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By Jonathan S. Tobin
(JULY 10, 2023 / JNS) In an interview this past weekend with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, President Joe Biden painted a dismal picture of one of America’s closest allies. Following up on previous statements damning Israel’s leaders, Biden claimed that the Jewish state was being run by “one of the most extreme governments” he’s ever seen. He went on to characterize the goings-on in the Israeli cabinet as a coalition with “problems” and one where Prime Minister Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu is struggling to maintain control by “moving toward moderation.”
The answer was a response to a question about why Biden hadn’t invited Netanyahu to Washington, though ironically, China—America’s chief geostrategic enemy—has asked him to visit Beijing. Biden answered by simply saying that Israeli President Isaac Herzog will soon be coming to Washington. That’s all well and good, but Herzog, despite his periodic attempts to intervene in politics, has a purely symbolic role in the country’s governance. The question of denying Netanyahu the courtesy of a visit is mere optics. What matters is that Biden has spent 2023 doing everything in his power to undermine the prime minister and aid those seeking to topple his government.
A major feature of that effort is the administration’s open opposition to the government’s legislation that seeks to reform Israel’s out-of-control Supreme Court and judicial system. The backing for the “anti-Bibi resistance” that has spent the last six months trying to overturn the results of Israel’s November 2022 election is highly ironic given the Democratic Party’s attitude to supporters of former President Donald Trump, who regard Biden as an illegitimate president. The Israeli effort has been influenced by the success of the anti-Trump resistance that spent his four years in office seeking to delegitimize his victory in 2016 while promoting conspiracy theories about the Russian collusion hoax.
Clearly, Biden is hoping that Netanyahu’s opponents succeed, though the chances of that happening are receding with each passing month. And they are fading precisely because Biden’s evaluation of that government, coupled with the implication that Netanyahu is not in control and at the mercy of its most right-wing elements, is completely false.
It’s true that this current coalition, unlike Netanyahu’s previous governments, lacks any left-wing or supposedly centrist parties. Still, the notion that the prime minister is a hostage to the so-called extremists in the cabinet, like Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, is simply untrue. It is Netanyahu who is very much calling the shots in Jerusalem. Given Biden’s own clear problems in asserting control over his own administration and his daily problems in expressing himself in a way that doesn’t call attention to his age, can he say the same?
The very same day that Biden’s interview was airing on CNN, Netanyahu gave a clear demonstration that he—and not Ben-Gvir, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich or the haredi parties—is in charge.
Faced with a tottering Palestinian Authority on the verge of collapse due to its corruption, incompetence and refusal to accept responsibility to prevent terrorism, mainly, to fight efforts by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to turn Judea and Samaria into another Gaza, Israel’s Security Cabinet acted. It voted 8-1 to take emergency measures to help save it. The one “no” vote was Ben-Gvir.
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