0:00

So, Max, I've been following the

0:02

dynamic between Joe Biden and Benjamin

0:04

Netanyahu pretty closely. And let's

0:06

make sure, no, this is not because you have

0:08

the world's worst sense of fun. No,

0:11

no, it's because I've noticed something very

0:13

hard to explain about their relationship, and

0:15

I have a great sense of fun.

0:17

I have multiple books on reproductive coercion

0:19

around the world on hold at the

0:21

Los Angeles Public Library as we speak.

0:23

But you know who isn't having fun, Erin,

0:25

is Joe Biden every time he talks to

0:27

Benjamin Netanyahu. Well, this is the thing.

0:30

They really don't like each other. Biden has

0:32

been trying for months to reign in Netanyahu's

0:34

war in Gaza, and every day, two million

0:36

people in Gaza pay the price for his

0:38

failure. Biden just gave Netanyahu this

0:40

big public ultimatum to not invade Rafa,

0:43

which is a city in Gaza. And

0:45

you'd think, you know, Israel is this tiny

0:47

little country that relies on America for weapons,

0:49

aid, diplomatic cover at the UN, et cetera.

0:52

So presumably, Israel has to listen to the

0:54

US. But Netanyahu came right out

0:56

and said he's invading Rafa no matter what the

0:58

US says. Boy, if you know anything about foreign

1:00

policy, that is not how that is supposed to

1:02

work. I'm

1:05

Erin Ryan. And I'm Max Fisher. This is How

1:07

We Got Here, a series where we explore a

1:10

big question behind the week's headlines and tell a

1:12

story that answers that question. Our question

1:14

this week, why does Israel, a country that

1:16

would seem to rely on the US for

1:18

so much, increasingly ignore and defy its longtime

1:20

American patron? And at what point

1:22

is a defiant ally, not really an ally at

1:25

all? And of course, some of

1:27

this is specific to the way that Biden

1:29

has handled this moment. Like, yes, he's issuing

1:31

demands to the Israelis, but he's also cutting

1:33

them a lot of blank checks. So you

1:35

can see why they might think they can blow them off. For

1:38

sure. Though this has been going on since

1:40

long before this war or before Biden. So

1:42

it's bigger than anything he's doing or

1:44

not doing. The story we want to

1:46

tell you this week is one that goes a

1:48

ways to explaining why Israeli leaders have been getting

1:50

bolder and bolder in defying the Americans. It's

1:53

a story of a very deliberate effort

1:55

by the Israelis, one stretching back a

1:57

few decades to break free of them.

2:00

military, economic, and diplomatic

2:02

dependence on the United States. American

2:05

leaders are starting to notice. Just

2:07

this Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck

2:09

Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish leader in

2:11

American history, the dictionary definition of

2:13

a pro-Israel Democrat, got so

2:16

frustrated with Israel that he condemned Netanyahu's

2:18

leadership and called for new elections in

2:20

Israel. As a lifelong

2:22

supporter of Israel, it has become

2:24

clear to me the Netanyahu coalition

2:27

no longer fits the needs

2:29

of Israel after October 7th.

2:33

Wow. Yeah, wow. It's a big

2:35

moment. Of course, the stakes matter

2:37

here a lot less for Biden or

2:40

Netanyahu or Chuck Schumer than for the

2:42

tens of thousands of innocent people in

2:44

Gaza who have already been killed and

2:46

the two million still facing daily threat

2:48

of starvation, bombardment, and the trauma of

2:50

losing family. Not to mention the

2:53

three million more Palestinians in the West Bank

2:55

living under an occupation that the

2:57

U.S. has been failing for decades to get the

2:59

Israelis to roll back. And

3:01

of course, Israel still benefits enormously from

3:03

U.S. support in lots of ways, like

3:06

maybe most importantly from all the weapons

3:08

that Washington supplies for its war in

3:10

Gaza. Right, and we're not disputing that.

3:12

What we are saying is that Israel

3:15

has been carefully re-engineering all this stuff

3:17

from its military programs to its diplomatic

3:19

relationships in ways that make

3:22

it less reliant on America with

3:24

the specific goal of freeing Israel

3:26

to defy Washington exactly like it's

3:28

doing now. Oh, boy. Well,

3:30

we should back up to show people how this all used to

3:32

work. So the idea that

3:35

Israel depends absolutely on American support

3:37

started in 1973 when Israel fought

3:41

what was another in a series of

3:43

wars against the neighboring Arab states. Israel

3:45

was on the verge of losing catastrophically,

3:47

but then Richard Nixon, of all people,

3:50

stepped in with this big emergency resupply

3:52

that allowed Israel to beat back the

3:54

invaders. Richard Nixon,

3:56

well-known liker of Jewish

3:59

people. It on the Tories

4:01

Sli anti semitic, Ya a

4:03

Nixon had low like special feeling special

4:05

love for Israel. This was before Israel

4:07

was a big issue in Us politics.

4:09

Even this is really just all about

4:11

the Cold War and preventing the Soviet

4:13

allied Arab States from dominating the Middle

4:15

East and Nixon winter to prop up

4:17

Israel as this new pillar of American

4:19

influence. And I said I will not

4:21

let Israel go down the to. Therefore,

4:24

I. Approved and alert. Alert

4:27

of our forces. Nuclear

4:30

and compatible. A

4:32

couple of days after that brush. Enough

4:34

down. And find

4:36

me the ceasefire one into place. And

4:38

then, of course, a few years later, Jimmy

4:40

Carter sponsors the Camp David Accords that strike

4:42

peace between Israel and Egypt. In. Part

4:45

by promising to give both countries billions

4:47

of dollars in aid every year. In

4:49

perpetuity. This moment is the

4:51

origin of the idea that Israel is

4:53

a small country surrounded by adversaries. Has

4:56

continued survival, relies on. American support and

4:58

that was pretty true for a long

5:00

time. I guess Zero Member was a

5:02

much poorer country back then that it

5:04

is today, with ageless, sophisticated military even.

5:07

As Israel that richer and it's neighbors post less

5:09

of an existential threat, it became more reliant on

5:11

the U S in other ways. Yeah,

5:13

that would be the Israeli Palestinian

5:15

conflict. Some Israel, of course, have

5:18

been occupying the Palestinian territory since

5:20

Nineteen Sixty Seven, and was coming

5:22

into growing conflict with Palestinian resistance

5:24

groups. This is also time of

5:27

global colonization, so governments worldwide, especially

5:29

in Asia and Africa, set up

5:31

the cause of pressuring for Palestinian

5:33

liberation enter. Again, the United States

5:35

will last. Visit his have like I'm.

5:38

From: i'm from the Inside some

5:40

seems you're sick. It's yeah. a

5:42

is of America used it's diplomatic

5:44

wait to shield Israel. For example

5:47

of a vetoing any critical resolutions

5:49

on the United Nations Security Council.

5:51

The Americans also became the primary mediators

5:53

of the Israel Palestine conflict and throughout

5:55

the U S was supplying arms to

5:57

protect Israel in this and other com.

6:01

And as a result of all

6:03

this it became conventional wisdom within

6:05

Israeli politics that one

6:07

of the prime minister's most Important

6:09

jobs is keeping the Americans on

6:11

sides Israeli voters rewarded or punished

6:13

politicians based on how effective they

6:16

were at pleasing Washington That

6:18

sounds dysfunctional I'm

6:20

picturing the Israeli James Carville saying after

6:22

the incumbents lose a knesset election It's

6:26

the American Alliance stupid that

6:28

is actually kind of what happens There's

6:30

an Israeli James Carville. Well, we

6:32

are gonna be the Israeli James Carville. Okay that

6:34

reaction does happen. Okay Yeah,

6:37

that brings us to the story of how and

6:39

why the Israelis start looking to break from their

6:41

dependence on American help So if

6:43

you had to pinpoint a moment when things

6:45

started to change for the Israelis you could

6:47

do a lot worse than May 1989 I

6:50

swear to God if you try to pin this all I'm Millie Vanilli

6:53

No another much debated recording from the

6:56

late 80s Secretary of State

6:58

James Baker's speech to a pack

7:00

the American Israel Public Affairs Committee

7:03

Now is the time to lay aside once and

7:05

for all the unrealistic

7:07

vision of a greater Israel Israeli

7:11

interests in the West Bank and Gaza Security

7:14

and otherwise can can

7:16

be accommodated in a settlement based on

7:18

resolution 242 for

7:21

swear annexation Stop

7:24

settlement activity allow

7:27

schools to reopen Reach

7:30

out to the Palestinians as neighbors

7:32

who deserve political rights

7:35

Wow James

7:37

Baker leftist I got Granted

7:40

I don't get to speak at a pack a

7:42

lot, but this all sounds pretty Uncontroversial

7:45

so Baker basically announced that the

7:47

US was shifting policy from being

7:50

a simple mediator between Israelis and

7:52

Palestinians to Overtly opposing

7:54

and working to end Israel's occupation

7:57

Israeli leaders and I'm putting this gently Slipped

8:00

their shit. I think that's accurate Here's what a

8:02

New York Times columnist wrote of the speech and

8:04

he wasn't speaking here for Israeli leaders But

8:07

he might as well have been quote the

8:09

Israel haters are slavering at the thought that

8:11

the speech means the United States Is getting

8:13

ready to dump Israel or cut her off

8:15

from economic and military? about

10:00

an Israeli response. So

10:03

the Scott missiles were flying in Israel, and I reminded

10:05

them of a time which period, so

10:07

there was plenty of time to do

10:10

some thinking and talking and discussing and

10:12

even arguing. And even for me

10:14

to take a trip to Washington to tell

10:16

President Bush that we could

10:18

not reconcile ourselves with

10:21

the continuous filtration of his missile flying in Israel. And

10:23

then there was this housing loans thing a year

10:26

later, which was way more important than it

10:28

sounds. Yeah, Bush had promised Israel a

10:30

$10 billion loan to help it build

10:32

houses for Jews fleeing the then collapsing

10:34

Soviet Union. But then he

10:36

conditioned the loans on Israel following certain

10:38

steps in the Israeli Palestinian peace process.

10:42

It is beyond wild to me that

10:44

conditioning aid to Israel is now treated

10:46

as some fringe issue. Too far left

10:49

for any mainstream Democrat. But what it

10:51

was actually done by noted left

10:54

wing radical comrade George

10:56

H.W. Bush. Yeah,

10:58

that's former CIA director and honorary fifth member

11:01

of the squad George H.W. Bush. Oil

11:03

industry magnate and DSA International Affairs

11:06

Committee co-chair George H.W. Bush.

11:09

Anyway, Israel's leader at the time never

11:11

got those housing loans from Bush and

11:13

ended up losing the next election over

11:15

it. Just like Israeli James

11:17

Carville tried to warn them. So

11:19

there's three big things in a row.

11:21

Baker's speech, the Iraqi missile attacks, the

11:23

lost loans, convince a big faction of

11:25

Israeli politics that their reliance on the

11:28

Americans has become a problem. Actually more

11:30

than a problem, an existential threat in

11:32

its own right. The Israeli

11:34

right wing is especially freaked out by

11:36

Bush pressuring them on peace with the

11:38

Palestinians, which they see as intolerable because

11:40

it would mean the creation of a

11:43

Palestinian state and giving up territory that

11:45

they see as rightly theirs. Here's

11:47

a clip of a then little known

11:50

low ranking Israeli right wing politician, the

11:52

deputy prime minister, getting super mad about

11:54

this. We will make our demands

11:56

and they will make their demands, but we're not

11:58

prepared to negotiate one thing. Our

12:00

neck, our head, our

12:03

heart, our existence. Oh my god, it's

12:05

baby Netanyahu. Jumpscare. He sounds

12:07

like a Batman villain even then. It's

12:12

kind of his comic book villain origin

12:14

story. Okay. Anyway, the Israeli

12:16

right lost power in 1992 as a

12:18

result of all this. Left from Labor Party

12:20

came in and spent the next few years

12:22

engaged pretty sincerely in the peace process. In

12:25

1996, Bill Clinton kind of confirmed

12:27

the Israeli right's worst fears by trying

12:29

to quietly help the left-wing Labor Party

12:31

beat the right-wing Likud Party in Israeli

12:34

elections. But it didn't work

12:36

and who should come to power now

12:38

convinced that the Americans are both his

12:40

benefactor and his adversary but new Prime

12:42

Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That's

12:44

how a lot of teenagers feel about their dads. It's

12:47

honestly that's client state vibes. Angry

12:50

teenagers, angry and they don't know why. Likud

12:54

Things got off to a rocky start. Here's

12:56

Clinton a year later describing his talks with

12:58

Netanyahu over the peace process. We had

13:00

a very specific

13:03

Frank, candid and

13:05

long talk. And

13:07

now we're going to talk

13:10

to the Palestinians and see whether there's something we can do

13:13

to get this thing going again. I

13:15

would also like to have a Frank specific

13:17

and candid talk with Netanyahu. Yeah, you

13:19

and me both. Netanyahu does very

13:21

grudgingly make a couple of concessions to

13:23

peace like prisoner releases because he knows

13:25

he's still vulnerable to pressure from the

13:27

Americans. He takes a real hit

13:29

from his base for these concessions. It's one of

13:32

the reasons that in 1999 he

13:34

lost an election and retired

13:36

from politics? Yeah, it turns out that guy is

13:39

the original bad penny. Okay, this

13:41

is all to say that Israel in the

13:43

90s was not yet totally pursuing that big

13:45

strategic shift where it tried to break free

13:47

of their dependence on the Americans. But it

13:49

was taking some real steps in That

13:52

direction. Right, like it was developing more

13:54

of its own military production so it

13:56

wouldn't be reliant on American arms. At

13:58

This point, it's not a big deal.

14:00

a little over three percent of Israel's

14:02

entire economy was dedicated to military are

14:04

in D, which is almost four times

14:06

what it was in the United States

14:08

at the peak of the Cold War.

14:10

Conflict between Israel and nearby Arab states

14:12

was mostly over by the nineteen nineties.

14:15

They didn't need so much American health

14:17

there, but the Israeli Palestinian conflict was

14:19

heating up. And. That's a really

14:21

big turning point for how that conflict

14:24

sieges Israeli politics. Or before all this,

14:26

it was really important to Israelis that

14:28

they be seen as a Western democracy

14:30

and good standings. Three, Pressure their leaders

14:33

to keep the Americans and the Europeans

14:35

happy and mosey. Israeli leaders did one

14:37

piece. There. Are two the grounds

14:40

of conflict known as the first Intifada

14:42

or uprising from Nineteen Eighty Seventh, Nineteen

14:44

Ninety Three, and then the much more

14:46

violent second Intifada from two thousand to

14:48

two Thousand and Five. And. Of

14:50

course, this is hardly something that

14:52

just happened to Israelis. The majority

14:54

of deaths were Palestinians, many or

14:56

most of whom were civilians killed

14:58

by Israeli forces. The. Point is

15:01

that the conflict includes a number

15:03

of bus and cafe bombings targeting

15:05

Israeli civilians, which ends with Israeli

15:07

public opinion much less concerned with

15:09

making peace or it being seen

15:11

as a nice Western democracies. Also

15:13

ends with Israel re engineering the conflict

15:15

in ways that are designed to make

15:18

it worse for Palestinians and more day

15:20

to day bearable for Israelis. And that

15:22

means things like military checkpoints and a

15:24

now four hundred mile long wall cutting

15:27

through the West Bank. You can't to

15:29

a well thought as alone as it

15:31

is in the country that we see

15:33

here My missus hi eight hundred kilometers

15:36

long gone on those spent it is

15:38

inside those son is with the war

15:40

with the streets that the up of

15:42

households. That. Record the complicated because the disembodied

15:44

that was the palestinian homes that would

15:46

suffer the the israeli citizen with his

15:48

the to closer controlling the policy number

15:50

for seem like it's a creating a

15:53

kind of the new reality that the

15:55

for the seen as would be a

15:57

been enabled the holocene is to live

15:59

in the good. And in

16:01

a bit Israel to control people are

16:03

seen as forever. This is for the

16:05

three million Palestinians in the West Bank.

16:08

A was huge escalation in the severity

16:10

of the Israeli occupation that has been

16:12

ongoing remember since Nineteen Sixty Seven. And.

16:15

Always lot of Israelis thinking hey, we

16:17

can far as the Palestinians behind walls

16:19

and checkpoints now, why do we need

16:21

to have peace process It all with

16:23

the annoying Americans droning on about concessions.

16:26

That's the Israel in which Benjamin Netanyahu comes

16:28

roaring back into power in two Thousand and

16:30

Nine, And with the exception of a breeze

16:33

stretch and Twenty Twenty One in Twenty Juri

16:35

to, he's held their job ever since. Wow.

16:37

He allegedly retired in Ninety Ninety Nine.

16:39

When the last ten years later, he

16:42

came back. and spend their ever since

16:44

the not much a retirement. The people

16:46

who preach never give up.

16:48

Are. Always the ones who. Probably.

16:51

Should have given. Ssssss is when

16:53

Netanyahu's Israel really start striving toward

16:55

independence from American influence. Not coincidentally,

16:57

it's the same year that Obama

17:00

came into office. So Netanyahu

17:02

began treating the Americans as both

17:04

a source of the central military

17:06

and diplomatic support, but also a

17:08

problem to be manager even confronted.

17:10

There were times when it almost

17:12

seemed like he wanted conflict accelerate

17:14

the splintering of Israel from America

17:16

which is a very homeland. Season

17:19

was. A success of I thought. There

17:22

was this infamous Oval Office meeting between

17:24

the two leaders in Twenty Eleven. were

17:26

Netanyahu's like openly lectured Obama really hectoring

17:28

him over the Us Peace plan, which

17:30

was pretty much the same plan that

17:32

had been around since Carter. From

17:35

her. Everybody.

17:37

Most of them. And

17:39

I started over substance with

17:42

was smokiness. I'm sorry to harp

17:44

on his voice, but I feel like whenever

17:46

you're Netanyahu talk. That. I

17:48

am getting a call from a person who's asking me

17:50

to pay some. Ransom for that's that is in

17:53

fact what you're hearing in that conversation. And we

17:55

did pay. and four billion dollars are. Okay,

17:57

okay, well that makes sense than that. You

17:59

really believe. That American peace talks represented

18:01

a threat to Israeli security and owing

18:03

to his experience in the nineties to

18:05

his own hold on office. And

18:07

to be clear, this reflects a

18:09

very specific right wing is really

18:11

nationalists worldview that says that any

18:14

independent Palestinian state is a threat

18:16

simply by it's existence, and that

18:18

Israel has to control the West

18:20

Bank forever to defend itself. We.

18:22

Should just come out and say that he is.

18:25

Wrong. Is wrong. Please. Wrong. What he's

18:27

doing is institutionalizing the occupation as

18:29

permanent and defacto addicts and Palestinian.

18:32

Territory stir things like someone that

18:34

expensive and and even if all

18:36

of that had been effective at

18:38

making is really safe which you

18:40

know clearly, look around it is

18:42

not. It's illegal under international law

18:44

to subjugate Palestinians and hurry for.

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a limited time, terms and

22:28

conditions may apply. The

22:36

point here is that a lot of

22:38

Israelis had already thought for years that

22:40

Washington's push for peace made America a

22:43

kind of threat even as Israelis also

22:45

saw American support as critical. Now

22:47

with Obama in office they came to see

22:49

winning at least partial autonomy from America

22:51

as urgently important. So Netanyahu took

22:54

a gamble. You might say

22:56

in the parlance of the time that he

22:58

called one of his lifelines. And the name

23:00

of that lifeline? Governor Romney Mitt it's

23:02

a pleasure to welcome you in Jerusalem.

23:06

We've known each other for many decades. We

23:09

were so young then and for

23:11

some reason you still look young. I don't know how you

23:13

do it. Oh yes

23:15

I too call my friends who

23:18

I've known for decades by their

23:20

last name comma first name. Governor

23:22

Romney Mitt? Yes, Netanyahu invited Massachusetts

23:24

governor and 2012 Republican

23:26

presidential nominee Mitt Romney to Israel

23:28

where Netanyahu embraced him in an

23:30

implied endorsement of his campaign. So

23:32

this is not the kind of

23:34

thing that a client state like Israel

23:36

normally does. Try to intervene in the

23:38

electoral politics of its great power patron.

23:41

What if it fails right? What if it

23:43

backfires and you alienate the American? What

23:45

if? This is why

23:47

this is an important moment in that

23:49

Israeli push to break free of American

23:52

influence. The Netanyahu took this gamble at

23:54

all means that he and the Israelis

23:56

he represented believed that the upside was

23:58

high enough to to justify that risk

24:01

and also that if it had blown up

24:03

in his face, he could have survived having

24:05

totally alienated Washington, which he was sure trying

24:07

to do. Yeah, there was a

24:09

whole bunch more ups and downs after

24:11

this in the Obama Netanyahu years. When

24:14

Obama was reelected, Netanyahu's office actually put

24:16

out this video trying to make

24:18

nice that we cannot play for you because it

24:20

includes, and this is true, the Golden Girls theme.

24:23

Yeah, thank you for being a friend. Indeed.

24:26

That's actually a really mean song to play at

24:29

somebody who is definitely not your friend. Yeah, it's

24:31

a little passive aggressive. Yeah. Obama

24:33

gave a speech in Israel that called out Israeli actions

24:35

like settler violence that stood in the way of peace.

24:37

Going a little bit James Baker mode. Netanyahu

24:40

gave a speech to Congress trying to

24:42

whip up opposition to Obama's nuclear talks

24:44

with Iran. It's a huge deal at

24:46

the time. And during all this, Obama

24:48

is still giving Israel a lot of diplomatic

24:50

cover at the UN and a lot of

24:52

big ticket military support. Why am I

24:54

not surprised? So the US is hardly

24:57

wielding its most powerful leverage with Israel, which

24:59

might mean, say, conditioning military aid rather than

25:02

expanding it. What a crazy

25:04

idea. There was a prevailing belief

25:06

in Washington, one that went way back to the

25:08

Bill Clinton years that, yes, Netanyahu

25:10

is a problem. The Israeli right is a

25:13

problem. But Netanyahu controls access to peace. So

25:15

if you want peace, then you have to

25:17

make him feel secure enough that he believes

25:19

he has the margins to risk an occasional

25:22

concession. Make Netanyahu

25:24

feel secure enough. Go

25:26

back in time and make sure he got enough

25:28

attention as a child. But

25:31

concessions are not what this produces.

25:33

No, and many of Netanyahu's supporters

25:36

in Israel loved seeing him

25:38

stand up to the Americans. But

25:40

others were still nervous to see

25:42

him alienating them until Trump got

25:44

elected and gave the Israelis everything

25:46

they wanted. Which created a

25:48

sense of impunity for Israeli leaders in dealing

25:51

with Washington. They took the lesson that they

25:53

could all but kick sand in the president's

25:55

face and eventually someone like Trump would get

25:57

elected and all would be forgiven. got

26:00

there and Netanyahu had been gradually

26:02

adopting a new diplomatic strategy to

26:04

gain even more autonomy from Washington.

26:07

So, in football terms, this

26:09

is sort of the Andy Reid,

26:11

Air Raid offense of diplomatic philosophies.

26:13

Oh, I have no idea. Complicated. Okay.

26:16

Complicated, effective, sophisticated.

26:20

I first heard this described, not quite

26:22

in those terms, by an Israeli social

26:24

scientist named Dahlia Sheinland. She called it

26:26

the other friends policy. Here's Dahlia talking

26:28

to me a couple of days ago.

26:31

I'd pin it to at least from the

26:33

mid 2010s that he seemed to have a

26:35

very clear vision of how to expand

26:38

Israel's foreign relations to

26:40

non-traditional allies, or even

26:43

traditional allies but cultivating new

26:45

relations, expanding trade and expanding

26:47

diplomatic relations, and breaking new ground

26:49

with countries who are not traditional allies. And

26:52

it seemed to me a pretty concerted strategy

26:54

to reduce Israel's dependency, not just on the

26:56

US, but also on Western countries in general.

26:58

So, non-traditional allies, to be clear, is

27:01

a nice way of saying right-wing strongmen.

27:03

Think like Victor Orban of Hungary,

27:05

Jerobo Sonoro of Brazil, and Narendra Modi

27:07

of India. These are all

27:09

nationalist leaders who, in addition to making

27:12

up the nightmare-blunt rotation to end all

27:14

nightmare-blunt rotations, don't criticize Israel's

27:16

treatment of the Palestinians, and in a

27:18

lot of cases, treat it as laudable.

27:21

Yeah. Trump actually helps us

27:23

along by securing a series of peace

27:25

agreements between Israel and Arab states that

27:27

still did not formally recognize Israel. And

27:30

if you're wondering how he did it,

27:32

it's pretty simple. He gave the Arab

27:35

states big payouts, and to win over

27:37

the Israelis, unilaterally seated almost every longstanding

27:39

US demand on the Israeli-Palestinian peace

27:42

process. Wow, Donald Trump finally paid somebody.

27:47

So, here's a telling moment for you. When

27:49

Netanyahu ran for reelection in 2019, in the

27:51

middle of all this, he got Vladimir Putin

27:53

to come stand beside him in Jerusalem. This

27:56

I think really spoke to the shifting politics of

27:58

not all Israelis, but certainly certainly the Israeli

28:00

right, which by this point was fully

28:03

embracing the politics of ethno-nationalism. Which

28:05

means that those voters no longer cared

28:07

so much about being seen as a

28:09

Western democracy and good standing. What

28:12

they want is a leader who will deliver

28:14

support from strong men like Putin and Modi

28:16

who don't care about things like settlement expansion.

28:19

They still want American support too, but it's

28:21

hardly the end-all be-all anymore. Here's

28:23

another telling moment from the 2019 Israeli elections.

28:26

Remember that video of Netanyahu lecturing Obama in

28:28

the Oval Office that got him in so

28:30

much trouble? Well, in 2019,

28:33

Netanyahu released it as a campaign

28:35

ad. All of this suggests

28:37

Netanyahu had successfully blunted what was once

28:39

one of the big levers of American

28:42

influence over Israel, the desire of Israeli

28:44

voters to keep Washington happy. And that's

28:46

really just the start. Shortly after Joe

28:48

Biden came into office, Israel fought a

28:51

brief conflict in Gaza and the Israelis,

28:53

who in the past would have been

28:55

asking the Americans for military aid and

28:57

diplomatic cover, or at least for permission

28:59

to go ahead, pretty much just ignored

29:02

Washington. The White House did call

29:04

for a ceasefire, but telling Lee only after

29:06

the Israelis had already said that one was

29:08

more or less in place, which just drew

29:10

attention to how irrelevant the Americans had become.

29:13

In past conflicts, Israel had relied on

29:15

US weapons, especially missile defense, but by

29:18

then the Israelis operated their own missile defense

29:20

and they had modified it to run cheaply

29:22

enough that they'll take American help, but they

29:24

don't need it. The Israeli economy

29:26

is a lot bigger than it used to be

29:28

too. When the US first started delivering those annual

29:30

$4 billion aid packages as part of the Camp

29:33

David Accords, that was the equivalent,

29:35

almost 10% of Israel's economy. Now

29:37

it's worth less than 1%. So

29:40

take all this together. Israeli leaders

29:42

don't need American military help as much

29:44

because they have their own Israeli-made weapons

29:46

now. They don't need American aid like

29:49

they used to either. They don't face political

29:51

backlash at home for pissing off American presidents

29:53

and they even get rewarded for it. And

29:56

they don't worry as much about losing Americans because

29:58

they have all those other friendly countries. That's

30:01

part of how Netanyahu felt emboldened

30:03

to, as of a year or

30:05

two ago, start overhauling Israeli democracy

30:07

or dismantling Israeli democracy to restrict

30:09

rights for non-Jews and weaken checks

30:11

on his power. But I'm wondering

30:13

whether Israel can really still afford to reject

30:15

American influence today months into its war on

30:18

Gaza. Yeah. So that war has

30:20

killed more than 30,000 Palestinians. It

30:23

has destroyed much of Gaza and

30:25

forced 2 million people into crowded

30:27

camps and rubble fields where they're

30:30

at severe risk of disease, starvation,

30:32

and continued Israeli bombardment. So

30:34

there's rightly a lot of global outrage. I

30:37

asked Dahlia Scheinland, that Israeli social scientist,

30:39

about this. And just to put her

30:42

answer in context, Dahlia has been extremely

30:44

critical of the Israeli war in Gaza.

30:47

She was trying to gauge whether

30:49

the Israeli public might be rediscovering

30:51

their wariness of alienating traditional allies

30:53

like the US. I think that

30:55

there's no question that Israelis are worried about their

30:57

foreign relations in general. They know that

30:59

the major consequence of this war for

31:01

Israel so far in the global sphere has

31:04

been global opprobrium, and that everybody is angry

31:06

at Israel. But I think that it would

31:08

be wrong to assume that Israelis then conclude

31:10

that they need to change their policy on

31:12

the war. What the regular public

31:14

tends to assume when they think about how

31:17

badly Israel's foreign relations are now is why do they

31:19

all hate us? Nobody

31:21

else can understand what we went through on October 7th.

31:23

If they went through it, they'd be doing the same

31:25

thing. Maybe they just all hate Jews. So

31:28

that is the kind of underlying thinking, and not

31:30

always underlying. Sometimes it's very explicit. In fact, often

31:32

it's very explicit. Dahlia, by the way, has a

31:34

new book out. It's called The Crooked Timber of

31:36

Democracy in Israel. You also have to

31:39

wonder if, I don't know, President

31:41

Joseph R. Biden might be losing patience

31:43

with the idea of Israeli leaders openly

31:45

and repeatedly defying US presidents. Yeah,

31:48

there's been a pretty humiliating pattern of

31:50

the Biden administration gently trying to guide

31:52

the Israelis away from some escalation in

31:54

Gaza and the Israelis blowing them off.

31:57

And as part of that, Biden giving the Israelis a lot

31:59

of open ended support for a war

32:01

that his administration, confusingly, also seems to

32:04

oppose. Five months in, Biden found

32:06

a little bit of his inner James Baker

32:08

this week when he publicly announced that an

32:10

Israeli invasion of Rafa would be a red

32:12

line for him. But Netanyahu in

32:14

response went on German TV and told Biden

32:17

to stuff it. We'll go there. We're

32:19

not going to leave them. You know, I have a red line. You

32:21

know what the red line is? That

32:23

October 7th doesn't happen again. Never

32:26

happens again. And to do that, we have to complete

32:30

the destruction of the Hamas terrorist army. That's

32:32

not how you talk if you think you're

32:34

still the prime minister of an American client

32:36

state. It's how you talk

32:38

if you think you're leading a self-sufficient autonomous

32:41

power that just happens to get a lot

32:43

of free American weapons but can risk alienating

32:45

Washington. But we should say that doesn't mean

32:47

that Netanyahu is right about Israel no longer

32:49

needing to rely on Americans. He might

32:51

be just overplaying his hand. Yeah. And

32:54

to be explicit, we are not saying that

32:56

America for certain no longer has enough leverage

32:58

to force Israel to halt its war in

33:01

Gaza. The Israelis for sure spent many years

33:03

eroding that leverage with the hopes of getting

33:05

to the point where Washington can no longer

33:07

boss him around. But it's not clear whether

33:10

or not Israel has actually gotten there. And

33:12

these are really extreme circumstances. Look, you don't know

33:14

until you try. And Biden has

33:16

not really tried in the way that he could. He

33:19

could condition military aid on certain steps,

33:21

like allowing the U.S. to deliver aid

33:23

into Gaza. Or just stop giving

33:25

military aid until the invasion and bombing stop.

33:28

Or threaten to stop vetoing U.N. Security

33:30

Council resolutions over the war. Here's

33:32

Dalia Shain then again. I guess the

33:34

real question that I've been asking is, did

33:37

Israel's strategy work? In other

33:40

words, having cultivated the kinds

33:42

of new alliances or trying

33:44

to boast of better

33:46

relations with BRICS countries

33:49

and the Abrahamic countries, the countries

33:52

that signed agreements with Israel in

33:55

2020, the Arab countries, did

33:57

this help Israel with a room

33:59

for maneuver? at a time when other

34:01

countries in the world are severely angry at

34:03

Israel. And I don't know

34:06

if there's one answer to that question, but I

34:08

do think that those relations provide a

34:10

kind of interesting balance to the traditional

34:12

Western allies and America. Of

34:14

course, the overriding story

34:16

is that Israel is deeply

34:19

dependent on America to support the war. And

34:21

everybody knows that. American voters know

34:23

it, certainly progressive Democrats know it. I think

34:26

I'm left with two things here. I think

34:28

on the one hand, the US should just

34:30

pull whatever levers it has, regardless

34:32

of whether or not we think those levers

34:34

are still enough to force Israel to change

34:36

course. There are two million innocent

34:39

people in grave peril right now from

34:41

Israel's invasion. And even if the war

34:43

ended tomorrow, there'd still be five million

34:45

Palestinians living without rights under Israeli occupation.

34:48

And if anyone has the power to remove

34:50

these people from harm, other

34:52

than the Israeli leadership itself, it's the

34:54

White House. So there's a basic moral

34:56

obligation to try. But

34:58

on the other hand, I do think that

35:00

that leverage is getting weaker every year, thanks

35:03

to this Israeli strategy to weaken it. And

35:05

that strategy is working. You can see it

35:07

working over the last 10, 20 years. I

35:10

don't know when it will advance to

35:13

the point that American influence is insufficient

35:15

to end the occupation. But if it

35:17

hasn't already, it's going to

35:19

soon, and then that window will close. And

35:22

then on the domestic end with Americans

35:24

here, we are in a very consequential

35:26

election year. Israel has a

35:29

demonstrated, very

35:31

sophisticated propaganda arm. And

35:34

if we continue to not get

35:36

along with the Israelis in a

35:39

way that angers them enough, I mean,

35:41

who's to say that a

35:43

foreign country with that much

35:45

power and sophistication wouldn't attempt

35:47

to influence our elections? Well,

35:49

now who has done it before? Yeah.

35:52

He's tried to intervene. It hasn't been through shadowy

35:54

hacking or anything, but he's definitely tried to get

35:56

openly involved. Let's end

35:58

with Schumer's speech. saying that

36:01

Israel was at risk of becoming a

36:03

pariah state and that the Netanyahu government

36:05

had to go. It's just for a

36:07

turnout, but it sure feels like a

36:09

turning point. The fourth major obstacle to

36:11

peace is Israeli Prime

36:13

Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who

36:16

has all too frequently bowed to the

36:18

demands of extremists like Ministers

36:20

Smotrik and Ben Gavir and

36:22

the settlers in the West Bank. Prime

36:25

Minister Netanyahu has lost his way

36:28

by allowing his political survival

36:30

to take the precedence with the

36:32

best interests of Israel. He

36:35

has been too willing to tolerate the

36:37

civilian toll in Gaza, which

36:40

is pushing support for Israel

36:42

worldwide to historic lows. All

36:47

we got here is a written in hosted by me, Max

36:49

Fisher and Erin Ryan. Our producer is

36:51

Austin Fisher. I'm Ellie Frank and her

36:53

is Cynthia Producer. Even taking the mix as

36:55

a master's issue? Jordan Kander sound engineers the

36:57

show, audio support from Kyle If

37:15

you didn't know, What a Day is

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37:30

a Day, consider dropping us a review

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