MY COMMENT:
There are times in history when the moral fiber and integrity of one man determines the history of humankind. The best example is May 28, 1940 when Churchill won over the extended cabinet of 25 MPs in his decision not to negotiate a separate peace with Hitler.
Three days ago we had the example of a similar moment, except this time the lack of Chuck Schumer’s integrity may end up having far reaching negative consequences for the democracies of the West. Why? Because Israel is fighting Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran alone and throwing Israel under the bus at this crucial moment may push Iran towards nuclear breakout.
I'm Kate Bachelder Odell. I'm hosting today and I'm about to talk to my colleague, Elliot Kaufman, who is fresh off a trip to Israel about the developments there in Israel's war and Israel's relationship with the United States. So, Elliot, thank you so much for joining us. I believe you're relatively fresh off a plane, so hopefully you've had a moment to figure out what time and day it is and where you are, but we're glad to have you. In the past 24 hours, the biggest news item in the US-Israel relationship has obviously been the Democratic majority leader, Chuck Schumer who went to the US Senate floor and basically called for Netanyahu's ouster from Prime Minister of Israel. So, let's listen to a quick clip of what Chuck Schumer had to say.
Chuck Schumer: There needs to be a fresh debate about the future of Israel after October 7th. In my opinion, that is best accomplished by holding an election. Now, if Prime Minister Netanyahu's current coalition remains in power after the war begins to wind down and continues to pursue dangerous and inflammatory policies that test existing US standards for assistance, then the United States will have no choice but to play a more active role in shaping Israeli policy by using our leverage to change the present course.
Kate Bachelder Odell: Well, Schumer really waded right in there to Democratic allies electoral process. So, Elliot, I've got a small idea of how this perhaps went over in Israel, but why don't you give us some more detail on how Mr. Schumer's remarks are being received so far?
Elliot Kaufman: Sure. Thanks for having me on Kate. There are plenty of Israelis who would agree with Senator Schumer. There are plenty who would disagree, but I think what they would all say is that it's not his place, it's not his country. He doesn't get to say when Israel has an election, when a government has to fall, when the country's policy has to change. So, you've seen Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's leading opponents, people who would usually be more than happy to say bad things about him have to come and rally to his side here, Benny Gantz, Netanyahu's chief opponent coming out and saying that, this is a decision for Israelis to make, not an American Senator, no matter how powerful. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, another Netanyahu opponent coming out and saying, Israel is not a banana republic. America doesn't get to dictate what happens in this way. So, if the intent was to undermine the Prime Minister, I don't think it has succeeded in Israel. Israelis don't like to hear their country given orders about basic democratic processes.
Kate Bachelder Odell: Right. One of the things I find fascinating about this speech from Schumer is that if you read the full text of it, the first half of it is actually a remarkably cogent defense of Israel's existence, that it's not a 20th century invention and a very clear-eyed description of Israel's enemies and what they face against Hamas and Schumer recalls things like when he was younger listening over the radio about whether Israel was going to win the Six-Day War. So, what boggles my mind is that he kept going, and obviously the speech is not remembered for any of those features that I'm describing now. So, this is I guess, more of a question about the American left, but there's clearly some sort of change going on among Democrats, among the Biden administration and their posture toward Israel. Can you give us any more understanding of how maybe America's bent toward Israel has changed over the past couple of weeks?
Elliot Kaufman: You're absolutely right about there being two sides to Senator Schumer's speech, and I think you have to read it in the context of a campaign by President Biden over the past several weeks, months, maybe a month and a half, to really up the rhetorical ante against Israel, except he would put it differently. He would say it's against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The truth is, that plays well with American liberals, not only the anti-Israel left, but American liberals in general who have come to a situation where you can really say anything about Prime Minister Netanyahu and it's okay. The problem is what Netanyahu is being attacked for aren't things where he is on one side and the Israeli people are on another. That's what President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have tried to argue, but on every issue they pick, those are the issues where Netanyahu is actually aligned with Israelis on issues like what to do about Rafah, Hamas' final stronghold in Gaza. On issues like a Palestinian state now. Israelis find that idea absolutely crazy. They can't believe an American would think that's a good idea right now, even on things like humanitarian aid, where I would argue the Prime Minister is actually out in front of where Israelis are. Most Israelis don't like the idea of sending in humanitarian aid while their hostages are still suffering there 150 days in. Netanyahu is sending aid, and so by attacking the Prime Minister on these issues, they're really undermining their argument that the US problem is just with Netanyahu and not with Israel.
Kate Bachelder Odell: I thought your point in your piece for us Elliot was brilliant that, folks assume that if Netanyahu were gone, that they'd get somebody who were closer in agreement with the Biden administration, but in turn the reality might be quite the opposite. You mentioned Rafah and President Biden declared it would be a red line, which is an odd thing to say to an ally of any variety as opposed to an adversary, but maybe you could give us a little bit more insight into what Israel is planning in Rafah, what the potential for Israel to go into Rafah is, and how that pressure not to go into Rafah is actually playing there, whether it's having any effect or maybe the opposite effect in giving more Israel resolve, that it really does need to finish the job of eliminating the threat of Hamas.
Elliot Kaufman: Yes, so the Israeli war effort has two goals. One of them is to destroy Hamas. The other is to free the hostages that Hamas has been holding. These two objectives sometimes go hand in hand and sometimes not. So Rafah, the argument is, you can't destroy Hamas if you're going to leave it, an entire city as a stronghold where it has an estimated 40% of its military forces sitting where its senior leadership is believed to be hiding and where the hostages are believed to be held, most of them. So, the argument from an Israeli perspective is very clear for why there has to be some sort of military operation against Rafah. However, there are all kinds of other strategies being pursued at the same time, the Biden administration, President Biden really doesn't talk about destroying Hamas anymore. He did at the start of the war, and it really gave Israelis a boost of morale. President Biden went there to Israel, gave some very powerful speeches, but these days he just never mentions it, victory defeating Hamas, that's simply fallen off of his list of priorities, instead, he talks about humanitarian aid and he talks about bringing the war to a close. Now, the way to do that for him is with some kind of hostage deal and talks have been going on and there's some progress lately, but one can never know. The way that these two issues intersect is that President Biden would like a hostage deal that comes with a six-week pause in the fighting and then use that to get a larger ceasefire. He's been fairly open about this. Now his way to get there has been to pressure Israel, new policy measures, threats about suspending weapon shipments, escalating anti-Israel rhetoric. It's been pressure on Israel, Israel, Israel to try to get this hostage deal. The problem is Hamas has seen that too, and so in the last several weeks, we've seen Hamas harden its negotiating stances and move further away from a deal. Why after all should Hamas go to a deal if Israel's threat of an invasion of its final stronghold Rafah, is no longer credible? So, the Biden administration's actions are in some ways working at cross purposes with its goals.
Kate Bachelder Odell: Your point about victory just completely being absent from the discussion is a great larger point about the Biden administration's foreign policy in general, and reminds me of Ukraine where victory has also dropped off as any sort of objective the US should have. But we'll take a quick break and we'll be back talking more with Elliot about the war in Israel.
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Kate Bachelder Odell: Welcome back to Potomac Watch. I'm Kate Bachelder Odell chatting here with my colleague Elliot Kaufman about war in Israel. Elliot, one thing you mentioned in your last remarks was about these potential threats to cut off US weapon support for Israel. Now, the Biden administration has been saying all of these bromides about we will never abandon Israel, but then leaving it open to the possibility that they would cut off some weapon support or put restrictions on weapons or maybe supply things like Israel's Iron Dome interceptors to help it protect its cities, but lay off some more active support. My understanding of my own reporting is that Israel really could benefit and needs US support on items like precision-guided munitions, whether that's artillery or guided bombs. I guess my question for you, having spent the week there is, how seriously are the Israelis taking those threats that maybe US support won't be there, and what are Israel's options if that were to happen? How are they thinking about the potential unreliability of the Biden administration?
Elliot Kaufman: It's a good question. Lack of ammunition is one of the most serious threats to the Israeli war effort, and it has been almost right from the start. Now, this is talked about all the time in Israel, but not so much in America. When you talk to senior Israeli officials about this, political officials, military officials, ammunition is the one thing where they will signal to you how serious it is, so much so that they really can't say much. Now, what I've been able to hear is that in the first two weeks of the war effort, Israel was running dangerously low. I've spoken to reserve soldiers who were told their unit could only fire 10 rounds of artillery that day. They had a set quota they simply could not exceed. The question is how did they get into a situation like this? There are a few reasons. One of them is completely inadequate Israeli planning. They weren't ready for a real war, especially not on two fronts, because Israel has to hold so much ammunition in reserve for Hezbollah in the north. They can't simply use all of it on Hamas in the South. The second point though is that many of these US ammunition stocks that were held in Israel were sent to Ukraine during that war. Now, that was a perfectly legitimate choice, but Israel found itself scrambling for these weapons that would've otherwise been on its own territory, US weapons. The third thing I would point to is Israeli officials will say that US ammunition transfers, well, there were many more of them at the start. They've been slower. There's been some stalling by the US and now there are leaks every day in the US press about weapons being cut off, conditioned, there was a US policy change adding all sorts of strings to how the weapons can be used and so forth, not in a way that would take them away from Israel, but in a way that was aimed at Israel seemingly to make it nervous. So, when you talk to Israelis, this is one of the number one issues that they say is holding up an operation on Rafah, holding up the war in general, they say that the war in Gaza would've been over months ago if the ammunition had arrived on the pace that they would've liked, and so it's in America anyway, one of the untold stories of the war and definitely one to watch going forward.
Kate Bachelder Odell: Fascinating stuff Elliot, but slightly alarming. We've talked a lot on this podcast about the US' ammunition shortages and struggle to provide enough for Ukraine in artillery, so there's a global run on artillery, it seems like. One quick thing I want to ask you about here towards the end, we have this week the Biden administration renewed that $10 billion sanctions waiver on Iran. A great theme of this podcast in our pages has been discussing the ways in which the Biden administration doesn't quite appreciate how Iran is driving events in the region and how Hamas is a subsidiary of Iran. How has that news, has that had any effect in Israel, and is there any sense in Israel that the Biden administration is doing this two-step sanctions relief for Iran while supporting Israel? What is your view of that decision and how is it being received in Israel?
Elliot Kaufman: Well, the first thing that came to mind is something that an Israeli minister told me, and that is that, strategically, the US Is still in October 6th. Israelis talk this way. They speak about the October 6th army, or if they're talking about the future, the October 8th army, what is it going to look like? The US, I'm afraid he's right. Strategically, the Biden administration is still in October 6th. It hasn't changed its perception of Iran. It hasn't fundamentally changed its policy toward Iran. It still thinks that concessions can be made to sort of buy quiet, or if not quiet totally, then quieter than it might otherwise be. So a $10 billion sanctions waiver when Iran is financing a war against Israel on so many fronts, when its proxies are shooting on US troops and have been shooting on US troops. It's hard to understand how the US could think it's a good idea to allow more funds to go to Iran because we know what it's going to do with it. One other point is that just lately, there have been these reports that the US is threatening sanctions on Iran if it signs a ballistic missile deal with Russia to send ballistic missiles for Russia's use in Ukraine. Now, what Israelis have been saying is that these two policies in combination don't make any sense. Why is the US with one hand giving a $10 billion sanctions waiver and with the other hand threatening ballistic missile sanctions? The policy just seems incoherent, and I think until the US, really the Biden administration changes the way it conceives of this war. Not of Hamas starting a war, Hezbollah joining in, but of the Iranian axis going to war with Israel and the US in the region, we're going to continue to see this policy incoherence.
Kate Bachelder Odell: Well Elliot, it sounds like a fascinating and productive trip. Thanks so much for coming to fill us in. That's all for this week on Potomac watch. We'll be back on Monday.
