It’s not a good idea for Democrats to let Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu get in their heads this close to a presidential election.
Nonetheless, Democrats are worrying that, as Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) put it, Netanyahu is trying to “influence” the election in favor of former President Trump. When asked whether Murphy was right, President Biden replied, “I don’t know,” but added pointedly that Netanyahu “should remember” that no president has “helped Israel more than I have.”
It’s true, as the saying goes, that even paranoids have real enemies. But the Democrats’ fears delusionally assume that they have been such an impediment to Netanyahu’s policy and political needs that he would expend his energy to get them out of the White House. The reality suggests otherwise. In fact, since the Oct. 7 attacks, the Biden administration has been little more than a speed bump to the Netanyahu government‘s aggressive war effort in Gaza and now Lebanon.
Biden sought to lower civilian Palestinian casualties and ink cease-fire deals in both conflicts. He wished to start negotiations over a two-state solution. He failed on all three objectives, although he deserves credit for pressuring Israel at least to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Netanyahu might indeed rather have Trump win the election. After all, the Trump administration’s Middle East policy was essentially Netanyahu’s to-do list, from moving the American embassy to Jerusalem to recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory to withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal.
Yet at the same time, Vice President Kamala Harris has consistently supported “Israel’s legitimate military objectives to eliminate the threat of Hamas.” She has never suggested that if elected she would reduce U.S. military support for Israel. So it is a stretch to claim that Netanyahu and his cabinet are making consequential decisions — such as whether to bomb Iran’s nuclear infrastructure — based on how they might influence the vote in Northampton County in Pennsylvania, which could decide the election.
Netanyahu is a devious, calculating character, of course. Nothing can be ruled out. But Democrats are being hypocritical in complaining that Netanyahu is influencing the U.S. election. They themselves tried to remove him as Israeli prime minister, after all.
Earlier this year, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) condemned Netanyahu’s handling of the Gaza War and called for elections in Israel to replace him. Thanks to those American weapons, however, Israel has scored military successes that have boosted Netanyahu, who, though extremely unpopular just months ago, now leads opposition leader Yair Lapid in the polls, 38 percent to 27 percent.
Israel is a political problem for Democrats, not because of Netanyahu, but because Biden’s military support for Israel is in conflict with his Middle East diplomacy. Despite international and domestic criticism, the Biden administration has provided Israel with a steady flow of highly destructive weapons, while diplomatically demanding that Israel act with restraint and seek cease-fires rather than use those weapons. Netanyahu, knowing that he had solid Republican backing, unsurprisingly pocketed the weapons and ignored Biden’s restraint diplomacy.
Democrats may get little credit from voters for either the weapons or the restraint policy. Some polls show Harris doing well with Jewish voters, but others, despite Biden’s military backing for Israel, show her with the least support of any Democratic presidential candidate in three decades. And despite his past servility toward Netanyahu, Trump is polling nationally 4 points ahead of Harris with Arab American and Muslim voters, who seem unimpressed with the administration’s restraint strategy. This fact alone might even swing Michigan into the GOP column.
Democrats should be afraid, not of a Machiavellian play by Netanyahu, but that their own cognitively dissonant Middle East policies will hurt them on Nov. 5.
Gregory J. Wallance was a federal prosecutor in the Carter and Reagan administrations and a member of the ABSCAM prosecution team, which convicted a U.S. senator and six representatives of bribery. He is the author of “Into Siberia: George Kennan’s Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia.”
