President Joe Biden has called on Israel to adopt an immediate ceasefire with Hamas. In a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, Biden warned of other undefined U.S. policy shifts absent Israeli policy changes following its accidental killing of seven aid workers on Monday.
Putting those prospective policy shifts to one side, Biden’s call for a ceasefire represents a major strategic and moral error. Israel cannot accept such a ceasefire without signaling unacceptable weakness to its enemies. Deterrent posturing is always a sacrosanct Israeli security concern for two reasons. First, the legacy of the Holocaust amid repeated efforts by Israel’s neighbors to eliminate it. Second, the rising specter of an Iranian nuclear weapon. But it’s a particularly critical concern following the profound degradation of Israeli deterrent power amid Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, invasion. Biden’s ceasefire demand will only fuel Hamas’s intransigence and encourage Iranian aggression.
Further, while the Biden administration claims it seeks only a temporary ceasefire, it knows full well that such a ceasefire would allow Hamas to consolidate its defenses in its southern Rafah stronghold. As a result, Israeli forces would take greater casualties in any future operation. The administration also knows Israel would face unprecedented international diplomatic pressure not to recommence military operations once any temporary ceasefire began.
It gets worse.
After all, the additional calls by Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken for Israel to “conclude a [Hamas hostage release] deal without delay” will only encourage Hamas to demand greater concessions in exchange for that deal. Hamas is already demanding an absurdly high price for the release of hostages it should never have taken and brutalized in the first place. The absence of any credible public U.S. pressure on Hamas or Qatar to make their own concessions is politically striking. Indeed, considering Israel’s status as a historic and close U.S. ally and the terrible plight of its hostages, the U.S. stance is morally inexcusable. China or Russia will likely now call a United Nations Security Council vote to test Biden’s call for an unconditional ceasefire. They know that a U.S. “yes” vote would reinforce the political effect of Israel’s international isolation and the signal of a historic American betrayal.
All of this will, of course, also embolden Iran. That’s a slight problem, seeing as Iranian officers and agents have spent the past few days stabbing journalists in southwest London, continuing to plot assassination attacks on U.S. officials, and now appear to be readying direct attacks on Israeli territory.
This doesn’t mean Israel deserves an American blank check.
The killing of the World Central Kitchen aid workers is disturbing at both tactical and strategic levels. Amid escalating civilian suffering in Gaza, Israel must do more to ensure that more humanitarian aid, especially food aid, gets into Gaza more quickly. The very significant risk of Hamas seizing some of this aid cannot excuse a choice to limit aid deliveries. Nor can Hamas’s refusal to release Israeli hostages.
It’s also true that Netanyahu is far less of a reliable U.S. ally than is commonly presented in American conservative circles. The prime minister has prioritized close relations with China and Russia. In a stark betrayal of critical U.S. interests, Netanyahu has even enabled technology transfers to Beijing that will help the People’s Liberation Army kill Americans in any future U.S.-China war. Beijing and Moscow have subsequently underlined his foolish trust in them by adopting unequivocally pro-Hamas positions since Oct. 7.
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That said, Israel is a historic American ally. Hamas started this war and Hamas continues to hold innocent Israelis in dungeons of despair. Biden’s call for a ceasefire without released hostages suggests something is rotten in the White House. The killing of seven aid workers cannot explain such a dramatic shift in U.S. policy.
Top line: The president has signaled that he is an unreliable ally. As they prepare to travel to Washington, the leaders of Japan and the Philippines will surely have taken note.