.

This is part of an emerging White House strategy to break with Israel’s war strategy while proclaiming it still stands with Israel. The Biden administration is feeling pressure from its progressive flank in the middle of an election year, and is looking for a way to win back support from younger voters who have turned against Israel, while not sacrificing support from pro-Israel voters, who make up a clear majority of the American electorate.

For a while, Biden’s mollifying of the left was mostly symbolic. Administration officials apologized to Arab Americans in Michigan for initially being skeptical of the Hamas-provided death count, and tut-tutted Israel to take more consideration of humanitarian concerns. (Notably, Biden appeared to cite Hamas’ statistics in his State of the Union address, when he said “most” of the 30,000 Palestinians killed were “not Hamas.”)

But by focusing his energy on condemning Netanyahu instead of focusing on Hamas’ intransigence and disinterest in protecting civilian lives, Biden is ignoring the realities on the ground. He is no longer focusing his comments on calls for the terror group to be removed from power — even as Hamas has rejected the outlines of a temporary cease-fire that would require it to release some Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. Israel has been receptive to the prospect of such a deal.

To be sure, the Biden administration has continued to send ammunition and military aid to Israel, even as the president said that a push into Hamas’ last stronghold in Rafah would cross a “red line.” He followed that by saying he would not stop providing Iron Dome anti-missile interceptors — but did not make similar assurances about weapons that are not defensive.

Biden’s desire to make Netanyahu the boogeyman is also undermined by Israeli public opinion, which overwhelmingly seeks Hamas’ military defeat. While Netanyahu is unpopular in Israel, his war cabinet’s goal to attack Hamas in Rafah is widely backed by Israelis across the ideological spectrum. A new Israel Democracy Institute survey found about two-thirds of Israelis support an expansion of IDF operations into Rafah, including 74% of Israeli Jews and 45% of left-wing Israelis.

If the goal of the Biden administration is to break up Netanyahu’s shaky coalition, attacking him for supporting what most Israelis want will likely have the opposite effect — giving Netanyahu his own foil to keep the right wing in line. Indeed, in an interview Sunday with Axel Springer, Netanyahu argued that an IDF push into Rafah and his opposition to putting the Palestinian Authority in charge of Gaza “are supported by the overwhelming majority of Israelis… They understand what’s good for Israel.”

Asserting that Israeli forces will go into Rafah, Netanyahu said, “We're not going to leave them. You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is? That October 7 doesn't happen again. Never happens again."

It was telling that even Netanyahu’s more liberal rival in the war cabinet, Benny Gantz, was similarly criticized by the White House last week over Israel’s military strategy. That only underscores that the divide is less about personalities but about policy and Israel’s ability to finish the war on its own terms.

The reality is that Biden’s evolving rhetoric is a result of his party’s growing divide with Israel that goes beyond the leader of its government. While a majority of Democrats still broadly support Israel — Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) publicly endorsed an Israeli operation in Rafah on Sunday — there are signs of increasing uneasiness with the humanitarian toll of the war and an increasing number of Democrats are all too content with making Netanyahu the target of their frustrations.