Largely overshadowed by the debate over whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left the door open for a potential two-state solution during his Friday phone call with US President Joe Biden was the Israeli decision to allow a large shipment of flour into Gaza for the first time via Ashdod port in southern Israel.
The move is part of Netanyahu’s strategy for managing ties with the Biden administration during the Israel-Hamas war, which features considerable foot-dragging on “tactical demands” made by the US, a senior Israeli official explained.
The premier has eventually acquiesced to a handful of these requests — particularly ones regarding humanitarian aid for Gaza — but not before forcing US officials to use up significant time and energy, depleting their capacity to push for the more “strategic demands” against which Netanyahu has held his ground, the official said.
The official pointed to Israeli decisions to allow aid into Gaza through Egypt and to reopen its Kerem Shalom Crossing as ones Netanyahu made after weeks of intensive shuttle diplomacy from top US officials.
“These aren’t popular steps to take when the hostages remain [in Gaza], but there’s a recognition that a minimal amount of aid needs to enter the Strip in order to prevent a humanitarian disaster that would force us to stop the fighting,” the official said.
Meanwhile, the premier has stonewalled Biden on planning relating to who will govern Gaza after the war, leaving the US with limited ability to advance its vision of bringing the Palestinian Authority back to the Strip as part of a diplomatic initiative that would also see Saudi Arabia normalize relations with Israel, which would in exchange agree to take irreversible steps toward an eventual two-state solution.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) meets with US President Joe Biden in Tel Aviv, October 18, 2023. (Miriam Alster/ Flash90)
A Biden administration official all but acknowledged the strategy laid out by the senior Israeli official, telling The Times of Israel, “There’s definitely a feeling that Bibi gives us an inch in order to block us from going a mile.”
The same strategy is seemingly unfolding with regard to the phasing of the war.
For almost two months, the US has urged Israel to transition to lower-intensity fighting in Gaza to limit the number of civilian casualties and allow for a surge in the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Last week, Israel announced that its high-intensity operations in northern Gaza had concluded, a development quickly hailed by the US.
But the Israeli official explained that high-intensity fighting continues in southern Gaza and that the pledge Netanyahu made to continue the war until Hamas is defeated remains in place, even as the IDF withdrew one of its divisions from the enclave — a move it planned to make regardless.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks with US President Joe Biden in the IDF’s Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv on October 20, 2023. (Prime Minister’s Office)
When it came to the debate regarding whether Netanyahu had ruled out establishing a Palestinian state during his call with Biden, the senior official was dismissive of a CNN report revealing that he had not.
“Even if he did leave the door open for the creation of a Palestinian entity or state-minus, he’s gone further than this before and ultimately worked to prevent one from ever coming about,” they said, referring to Netanyahu’s 2009 speech at Bar Ilan University in which he expressed support for a two-state solution.
Commenting on the strategy, Netanyahu aide-turned-political analyst Aviv Bushinsky argued that it was not as premeditated as the senior Israeli official made it out to be.
Instead, he said that the prime minister simply has an inclination to delay decisions for as long as possible.
“Netanyahu likes having many balls in the air at once because this buys him time before he is forced to choose one of them,” Bushinsky said. “In the case of the war, he is dragging his feet for as long as possible, hoping that the military offensive will produce better conditions [for him to make a decision].”
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‘Give an inch, block a mile’: Netanyahu’s strategy for ties with the US - The Times of Israel
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