Joe Biden held Israel closer than any American president ever has in the horrific days after the Hamas attacks on October 7.
But more than two months later, following days upon end of Israeli strikes in Gaza that have killed thousands of civilians, unprecedented tensions are widening between the White House and the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Biden accused Israel, for example, of carrying out “indiscriminate” bombing in an off-camera political event this week. He used exceedingly blunt language, which typically causes pushback from Israel’s leaders, who insist they try to spare civilians but accuse Hamas of using innocent Palestinians as cover.
The next big geopolitical question over the war in Gaza is not whether it will isolate Israel internationally — that’s already happened. It’s whether the White House’s firm support for the operation will also alienate the United States from its friends in a way that could severely compromise wider national security goals.
And the unrelenting toll on Palestinians is also increasing the political price that Biden is paying at home for his backing of Israel — and raising doubts about his capacity to invigorate his political coalition ahead of the 2024 election.
This is the sensitive backdrop of a trip to Israel on Thursday by Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, who will meet Netanyahu and other key officials following strikingly direct criticisms of the right-wing Israeli coalition from the president.
Sullivan plans to address the issue of aid flowing into Gaza and the “next phase of the military campaign,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. Biden’s top White House foreign policy official will also discuss with the Israelis “efforts to be more surgical and more precise and to reduce harm to civilians.”
“That is an aim…
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