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WASHINGTON — The White House has repeatedly criticized President Joe Biden for launching a military invasion of Rafah without a credible plan to protect Palestinian civilians, according to one former and three current U.S. officials. It is said that it is considering options for how to respond if Israel defies the warning.
The discussions come amid growing concerns within the administration and frustration among Congressional Democrats that the president’s pleas will simply be ignored. This week, Israel inched closer to launching an invasion of the southernmost city of the Gaza Strip.
“President Biden has repeatedly asked the Netanyahu government to take certain actions, but in most cases, Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly ignored the US president. That is why the US appears powerless. I think so,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, said in an interview.
“While the president is issuing increasingly strong words and strong warnings, I believe that effectively enforcing those warnings will require leveraging other tools at the administration’s disposal.” said Van Hollen, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He pressed the White House to take a tougher stance on conditionality on US military sales to Israel.
The United States does not condition military aid to Israel, but Biden administration officials are considering holding off or delaying some weapons sales.
The Biden administration has set a March 24 deadline for Israel to provide written assurances that the use of U.S. weapons complies with international law, followed by a review by the U.S. government. Failure to do so could raise military support issues and push long-standing alliances into new territory.
Government officials suggested on Friday that Israel had not seen plans for a military operation in Rafah that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said had been approved, nor had it seen a proposal to evacuate Palestinian civilians. For weeks, administration officials have privately expressed skepticism that Israel had elaborate plans for a military attack in Rafah, and the threat of invasion was a serious threat to the hostages being held in Rafah. He said his aim was to maintain influence with Hamas during ceasefire negotiations in exchange for the release of Hamas. Gaza.
Administration officials advised the Israeli government to avoid large-scale military operations in Rafah and instead launch small, targeted counterterrorism operations, administration officials said.
“We were clear about the need to prioritize civilian protection,” a National Security Council spokesperson said.
The level of mistrust and tension between the U.S. and Israeli governments marks an unusual shift from the bear hug Biden and Netanyahu shared five months ago, in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel.
The White House on Thursday effectively accepted Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s call for new elections in Israel to replace Prime Minister Netanyahu, who the New York Democrat described as a “major obstacle to peace.”
Biden said Friday that Schumer gave a “good speech.”
Asked about the president’s praise, National Security Council Press Secretary John Kirby said on MSNBC’s “The Andrea Mitchell Report” that Biden responded, “The sentiments expressed by Leader Schumer in his very passionate speech yesterday… , which I know is shared by so many Americans.”
White House officials privately expressed similar sentiments. “We’re not being exercised on it. There’s no hand-wringing,” one White House official said of the speech.
Schumer’s comments on the Senate floor highlighted the divisions within the Democratic Party that have made it difficult for the president to navigate as he seeks a second term. His position is likely to embolden progressives who want a meaningful shift in U.S. policy toward Israel, specifically leveraging the leverage of withholding aid and arms transfers unless the Netanyahu government changes course.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, R-Vt., praised Schumer’s speech but said it wasn’t enough.
“I think this is a step in the right direction. And the people of Israel need to understand that they are increasingly isolated from the rest of the world. Literally hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza There is global outrage against Netanyahu’s right-wing extremist government, which is causing starvation among children in the United States,” Sanders told NBC News. “We cannot continue to fund Prime Minister Netanyahu’s war machine.”
But other Democrats, including Sens. John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania, and Jacky Rosen, D-Nevada, disagreed with Schumer’s call to replace Netanyahu.
“Israel is our closest ally in the Middle East, and as a democracy, it is up to the Israeli people to decide their political future,” said Rosen, who is up for re-election this fall.
This dynamic could further complicate the path to passing a package that combines aid for Ukraine and Israel, and progressives like Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., say that unless it’s on Israel’s terms, , opposes efforts to provide funding to two countries that are allies of the United States.
Biden adopted the bear hug approach toward Israel shortly after Oct. 7 because he believed it was the most effective way to influence Israel to carry out military attacks against Hamas. But that strategy soon began to show flaws, with Israel ignoring Biden’s appeals for more efforts to protect Palestinian civilians and increase the amount of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Now, Biden and Netanyahu haven’t spoken in a month. Their last call was on February 15 and focused primarily on Mr. Rafah, the White House said.
White House officials said Mr. Biden was informed of Mr. Schumer’s speech in advance, but no one in his administration had coordinated with the senator on the matter. But Biden’s own comments over the weekend may have laid the groundwork for Schumer’s public statement.
Biden’s comment that Prime Minister Netanyahu is “hurting Israel more than helping it” signaled a serious rupture in relations. The president said Prime Minister Netanyahu had not given “sufficient consideration to the innocent lives that will be lost as a result of the actions taken.”
“It goes against what Israel stands for,” Biden told MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart last week. “And I think that’s a big mistake.”
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