The recent execution of Hezbollah’s longstanding leader by Israel has highlighted the ways in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shaped events in the Middle East, leaving the Biden White House angry and helpless to stop the crisis from getting worse.
Current and former authorities claim that the Israeli airstrikes on Friday in southern Beirut, which killed Hassan Nasrallah and other key Hezbollah commanders, caught them off guard.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken had been traveling back and forth between delegations in New York during the U.N. General Assembly session in the days leading up to the Israeli strike, in an attempt to broker a 21-day cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah.
The Biden administration was so sure of the proposal’s success that, following its public introduction, a senior administration official briefing media implied that an agreement between the parties was certain.
When television footage of a big plume of smoke billowing over southern Beirut surfaced, authorities in the United States and Europe thought they were getting closer to a potential agreement.
According to U.S. sources, the timing of the Israeli government action upset President Joe Biden, top executives at the Pentagon, and other senior officials throughout the administration.
According to Lebanese health officials, Israel’s ongoing airstrikes in Lebanon have killed over a thousand people in just two weeks.
This has confirmed the administration’s concerns that Netanyahu’s assertive actions could set off a domino effect that could lead to a wider regional conflict that might involve the United States.
The attack that killed Nasrallah offered “a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis, and Lebanese civilians,” according to a statement released by the White House on Saturday.
However, it also stated that it was time for all parties to accept the proposed ceasefire agreements on the table for Gaza and Lebanon and advocated for defusing the situations in both countries “through diplomatic means.”
Blinken once again pushed Israel to chose diplomacy in the face of another unsuccessful attempt by the United States to reduce the temperature, stating that doing otherwise would result in “greater instability and insecurity, the ripples of which will be felt around the world.”
In statements made on Friday following the strike that was subsequently proven to have killed Nasrallah, Blinken stated, “The choices that all parties make in coming days will determine which path this region is on with profound consequences for its people now and possibly for years to come.”
Since Hamas militants in Gaza staged a surprise terrorist attack on Israel almost a year ago, Netanyahu and his far-right ruling coalition have rejected international criticism of the number of civilian deaths in Gaza. The decapitation strike in Lebanon is just the most recent example of how they have followed their own path.
According to Palestinian health officials, almost 41,000 Palestinians have perished since Israel began an attack in Gaza last year.
Days after the October 7th attack, Biden threw his support behind Netanyahu and Israel, both physically and symbolically, believing that unconditional US backing for the Jewish state would lead to a readiness to yield to certain US demands.
Rather, over the course of the last year, Biden and his advisors have seemed to have less and less sway on Netanyahu.
U.S. officials made many public and private pleas to the Israeli government to modify its strategy in Gaza and accept a compromise that would enable a cease-fire agreement as the number of civilian deaths in Gaza skyrocketed.
But Washington’s closest regional ally has not been persuaded by their appeals. Netanyahu doesn’t seem to have been swayed by even hazy concerns that the administration would reduce or stop supplying weaponry.
Even while several fellow Democrats in Congress have called for the United States to stop providing military aid to Israel, Biden has refused, and the country has continued to supply Israel with Hellfire missiles and 2,000-pound bombs.
It’s unclear, analysts say, if the administration’s historic decision to stop military supplies would have changed Israel’s position given its substantial arsenal of weaponry.
According to Western officials and observers, Biden’s inability to influence Netanyahu stems from two factors: first, the prime minister cannot afford to sway the far-right political voices who make up his ruling coalition, and second, Israel has distinct goals.
Republicans who oppose Biden and Israel believe that the administration’s worries about escalation are unfounded. The Israeli prime minister and his allies think that hitting back at Iran and its proxies will make any assault on Israel more costly and will make Israel’s enemies reconsider the advantages of striking Israel.
Although they believed that the operation against Nasrallah would avoid the necessity for a ground invasion of Lebanon, a senior Israeli official stated that Israel would now capitalize on the momentum that their foe had lost.
The senior Israeli official thanked the US for its assistance in protecting Israel from Iranian missiles and its allies, but asserted that Israel was the only country truly retaliating against what it considered to be the existential danger presented by those forces.
Washington’s diplomatic efforts with Israel have not only been hindered, but the administration has also encountered resistance from Arab allies and partners who are reluctant to fully support efforts to weaken Hamas or Hezbollah or take other actions that might incite anger among their Muslim populations, many of whom believe that Israel is persecuting the Palestinian people.
“The devastation the Israelis have wrought has their publics appalled. Author Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, stated that they cannot go too near. “They cannot serve as the American spearhead against Iran or Hamas.”
According to Miller, the current battles between Israel and Iran, Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Israel and Hamas in Gaza are “ongoing wars of attrition.” He said, “There are no transformative diplomatic efforts, no stable end states, that could fundamentally end these wars of attrition.”
According to him, the only alternatives are to confine or dissuade enemies and take little, “transactional” moves that don’t deal with the root reasons of the dispute.
He went on to say that Netanyahu, as well as the leaders of Hamas, Iran, and the future leader of Hezbollah, will make the decisions on what has to be done next, not Joe Biden.
