Analysis: It’s not working with Netanyahu. Can Biden find a better Israeli partner for peace?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waves to supporters with former Israeli Minister for Foreign Affairs Avigdor Liberman in 2013. Photo by Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images
By Jacob Kornbluh June 5, 2024
Despite growing frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza and lack of vision for a post-war peace, President Joe Biden has softened his comments on the Israeli leader in recent days. Since outlining an Israeli proposal for a hostage deal on Friday, the president has tried to give Netanyahu leeway to assume political risks he would need to take to secure a settlement with Hamas.
“He’s trying to work out a serious problem he has,” the president told reporters at the White House Tuesday when they asked about whether Netanyahu has sought to draw out the war for his political survival.
Why would Biden want to help preserve Netanyahu’s leadership?
He may worry that the prime minister’s successor would be even harder to work with. But many who follow U.S.-Israeli politics closely say that despite the president’s warmer tone with the prime minister, he could well prefer a reset — a reliable new partner who isn’t buffeted by all the winds blowing around Netanyahu, even if that person also doesn’t align with Biden’s Middle East plan.
That plan, a negotiated ceasefire that includes the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza alongside Israel, contrasts sharply with the prime minister’s. In an interview with Time magazine published Tuesday, Biden emphasized that contrast: He is working toward a two-state solution and Netanyahu is not.
Biden’s roadmap toward peace has put pressure on a prime minister already embattled from the right and left.
Before Oct. 7, Netanyahu’s corruption trial and aggressive judicial overhaul push had fueled public anger. The hostage crisis has only intensified exasperation with him. Many Israelis hold him at least partially responsible for the security lapses that made it easier for Hamas to attack southern Israel.
Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners — to whom he has catered since returning to office in Dec. 2022 — have threatened to bring down the government if he accepts Biden’s hostage deal. At the same time, Benny Gantz, a centrist member of the war cabinet, has set a deadline of June 8 to resign from the government unless he sees significant progress in hostage negotiations and on a post-war strategy.
“It would take extreme leadership to break out of this,” Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said of Netanyahu’s conundrum, “and you don’t have it.”
Whichever forces may cause Netanyahu to lose his majority and force new elections, his fall might not overly disappoint Biden, even if it complicates his pursuit of his peace. The next Knesset is likely to have a right-leaning majority that takes a more hawkish stance on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. A more centrist-left one would face the same challenges that stymied the Bennett-Lapid “change” government in 2022.
Netanyahu’s possible successors on the right
Should Netanyahu lose his job, a strong contender to succeed him is Avigdor Lieberman, a hardliner with extensive diplomatic experience and a long political resume who has been steadily rising in the polls. A recent survey gives his secular, nationalist party, Yisrael Beiteinu, 12 out of 120 Knesset seats, making it the largest right-wing faction after the ruling Likud party.
Lieberman, 66, has long warned about the dangers posed by Hamas and has criticized the government’s strategies in Gaza. Since Oct. 7, he’s established himself as the main opposition to Netanyahu from the right, refusing to join the emergency unity government. In 2018, Lieberman resigned as defense minister over a ceasefire in Gaza which he called “surrendering to terror.”
Tal Shalev, a political reporter for Walla News!, an Israeli news site, said Lieberman’s track record in key government roles — leading the defense, finance and foreign ministries — adds to his credibility as a potential prime minister. His challenge would be to unite other right-wing contenders under his leadership, including former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen. Lieberman’s strong anti-Orthodox stance could broaden his support base, given the widespread disapproval among Israelis of the Israel Defense Forces’ exemption for Haredim. This stance has previously positioned him as a spoiler in previous elections.
Some U.S. and Israeli experts portray Lieberman as a pragmatist who — despite past incendiary comments against the Israeli Arab community and firm opposition to a two-state solution — might actually be a better ally for Biden than Netanyahu.
Michael Koplow, chief policy officer of the Israel Policy Forum, said that during the peace talks under former Secretary of State John Kerry in 2013-2014, U.S. officials identified Lieberman, then Netanyahu’s foreign minister, as the most pragmatic and cooperative Israeli government leaders. At the time he advocated for a regional peace agreement, and as defense minister he allowed Palestinians to engage in economic activities in parts of the West Bank previously off-limits to them.
Lieberman is also regarded as a man of his word, a phrase he frequently uses to describe himself. That is in contrast to Netanyahu, who has been known to tell the U.S. administration one thing and then communicate differently in Hebrew to satisfy his base, Shalev said. A case in point was in mid-January when Netanyahu told Israeli reporters that he rejects the idea of Palestinian sovereignty. Later in a phone call with Biden he explained that those public comments did not foreclose that outcome.
“No other candidate could walk as smoothly into the prime minister’s office and start working on day one,” Alon Pinkas, a Haaretz columnist and former Israeli consul general in New York, said of Lieberman.
Bennett has several factors working in his favor that could also position him to lead Israel. During his short tenure as prime minister in the change government in 2021, he demonstrated calm and fostered unity. He also maintained good relations with Biden and — like Netanyahu — speaks fluent English. His frequent appearances on international television have kept him in the public eye and bolstered his profile. And like Lieberman, not being part of the current government spares him association with its failures. His stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — he opposes the creation of a Palestinian state and favors an aggressive approach toward Hamas — resonates with current Israeli public opinion.
“The evidence suggests that right-wing figures like him or Bennett will be more willing to work with the U.S. on policies designed to improve the situation rather than make it worse, even if there remains disagreement on the larger two-state issue,” Koplow said.
Koplow suggested that when Biden mentions his disagreement with Netanyahu over the two-state solution, he’s likely referring to a broader set of concerns — that a new Israeli leader might be more able and willing to address.
“There are other issues that fall under the larger two-state rubric, from settler violence to settlement policies to providing Palestinians with greater sovereignty and freedom of movement,” he said. While surveys taken after Oct. 7 show Israelis are largely opposed to two states, 72% said they want to see the U.S. forge a diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to a recent Pew survey.
And if Netanyahu’s successor isn’t from the right, but rather someone like Gantz or Yair Lapid, the prospect for progress on these related issues may look even brighter.
Miller said it’s unclear if there is any Israeli politician, in the wake of the Oct. 7 trauma, that could manage to create any sort of consensus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict within Israel, where the primary concerns are security and rebuilding the economy. The Hamas attack shattered the peace aspirations of many Israelis, making this the least likely time in their nation’s history for them to support Palestinian independence.
But he said any center-right-led government would come “without the history of tensions and broken confidence” that currently plague the U.S.-Israeli relationship. Biden has known Netanyahu for more than four decades and has never been more frustrated with him. New leadership, even if ideologically similar, may seem preferable.
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