According to a recent article published by Haaretz, the Americans are getting tired of Netanyahu because, according to some insider sources, he is belligerent, does not listen to the US’ requests to cooperate with the Egyptians to create safe passage for refugees and to prevent another humanitarian crisis in Rafah. The article explains that Netanyahu’s belligerence is due to his unwillingness to anger his more radical constituencies (the Ben Gvir crowd) As we read in Haaretz:
On Thursday, opposition leader Yair Lapid completed a packed three-day visit to Washington. He was at the White House, State Department and Congress and met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and all the president’s men, including National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.
Lapid can’t say everything he heard from the American officials he met with, but what he can and has said paints a picture of the shaky relations between the administration and Netanyahu who is effectively being boycotted.
All of this is consistent with the Biden administration’s emphasis in the six-and-a-half months remaining until the presidential elections: You can be pro-Israel, but you don’t have to (or perhaps we should say, you absolutely mustn’t) be pro-Netanyahu. As we here in Israel have learned, it’s even a contradiction.
The impression Lapid got is similar to that received by Gallant and Gantz on their visits to Washington: to paraphrase, Netanyahu is getting on the administration’s nerves. You don’t have to be American to realize the depth of the disaster that a prime minister who sees nothing beyond his personal-political survival is bringing upon Israel.Even a Likud politician blew his top when he confided in me this week: “Netanyahu is causing Israel enormous harm by treating the Americans the way he does. All they want is for him to be fair with them. For him to reveal his intentions. But he is deceptive and lies to them. They would respect him if he told the truth, even if they didn’t like what they were hearing.”
Back to Washington. Listen, the Americans said to Lapid, we never asked Netanyahu not to launch an operation in Rafah. We never set him a time limit. We only asked that he do things properly, that he do them in an orderly fashion, that he coordinate with the Egyptians (who can be no less aggravated than the Americans) on the Rafah Crossing and the Philadelphi Corridor (the border with Egypt), that he present plans for the evacuation of civilians.
In short, the Americans don’t want to see another humanitarian disaster. As far as they are concerned, once Netanyahu has taken care of what they want, he can handle the operation to finish off the four remaining Hamas battalions however he wants.The Americans complained that the Egyptians are asking that the Palestinian Authority supervise the Rafah Crossing alongside them – a legitimate request and no big deal – but Netanyahu, as usual, isn’t able to stand up to Ben-Gvir and Smotrich.
Lapid asked the Americans what’s going on with the Saudi-American-Israeli deal. To his surprise, he found that the third party to the trilateral deal – Israel – is not playing ball. If there is an agreement, it will be between the U.S. president and the Saudi crown prince, with an Israeli appendix that will be put in a drawer.