After eight months of support, a US attempt to call Israel’s bluff has failed – and the PM now has his own choices to make, says Alon Pinkas, a columnist for Haaretz
Biden wants an end to the Gaza war. But he is finally realising Netanyahu will block any attempts at peaceAfter eight months of support, a US attempt to call Israel’s bluff has failed – and the PM now has his own choices to makeIsraeli proposal are bizarre, think again. After all, this isn’t so much George Orwell’s 1984 but Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2024.
For many years, Netanyahu had the reputation of being risk-averse. Apologists said that, notwithstanding the bluster, demagoguery and sanctimony he exuded, he was fundamentally cautious and balanced. His detractors, on the other hand, claimed that he was spurious by nature, that this was not circumspection or astuteness but rather cowardice, endemic vacillation and an inherent inability to make decisions.
Since the outset of the war, Biden’s primary objective has been to prevent escalation. Despite the specific issue Israel and Lebanon have over the exact demarcation of the border, last delineated in an agreement in 2000 after Israel withdrew from a southern Lebanon “security zone” carved in 1985, the US sees a ceasefire in Gaza as the key to de-escalation in the north.
The US administration finally reached the conclusion, after months of living in a convenient state of denial, that Netanyahu was deliberately defying it by refusing to entertain Washington’s ideas or present a postwar political framework or plan of his own. Furthermore, evidence was mounting that he was intentionally seeking a confrontation with Biden for political expediency. Biden said so himself, in an interview withearlier in the week.
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