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Israeli and US Interests on War and Ceasefires Do Not Align
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken disembarks from an aircraft as he arrives in Israel, as the push for a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel continues, in Tel Aviv, March 22, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Despite claims to the contrary, a significant divergence between the security interests of Israel and the United States has developed in recent months.
President Joe Biden and his top aides have spent months relentlessly trying to bring Israel and Hamas to a long-term ceasefire via a hostage release agreement and to push for an “end to the war.” Despite the US’ official position, the motivation for this intense effort is broader than a desire to bring the hostages home. The US wants to bring Israel to a ceasefire because it views Gaza as the key to deescalating tensions between Hezbollah and Israel. Washington wants to avert a war that could draw in Hezbollah’s sponsor, Iran, as that conflict could in turn draw the US itself into the fighting.
The White House administration therefore perceives Gaza as the key to regional de-escalation — but that view fails to address Israel’s need to ensure sustained freedom of operation in Gaza to prevent Hamas from regrouping. It also ignores Hezbollah’s massive military-terrorist infrastructure in southern Lebanon and 11-month assault on Israel as well as the alarmingly advanced Iranian nuclear program, which is intended by Tehran to provide a nuclear umbrella to protect the whole of the jihadist Iranian axis.
While the US has played a vital role in coordinating and taking part in defensive operations that have greatly benefited Israel, particularly during the April 14 Iranian missile and UAV attack on Israel, and has played an essential role in supplying Israel with war munitions, it has no desire to be drawn into sustained offensive operations against Iran. It is operating accordingly in line with this strategic agenda.
American efforts are therefore far from fully aligned with Israel’s interests, as they apply a “band-aid” approach that would leave festering threats in place. The ongoing threat from Lebanon would be allowed to continue, and an Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza would all but guarantee a Hamas regrouping and a renewed Iranian-backed force build-up in Gaza.
It is perfectly legitimate for close allies to have divergent interests and to manage these disagreements, but some transparency regarding this situation would be beneficial.
For example, CNN reported on September 5, 2024, that a prospective hostage and ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas was 90% completed, citing senior US administration officials. These statements minimized the large gaps that remain between the two sides and the fact that Hamas continues to demand a full Israeli withdrawal from all of Gaza.
(This essay will not go into the hostage deal proposals themselves, which warrant a separate analysis).
In the same report, a senior Biden administration official stated, “We still see this deal, this very complex but necessary arrangement, as really the most viable, perhaps the only viable option for saving the lives of the hostages, stopping the war, bringing immediate relief to Gazans, and also making sure we fully account for Israel’s security.”
On September 1, The Washington Post cited a US official as stating, “You can’t keep negotiating this. This process has to be called at some point.”
The US fears that a failure to reach a ceasefire in Gaza will tip the Lebanese arena into full-scale war, which in turn could activate Iran via missile and drone attacks. This series of events could draw the US into the conflict. US bases in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere are vulnerable to attack by Iran and its proxies, and a Middle Eastern war involving the US military is deemed by Washington to be a political negative (whether it is an election year or not).
This concern is likely a primary motivator for US policy in the region, and a significant reason behind American impatience over the stalled talks.
In a reflection of this motivation, American officials have released statements at almost every step of the war in Gaza designed to cast doubt on Israel’s ability to deal with Hamas, as well as Israel’s ability to militarily take on Hezbollah.
For example, US officials were quoted by CNN on June 20 as expressing “serious concerns” that in the event of a full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah, the latter could overwhelm Israel’s air defenses in the north. “We assess that at least some Iron Dome batteries will be overwhelmed,” said a senior administration official.
This assessment is largely self-evident and not in serious dispute. There appears to be no purpose to its release to the public by American officials other than the overall goal of pressuring Israel into a Gaza ceasefire.
In May, the IDF announced that it had succeeded in evacuating around a million Palestinians from Rafah. This was despite a major American pressure campaign designed to avert the Rafah operation that included the withholding of American arms shipments to Israel (including 2,000-pound bombs, which affects Israel’s posture against Hezbollah).
On May 12, CNN reported that top American officials “offered stark warnings” against an Israeli invasion of Rafah, predicting that a major ground offensive in the southern Gaza city “would lead to widespread civilian casualties, spark a Hamas insurgency and create a power vacuum the terror group would later seek to fill.”
Going “headlong into Rafah” could have dire consequences, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned prior to the offensive. “Israel’s on the trajectory, potentially, to inherit an insurgency with many armed Hamas left, or, if it leaves, a vacuum filled by chaos, filled by anarchy and probably refilled by Hamas,” Blinken told NBC at the time. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan also warned at the time that the Israeli operation would lead to “really significant civilian casualties” while still being unlikely to eliminate Hamas. President Biden issued similar warnings prior to the Rafah operation.
Yet the extreme consequences they warned about failed to materialize due to Israel’s ability to evacuate the Gazan population from Rafah. And in any case, how leaving Hamas intact in Rafah would have solved the concerns raised by the US remains unclear.
The goal behind all these statements appears to have been the same: to create pressure on Israel to enter into a ceasefire, even if that meant leaving Hamas in power in Gaza.
Washington is taking a similar approach to the northern front. On June 28, US defense officials were quoted by Middle East Eye as stating that an Israeli ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon could “further ignite Iran’s allies in the region and cement Tehran’s military cooperation with Russia.”
It is, however, possible to argue that the US’ own attempt to contain Iran has emboldened it and the IRGC’s region-wide terror-promoting elements, thereby also boosting Iran’s ally, Russia, which has become deeply dependent on Iranian firepower in its war against Ukraine.
Meanwhile, in Lebanon, the US has been involved in a series of failed efforts, led by mediator Amos Hochstein, involving talks with the formal Lebanese government (which holds no power whatsoever over Hezbollah). The goal is to create a diplomatic off-ramp for the northern conflict. Yet none of these efforts contain any clear proposed enforcement mechanism of UN Security Resolution 1701, which bans Hezbollah from being militarily active in southern Lebanon.
UN Security Resolution 1701 allegedly came into effect upon the conclusion of the 2006 Second Lebanon War. Yet Hezbollah spent the intervening 18 years turning some 200 southern Lebanese villages into Iranian-backed military-terror bases and building up a firepower arsenal larger than that of most NATO armies. It did this with no pushback from the UN whatsoever and no attempts to enforce the resolution.
For months, American officials have expressed alarm over prospects of full-scale war with Hezbollah and leaked assessments that cast doubt on Israel’s capabilities, similar to American assessments of IDF capabilities in Gaza.
As long ago as January 7, The Washington Post reported that “Israel’s talk of expanding war to Lebanon alarms [the] US.” The report contained references to “an American intelligence assessment” that found that it would be “difficult for Israel to succeed in a war against Hezbollah amid ongoing fighting in Gaza.” The target audience of those reports could well have been the Israeli public itself.
More recently, an American official was quoted by Israeli journalist Barak Ravid as saying that a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah could have “catastrophic and unforeseen consequences,” as Israel would need to shift growing numbers of military units from the Gaza front to the Lebanese border and Hezbollah would continue to bombard northern Israel and keep 60,000 Israelis internally displaced.
While an open discussion about the dangers of a full-scale war against Hezbollah and potentially Iran is welcome, there is little reason to continue to pretend that American and Israeli security interests in the Middle East are identical. The US long ago decided to seek de-escalation as its primary goal. Israelis should think twice before automatically accepting the claim that Washington’s regional agenda and public statements always promote Israel’s own critical security needs.
Yaakov Lappin is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and analyst. He provides insight and analysis for a number of media outlets, including Jane’s Defense Weekly and JNS.org.A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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US Sanctions Six Firms in China, Hong Kong Over Iranian Drone Network
A bronze seal for the Department of the Treasury is shown at the U.S. Treasury building in Washington, U.S., January 20, 2023. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The United States has sanctioned six entities in Hong Kong and China for allegedly participating in an Iranian drone procurement network, as the Trump administration advances its so-called “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.
These latest sanctions follow the US Treasury Department’s announcement earlier this week of new restrictions on Iran’s oil industry, targeting over 30 brokers, tanker operators, and shipping companies involved in transporting and selling Iranian petroleum.
On Wednesday, Washington issued these new sanctions against entities accused of procuring unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) components for the Iranian firm Pishtazan Kavosh Gostar Boshra and its subsidiary, Narin Sepehr Mobin Isatis, both already blacklisted by the US, calling them key suppliers to Iran’s UAV and ballistic missile programs.
“Iran continues to try to find new ways to procure the key components it needs to bolster its UAV weapons program through new front companies and third-country suppliers,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.
“The Treasury remains committed to disrupting the schemes that enable Iran to send its deadly weapons abroad to its terrorist proxies and other destabilizing actors.”
According to a Reuters report, Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington, said Beijing and Tehran’s cooperation was “reasonable and legal.”
“China has always firmly opposed the illegal unilateral sanctions imposed by the United States and will firmly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of its enterprises and citizens,” Pengyu said.
Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump reinstated his “maximum pressure” policy toward Tehran, aiming to cut the country’s crude exports to zero and prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
However, Trump also expressed a willingness to talk to Iran’s leaders, stating his desire to reach a “nuclear peace agreement” to improve bilateral relations, while insisting that the Iranian regime must not develop a nuclear weapon.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi rejected the possibility of nuclear talks with Washington, stating that Tehran would “not negotiate under pressure, threat, or sanctions.”
“There will be no possibility of direct talks between us and the United States on the nuclear issue as long as the maximum pressure is applied in this way,” Araghchi said during a joint press conference with his visiting Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.
Iran’s so-called “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also rejected the idea of negotiating with Washington, calling such a move “unwise” and “dishonorable.”
This week, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), reported that Iran has further accelerated its production of near weapons-grade uranium, according to a report by The Associated Press.
As of Feb. 8, Tehran’s stockpile of 60% enriched uranium reached 274.8 kilograms (605.8 pounds), an increase of 92.5 kilograms (203.9 pounds) since IAEA’s last report in November.
Iran has repeatedly claimed that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes rather than weapon development.
Last year, the UK, France, and Germany said in a statement that there is no “credible civilian justification” for Tehran’s recent nuclear activity, arguing it “gives Iran the capability to rapidly produce sufficient fissile material for multiple nuclear weapons.”
In their latest report, the IAEA estimated that Iran’s overall stockpile of enriched uranium stands at 8,294.4 kilograms (18,286 pounds), an increase of 1,690.0 kilograms (3,725.8 pounds). The report also noted that Iran continues to ban some of the agency’s most experienced inspectors from monitoring the country’s nuclear program.
Under the 2015 nuclear deal, which Trump withdrew from in 2018, Iran was allowed to enrich uranium only up to 3.67% purity and maintain a stockpile of no more than 300 kilograms.
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Contender in NYC Mayoral Race Has Extensive Anti-Israel Trackrecord
Ron Adar / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
A major contender in the New York City (NYC) mayoral race has an extensive anti-Israel track record, raising concerns among the Big Apple’s Jewish population that the city’s staunch support of the Jewish State may be in jeopardy.
Zohran Mamdani, a representative within the New York State Assembly and candidate for New York City mayor, has made anti-Israel activism a cornerstone of his political career. Mamdani, a self-described progressive and socialist, has both advanced state legislation seeking to punish Israel and has labelled the Jewish state’s defensive military operations in Gaza a “genocide.”
According to a poll conducted by Honan Strategy Group from Feb. 22-23, Mamdani currently sits in second place in the NYC mayoral race, polling at 12 percent. Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo holds a commanding lead at 38 percent.
In 2021, Mamdani issued public support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement—an initiative which seeks to economically and diplomatically isolate Israel in the first step to its eventual destruction. He claimed that support for the anti-Israel movement is growing within New York City, saying on X/Twitter that “The tide is turning. The fight for justice is here. The moment is now.” That same year, he also called for prohibiting New York lawmakers from visiting Israel, asserting that “every elected [official] must be pressured to stand with Palestinians.”
In May 2023, Mamdani advanced the “Not on our dime!: Ending New York Funding of Israeli Settler Violence Act,” legislation which would ban charities from using tax-deductible donations to aid organizations that work in the West Bank. Mamdani argued that the legislation would help the state fight against so-called Israeli “war crimes” against Palestinians. The socialist dismissed critics of the legislation, saying that his anti-Israel proposal is “in line with the sentiments of most New Yorkers.”
On Oct. 8, 2023, 24 hours following the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, Mamdani published a statement condemning “Netnayahu’s declaration of war” and suggesting that Israel would use the terror attacks to justify committing a second “Nakba.” Mamdani then said that Israel can only secure its long term safety by “ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid.”
Five days later, he further criticized Israel’s response to the Hamas-led massacres, saying that “we are brink of a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza right now”
In January 2024, he called on NYC to cease sending any funds to Israel, saying that “Voters oppose their tax dollars funding a genocide.”
The progressive firebrand is also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a far-left political organization with critical views of Israel. Though the DSA has long opposed Israel, the organization has ramped up its pro-Hamas rhetoric during the ongoing war in Gaza. On Oct. 7, the organization issued a statement saying that Hamas’ massacre was “a direct result of Israel’s apartheid regime.” The organization also encouraged its followers to attend an Oct. 8 “All Out for Palestine” event in Manhattan.
In January 2024, the DSA issued a statement calling for an “end to diplomatic and military support of Israel.” Then in April, the organization’s international committee, DSA IC, issued a missive defending Iran’s right to “self-defense” against Israel. In addition, the socialist group slammed former US Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) over his vote in favor of replenishing Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system.
The organization has also issued public support of Hamas, calling the terrorist group a “resistance” and “armed struggle” against Israel. In March 2024, the organization publicly repudiated progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), after the lawmaker condemned Hamas, arguing that Palestinians have a “right to defend against occupation.”
Mamdani’s political ascendence comes amid a spike in anti-Jewish hate crimes within New York City.
New York City has been ravaged by a surge in antisemitic incidents in the 16 months following Oct. 7. According to NYPD data, Jews accounted for a majority of all hate crimes in the city. Pro-Hamas activists have held raucous—and sometimes violent—protests on the city’s college campuses, oftentimes causing Jewish students to fear for their safety. NYC schools are also currently facing criticism for failing to protect Jewish and Israeli students from antisemitism.
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GOP Lawmakers Urge Trump to Recognize Israeli Sovereignty Over West Bank
Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) Source: Reuters
A group of Republican lawmakers are urging US President Donald Trump to formally recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the West Bank, citing the territory’s historical ties and importance to the Jewish people.
Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY), one of the most strident pro-Israel voices in Congress, spearheaded a letter to Trump, calling on the president to endorse an Israeli annexation of the West Bank. Other signatories of the letter include Mary Miller (R-IL), Barry Moore (R-AL), Nick LaLota (R-NY), Randy Weber (R-TX), and Andy Harris (R-MD).
The coalition of pro-Israel Republicans—which are members of the Friends of Judea and Samaria Caucus—argue that the internationally recognized borders of the West Bank, “comprise the Judeo-Christian biblical heartland, where over 80 percent of the Torah and Old Testament took place.” Thus, the lawmakers claim that acknowledging Israel’s claim over the West Bank is central to reinforce America and Israel’s shared “Judeo-Christian heritage.”
The lawmakers argue that recognizing the West Bank as Israeli territory would help build upon his record of supporting the Jewish state. Letter pointed to Trump’s 2021 recognition of the City of David in Jerusalem as a “testament to America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and founding principles.” The lawmakers claim that the West Bank, which they refer to as Judea and Samaria, is similarly critical to Israel’s national identity.
They also said that they were in “strong opposition to the recognition of any hostile Arab state in Judea and Samaria that supports terrorism and fails to recognize Israel.”
Israeli leaders have also publicly opposed the creation of a Palestinian state within the West Bank, arguing that the territory would become a hotbed of terrorism and launching pad for direct attacks into the Jewish state’s population centers.
In the immediate aftermath of President Trump’s victory last November, several high-profile conservative lawmakers vowed to refer to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria, aligning themselves with the terminology preferred by Israel. To many observers, the shift in language signalled a shift in US policy closer to the Jewish state and in favor of further expansion of Jewish communities in the territory.However, Critics have argued that the change in language might inflame tensions in the Middle East, complicating the possibility of reaching a two-state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Nonetheless, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK), introduced legislation in December ban the federal government from using the term “West Bank” instead of “Judea and Samaria,” arguing that the bill would “align US policy language with the geographical and cultural significance of the region.”
Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has also vowed to use the words Judea and Samaria in lieu of the West Bank.
“I can’t say something I don’t believe. As you well know, I’ve never been willing to use the term ‘West Bank.’ There is no such thing. I speak of Judea and Samaria,” Huckabee told Israeli media outlet Arutz Sheva in an interview. “I tell people there is no ‘occupation.’ It is a land that is ‘occupied’ by the people who have had a rightful deed to the place for 3,500 years, since the time of Abraham.”
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