David Ignatius writes:

The Biden administration, worried about a new humanitarian catastrophe, appears to be considering ways to prevent Israel from using U.S. weapons if it attacks the densely populated area around the city of Rafah.

President Biden and senior advisers haven’t made any decision about imposing “conditionality” on U.S. weapons. But the very fact that officials seem to be debating this extreme step shows the administration’s growing concern about the crisis in Gaza — and its sharp disagreement with Israeli leaders over a Rafah assault.

“Israel should understand that the Biden administration’s level of frustration about mishandling of the humanitarian situation in Gaza has reached the limit,” said Martin Indyk, a two-time U.S. ambassador to Israel. “If Israel launches an offensive in Rafah without adequately protecting the displaced civilian population, it may precipitate an unprecedented crisis in U.S.-Israel relations, even involving arms supplies.”

Vice President Harris and national security adviser Jake Sullivan sharply questioned the Rafah attack plan in separate meetings Monday with Benny Gantz, a member of the Israeli war cabinet who was visiting Washington, according to an Axios report. Although Gantz is seen as the chief political rival to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the two leaders are said to agree on assaulting Rafah to destroy four Hamas battalions there.

The Biden administration fears that the Rafah plan is half-baked — and will worsen the disastrous situation in Gaza without ending the war. Administration officials say they’ve seen no clear plan for how to protect the more than 1 million Palestinians who have been driven toward the Rafah area along the Egyptian border by the fighting farther north.

Biden said in a February call with Netanyahu that the Rafah attack “should not proceed without a credible and executable plan for ensuring the safety of and support for the more than one million people sheltering there,” according to a White House readout. Events since have only deepened the administration’s worries that Israel doesn’t have such a plan for safely moving all these refugees and isn’t dealing adequately with the plight of Palestinian civilians overall.

Any limit on U.S. arms supplies to Israel would mark a sharp break in the relationship — and cause a political furor. A somewhat comparable situation was the 1975 move by President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to “reassess” the U.S.-Israeli relationship and propose a cut in military aid to pressure Israel to agree to a troop-withdrawal deal in Sinai after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. Ford and Kissinger persisted in the face of intense criticism from Israel supporters; Israel eventually made concessions, and the dispute was resolved after several months. [Continue reading…]