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The big issues dividing the US and Israel as the Gaza war bleeds into 2024
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The official “readouts” describing conversations between world leaders are usually dry, information-deficient affairs, but the ones between President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been telling a story of diverging views on Israel’s war in Gaza.
Their most recent conversation, on Dec. 23, is an example: According to the Israeli readout, the Israeli leader “expressed his appreciation for the U.S. position at the U.N. Security Council,” referring to the Biden administration’s removal of calls for a ceasefire from a U.N. Security Council resolution. “The Prime Minister made it clear that Israel would continue the war until all of its goals have been achieved.”
The White House readout suggested why Netanyahu felt he had to make it “clear” that Israel would not stop until Hamas is crushed and the more than 100 remaining hostages abducted by the terror group on Oct. 7 are returned: Biden wants Netanyahu to change tactics.
“The leaders discussed Israel’s military campaign in Gaza to include its objectives and phasing,” Biden’s version said. “The President emphasized the critical need to protect the civilian population including those supporting the humanitarian aid operation, and the importance of allowing civilians to move safely away from areas of ongoing fighting.”
Biden, while maintaining his opposition to any ceasefire that leaves Hamas intact, has called Israel’s bombing in Gaza “indiscriminate.” His top officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, have said that Israel risks losing support if it does not shift to more targeted warfare.
Both leaders are under pressure. Biden is facing Democrats on the left, and also surprisingly Republicans on his right, who want him to condition aid to Israel. Netanyahu’s popularity in Israel has plummeted and he needs his far-right flank to survive in office to avoid a crushing electoral defeat.
Here are some of the factors that could shape the Biden-Netanyahu relationship as we head into a new year.
That $14 billion
On Oct. 19, less than two weeks after Hamas terrorists massacred 1,200 people in Israel, abducted more than 240 and brutalized thousands more, Biden asked Congress for $14 billion in emergency assistance for Israel, along with $60 billion for Ukraine for its war against Russian invaders.
The aid for Israel seemed an easy ask then: Republicans have become the most reflexively pro-Israel party in Congress, and within three days of Biden making the request, more than half of the Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives backed Biden’s Israel strategy, in a letter signed by all 24 Jewish House Democrats.
Marching into 2024, the funding has yet to happen and the responsibility lies, unusually, with Republicans, who lead the House.
The first obstacle was the removal of the Israel-friendly speaker, California’s Kevin McCarthy, leaving the House unable to function. He was replaced by Louisiana’s Mike Johnson. The House approved the Israel portion, but for the first time ever, the body conditioned aid to Israel — on cuts to the Internal Revenue Service. Far-right Republicans engineered McCarthy’s ouster for compromising with Biden on spending bills, and Johnson has no taste for playing nice with the president, even when Israel is involved.
Conditioning Israel aid on IRS cuts guaranteed that the bill was dead on arrival in the Senate, which is led by Democrats. There, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Jewish New York Democrat, tried to craft a new assistance bill but was met with a new headwind. Republicans in the body are now using the filibuster to keep the bill from advancing unless it includes new protections on the Mexican border.
Sen. Bernie Sanders joined Republican senators in the Dec. 7 vote that blocked the assistance from advancing. The Jewish Vermont independent, an unofficial leader of U.S. progressives, wants Biden to condition aid to Israel on how it conducts the war.
Calls for a ceasefire
Sanders still stops short of calling for a permanent ceasefire, but a growing number of Democrats do — some 63 so far, including a number of the Jewish Democrats who back in October were backing Biden’s Israel policies.
The number of Palestinians killed since Israel launched its counterstrikes has topped 20,000, according to Palestinian sources, although Israel estimates that a third of these are combatants. Nonetheless, as casualties mount in the Gaza Strip, expect more pressure on Biden from the left.
The politics
Axios reported this week that Biden, in that Dec. 23 phone call, told Netanyahu that he expected him to show the same fortitude in resisting pressure from his right wing that Biden has shown in ignoring his left flank. Biden wants Israel to build up the Palestinian Authority after the war is over so it can replace Hamas; Netanyahu has said that is not an option.
One problem is the weakness of the Palestinian Authority, which has limited governance powers in the West Bank. Biden wants Netanyahu to resume transferring taxes to the Palestinian Authority, which Netanyahu resists as long as it continues to compensate the families of Palestinians who have attacked Israelis.
“This conversation is over,” Axios reported Biden as saying after he told Netanyahu that he needed to show the same level of leadership Biden is showing defending Israel.
Support for Biden’s Israel policy among Democrats has plummeted, and growing numbers of Arab-American and Muslim voters are saying they will stay away from the polls next November, when Biden is likely to once again face Donald Trump in a presidential election. That could cost Biden a key state, Michigan, where there is a substantial Arab-American population.
As Biden heads into the presidential election, the politics of the war are being seen in a phenomenon unimaginable a decade ago: Mainstream Democrats are running against the mainstream pro-Israel line. In California’s Senate race, Rep. Barbara Lee is seeking to set herself apart from the frontrunners, fellow Democratic representatives Adam Schiff and Katie Porter, by endorsing a ceasefire.
Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, a moderate Jewish Democrat running a longshot presidential primary campaign against Biden, also endorses a ceasefire. It’s one of the few policy differences distinguishing him from the incumbent.
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The post The big issues dividing the US and Israel as the Gaza war bleeds into 2024 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel Blocks Ramallah Meeting with Arab Ministers, Israeli Official Says
A closed Israeli military gate stands near Ramallah in the West Bank, February 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Israel will not allow a planned meeting in the Palestinian administrative capital of Ramallah, in the West Bank, to go ahead, an Israeli official said on Saturday, after Arab ministers planning to attend were stopped from coming.
The move, days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government announced one of the largest expansions of settlements in the West Bank in years, underlined escalating tensions over the issue of international recognition of a future Palestinian state.
Saturday’s meeting comes ahead of an international conference, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, that is due to be held in New York on June 17-20 to discuss the issue of Palestinian statehood, which Israel fiercely opposes.
The delegation of senior Arab officials due to visit Ramallah – including the Jordanian, Egyptian, Saudi Arabian and Bahraini foreign ministers – postponed the visit after “Israel’s obstruction of it,” Jordan’s foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that the block was “a clear breach of Israel’s obligations as an occupying force.”
The ministers required Israeli consent to travel to the West Bank from Jordan.
An Israeli official said the ministers intended to take part in “a provocative meeting” to discuss promoting the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“Such a state would undoubtedly become a terrorist state in the heart of the land of Israel,” the official said. “Israel will not cooperate with such moves aimed at harming it and its security.”
A Saudi source told Reuters that Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud had delayed a planned trip to the West Bank.
Israel has come under increasing pressure from the United Nations and European countries which favour a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, under which an independent Palestinian state would exist alongside Israel.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that recognizing a Palestinian state was not only a “moral duty but a political necessity.”
Palestinians want the West Bank territory, which was seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, as the core of a future state along with Gaza and East Jerusalem.
But the area is now criss-crossed with settlements that have squeezed some 3 million Palestinians into pockets increasingly cut off from each other though a network of military checkpoints.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said the announcement this week of 22 new settlements in the West Bank was an “historic moment” for settlements and “a clear message to Macron.” He said recognition of a Palestinian state would be “thrown into the dustbin of history.”
The post Israel Blocks Ramallah Meeting with Arab Ministers, Israeli Official Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Gaza Aid Supplies Hit by Looting as Hamas Ceasefire Response Awaited
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Armed men hijacked dozens of aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip overnight and hundreds of desperate Palestinians joined in to take supplies, local aid groups said on Saturday as officials waited for Hamas to respond to the latest ceasefire proposals.
The incident was the latest in a series that has underscored the shaky security situation hampering the delivery of aid into Gaza, following the easing of a weeks-long Israeli blockade earlier this month.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday he believed a ceasefire agreement was close but Hamas has said it is still studying the latest proposals from his special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. The White House said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to the proposals.
The proposals would see a 60-day truce and the exchange of 28 of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza for more than 1,200 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, along with the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave.
On Saturday, the Israeli military, which relaunched its air and ground campaign in March following a two-month truce, said it was continuing to hit targets in Gaza, including sniper posts and had killed what it said was the head of a Hamas weapons manufacturing site.
The campaign has cleared large areas along the boundaries of the Gaza Strip, squeezing the population of more than 2 million into an ever narrower section along the coast and around the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israel imposed a blockade on all supplies entering the enclave at the beginning of March in an effort to weaken Hamas and has found itself under increasing pressure from an international community shocked by the increasingly desperate humanitarian situation the blockade has created.
The United Nations said on Friday the situation in Gaza is the worst since the start of the war began 19 months ago, with the entire population facing the risk of famine despite a resumption of limited aid deliveries earlier this month.
Israel has been allowing a limited number of trucks from the World Food Program and other international groups to bring flour to bakeries in Gaza but deliveries have been hampered by repeated incidents of looting.
At the same time, a separate system, run by a US-backed group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been delivering meals and food packages at three designated distribution sites.
However, aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, which they say is not neutral, and say the amount of aid allowed in falls far short of the needs of a population at risk of famine.
“The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery of the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the main U.N. relief organization for Palestinians, said in a message on the social media platform X.
NO BREAD IN WEEKS
The World Food Program said it brought 77 trucks carrying flour into Gaza overnight and early on Saturday and all of them were stopped on the way, with food taken by hungry people.
“After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by,” it said in a statement.
Amjad Al-Shawa, head of an umbrella group representing Palestinian aid groups, said the dire situation was being exploited by armed groups which were attacking some of the aid convoys.
He said hundreds more trucks were needed and accused Israel of a “systematic policy of starvation.”
Overnight on Saturday, he said trucks had been stopped by armed groups near Khan Younis as they were headed towards a World Food Programme warehouse in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza and hundreds of desperate people had carried off supplies.
“We could understand that some are driven by hunger and starvation, some may not have eaten bread in several weeks, but we can’t understand armed looting, and it is not acceptable at all,” he said.
Israel says it is facilitating aid deliveries, pointing to its endorsement of the new GHF distribution centers and its consent for other aid trucks to enter Gaza.
Instead it accuses Hamas of stealing supplies intended for civilians and using them to entrench its hold on Gaza, which it had been running since 2007.
The post Gaza Aid Supplies Hit by Looting as Hamas Ceasefire Response Awaited first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Seeks Changes in US Gaza Proposal; Witkoff Calls Response ‘Unacceptable’
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy-designate Steve Witkoff gives a speech at the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of Trump’s second presidential term, in Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Hamas said on Saturday it was seeking amendments to a US-backed proposal for a temporary ceasefire with Israel in Gaza, but President Donald Trump’s envoy rejected the group’s response as “totally unacceptable.”
The Palestinian terrorist group said it was willing to release 10 living hostages and hand over the bodies of 18 dead in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. But Hamas reiterated demands for an end to the war and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, conditions Israel has rejected.
A Hamas official described the group’s response to the proposals from Trump’s special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff as “positive” but said it was seeking some amendments. The official did not elaborate on the changes being sought by the group.
“This response aims to achieve a permanent ceasefire, a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and to ensure the flow of humanitarian aid to our people in the Strip,” Hamas said in a statement.
The proposals would see a 60-day truce and the exchange of 28 of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza for more than 1,200 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, along with the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave.
A Palestinian official familiar with the talks told Reuters that among amendments Hamas is seeking is the release of the hostages in three phases over the 60-day truce and more aid distribution in different areas. Hamas also wants guarantees the deal will lead to a permanent ceasefire, the official said.
There was no immediate response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office to the Hamas statement.
Israel has previously rejected Hamas’ conditions, instead demanding the complete disarmament of the group and its dismantling as a military and governing force, along with the return of all 58 remaining hostages.
Trump said on Friday he believed a ceasefire agreement was close after the latest proposals, and the White House said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to the terms.
Saying he had received Hamas’ response, Witkoff wrote in a posting on X: “It is totally unacceptable and only takes us backward. Hamas should accept the framework proposal we put forward as the basis for proximity talks, which we can begin immediately this coming week.”
On Saturday, the Israeli military said it had killed Mohammad Sinwar, Hamas’ Gaza chief on May 13, confirming what Netanyahu said earlier this week.
Sinwar, the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, the group’s deceased leader and mastermind of the October 2023 attack on Israel, was the target of an Israeli strike on a hospital in southern Gaza. Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied his death.
The Israeli military, which relaunched its air and ground campaign in March following a two-month truce, said on Saturday it was continuing to hit targets in Gaza, including sniper posts and had killed what it said was the head of a Hamas weapons manufacturing site.
The campaign has cleared large areas along the boundaries of the Gaza Strip, squeezing the population of more than 2 million into an ever narrower section along the coast and around the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israel imposed a blockade on all supplies entering the enclave at the beginning of March in an effort to weaken Hamas and has found itself under increasing pressure from an international community shocked by the desperate humanitarian situation the blockade has created.
On Saturday, aid groups said dozens of World Food Program trucks carrying flour to Gaza bakeries had been hijacked by armed groups and subsequently looted by people desperate for food after weeks of mounting hunger.
“After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by,” the WFP said in a statement.
‘A MOCKERY’
The incident was the latest in a series that has underscored the shaky security situation hampering the delivery of aid into Gaza, following the easing of a weeks-long Israeli blockade earlier this month.
The United Nations said on Friday the situation in Gaza is the worst since the start of the war 19 months ago, with the entire population facing the risk of famine despite a resumption of limited aid deliveries earlier this month.
“The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery of the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the main U.N. relief organization for Palestinians, said in a message on X.
Israel has been allowing a limited number of trucks from the World Food Program and other international groups to bring flour to bakeries in Gaza but deliveries have been hampered by repeated incidents of looting.
A separate system, run by a US-backed group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, has been delivering meals and food packages at three designated distribution sites.
However, aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, which they say is not neutral, and say the amount of aid allowed in falls far short of the needs of a population at risk of famine.
Amjad Al-Shawa, head of an umbrella group representing Palestinian aid groups, said the dire situation was being exploited by armed groups which were attacking some of the aid convoys.
He said hundreds more trucks were needed and accused Israel of a “systematic policy of starvation.”
Israel denies operating a policy of starvation and says it is facilitating aid deliveries, pointing to its endorsement of the new GHF distribution centers and its consent for other aid trucks to enter Gaza.
Instead it accuses Hamas of stealing supplies intended for civilians and using them to entrench its hold on Gaza, which it had been running since 2007.
Hamas denies looting supplies and has executed a number of suspected looters.
The post Hamas Seeks Changes in US Gaza Proposal; Witkoff Calls Response ‘Unacceptable’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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