In the days after the Hamas attack on Israel, Joe Biden flew to Tel Aviv where he hugged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a very public show of support.
For weeks afterwards, he talked up their decades of friendship even as Western allies began to express reservations about the bombs raining down on Gaza in a wave of destruction.
That all changed Tuesday when Biden went public with criticism of Israel for the first time in a hint that criticism from the left of his own party and international warnings of an impending humanitarian catastrophe had caught up with him.
He delivered a public message that Netanyahu and his hardline government had to change course if it wanted to retain international backing for its assault on a terrorist group that killed at least 1200 Israelis.
‘They’re starting to lose that support by indiscriminate bombing that takes place,’ he told a gathering of donors.
President Joe Biden embraced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after stepping off Air Force One in Tel Aviv, Israel, on October 18
Biden has made much of his close relationship with Netanyau. The then vice president is seen here in 2011 in Israel with Netanyahu and his son Yair (second left) and with Jill Biden (right)
The message sent shockwaves through Israel.
‘There is an enormous amount of anger,’ said Aryeh Lightstone, who was chief adviser to Trump’s ambassador to Israel. He described the words as ‘deeply inappropriate.’
But for White House Kremlinologists, who had been studying recent statements for a sign of an administration changing tack, it was perhaps less surprising.
Vice President Kamala Harris used a speech 10 days ago in Dubai to issue the strongest demand yet that Israel abide by international humanitarian law.
‘Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed,’ she said. ‘Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating.’
On the same day, Biden’s defense secretary warned that Israel’s campaign could backfire by radicalizing a new generation of Hamas recruits.
‘In this kind of a fight, the center of gravity is the civilian population,’ said Lloyd Austin. ‘And if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat.’
The approach seemed to stem the classic good cop/bad cop school of international diplomacy. Biden’s lieutenants were tasked with delivering warnings, while the president continued to offer warm words of support.
That tack was no surprise to those who knew Biden well, or had seen him at work as vice president for Barack Obama.
‘The approach that we’re taking with Israel and, quite frankly, with our partners in the region is working,’ said White House spokesman John Kirby defending the friendly relationship recently
Ten days ago, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Israel was sacrificing a strategic victory for a tactical one because of the rising number of dead Palestinians
Netanyahu and Biden at the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem in 2010
In fact, Biden has repeatedly touted his success in using a friendly approach and long personal relationship to influence Netanyahu. (On Monday he said they had been friends for 51 years.)
For example, he said privately that when he was vice president during Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza he advised his then boss that the best way to handle the Israelis was to hug them close rather than publicly criticising them.
‘If this was the Obama years, we would’ve been a lot more publicly critical than we have been by now,’ a senior administration official told NBC News recentl.
‘And that wouldn’t work. We wouldn’t have the influence.’
When quizzed about the approach, officials said it was paying off.
They pointed to the administration’s success in getting humanitarian aid into Gaza and hostages out by getting Israel to agree to a pause in fighting, despite concerns it would allow Hamas to rearm.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters last month: ‘The approach that we’re taking with Israel and, quite frankly, with our partners in the region is working.
‘It’s getting aid in to people that need it. It’s getting a pause in the fighting. It’s getting hostages out. It’s getting Americans out.’
The approach angered some quarters of the administration.
Hundreds of federal employees signed an open letter demanding the Biden administration push for a cease-fire, and dozens of diplomats at the State Department sent official dissent cables.
That had not been enough to shift policy for a president who has made much of his warm ties to Israeli politicians down the years.
Israeli soldiers stand on tanks deployed on the southern border with the Gaza Strip on November 29, 2023, as a truce between Israel and Hamas entered a sixth day
The destruction in Gaza has angered many Democrats who want Biden to take a tougher line on Israel in calling for a ceasefire
Palestinians look for survivors of the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip in Rafah on Tuesday, Dec. 12
Insiders only recently said Biden felt his approach of staying close to Israel had been vindicated after his former boss Barack Obama preferred being more publicly critical
His relationship with Netanyahu dates back to the early 1980s when Biden was a young senator and the future Israeli prime minster worked at the country’s embassy in Washington.
Both stayed close to the center of power. And their families posed together during a 2011 visit when Biden was vice president and Netanyahu was prime minister.
But their relationship was badly strained under Obama, who sought to bring Iran in from diplomatic isolation.
At the same time administration officials were outspoken in their criticism of Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank, which was seen as undermining any chance of eventually reaching a two state solution.
One official made clear their hostility to the Israeli PM, calling him ‘a chickens***’ in comments that appeared in The Atlantic.
But even then, Biden made clear his warmth towards Netanyahu.
‘We’re still buddies,’ Biden said at the time, using the prime minister’s nickname. ‘He’s been a friend for over 30 years, I said, “Bibi, I don’t agree with a damn thing you say but I love you.”‘
He reached for the same form of words on Tuesday at the donor gathering, after slamming Netanyahu’s government for lurching to the right. He claimed he had written those words on a photo he once gave the Israeli PM.
‘It’s about the same today,’ he said.
Whether it is a principled stand, based on a spiraling death toll in Gaza, or a simple reminder to Israel that it needs to keep international opinion on its side, or a short-term political consideration, as his polling numbers take a hit with younger voters who are more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, Biden clearly thinks a little bit of space is good for the relationship.