Lev Grinberg writes:

Watching President Joe Biden clumsily debate Donald Trump on June 27, many Israelis could instantly recognize how their own prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been able to exploit the weaknesses of the aging commander-in-chief for so long.

Netanyahu has had a close relationship with his “friend Joe” for decades, going back to Biden’s days in the U.S. Senate and especially during the early years of the Barack Obama administration. According to Biden’s biographer Evan Osnos, the then-vice president served as a key mediator between Netanyahu and Obama as tensions grew between the two leaders, with Biden consistently advocating dialogue and preventing open confrontations.

The Israeli prime minister knows this all too well. And it is precisely that intimate and historical knowledge of Biden, American politics, and U.S. support for Israel that has helped Netanyahu stay in power almost uninterrupted since 2009, and even more so since October 7. With this knowledge, Netanyahu has also consistently been able to rebuff efforts in Washington to achieve its stated goal of a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine — tactics that the Israeli prime minister continues to use today to prolong the war in Gaza.

On June 14, 2009, Netanyahu delivered a historic speech at Bar Ilan University, near Tel Aviv, calling to reopen negotiations toward the establishment of a “demilitarized Palestinian state.” It was 10 days after Obama’s speech in Cairo calling for “a new beginning” in the relations between the United States and the Muslim world, including through the fulfillment of a Palestinian state. But after a year of vacuous talks, Netanyahu refused to abide by Washington’s demands to freeze settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, bringing the negotiations to a stalemate.

Netanyahu only continued to defy the Obama administration over the following years, with no political consequences. In May 2011, Netanyahu addressed the U.S. Congress, calling for an Israeli presence along the Jordan River and a united Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and was met with 29 standing ovations from both Republicans and Democrats. Another speech in Congress by Netanyahu in 2015 sought to undermine the president’s multilateral diplomacy with Iran regarding its nuclear facilities. Yet despite suffering these political and increasingly personal indignities, Obama ended his presidency by signing the largest ever U.S. military aid package to Israel, to the tune of $38 billion over 10 years.

Since Hamas’ October 7 attack, Netanyahu appears to be seeking to repeat his success with Obama — namely by wasting time until the U.S. election in November, exploiting Biden’s unconditional support for Israel, and preventing the implementation of the “Biden doctrine for the Middle East.” This task is much easier today than it was in 2009: instead of Fatah, the main Palestinian counterpart is now Hamas; the starting point of the debate is the October 7 massacre, which provoked immediate international support for Israel’s lethal response; and instead of eight years of manipulations, he now needs only four more months — a piece of cake for Netanyahu.

When Biden laid out his ceasefire proposal on May 31, he called on the Israelis to support the plan. It was an attempt to exert domestic pressure on Netanyahu, while tacitly recognizing that the United States would not use all its leverage with Israel. In response, Netanyahu took a page from Trump’s playbook and simply lied about the Biden administration’s suspension of a weapons shipment earlier in May — giving Republicans political fodder to attack the president.

In his upcoming speech to Congress on July 24, Netanyahu will further entrench his role in the U.S. elections, and will likely receive standing ovations from Republicans but also some Democrats who depend on AIPAC to fund their campaigns. As he did with Obama, Netanyahu intends to exercise his own leverage and help defeat Biden on his home turf. [Continue reading…]