Analysis: Will Iran’s threats bridge the US-Israel rift?
‘Iran is an existential threat in a way the Palestinian issue is not,’ said a former undersecretary of defense
President Joe Biden at a news conference April 10. Photo by Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
By Jacob Kornbluh April 11, 2024
U.S.-Israeli relations have deteriorated precipitously in recent weeks over the war in Gaza, with President Joe Biden lambasting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for failing to protect Palestinian civilians. But now Israel is in the crosshairs of Iran, which is threatening retaliation for a strike on the Iranian consulate in Syria earlier this month.
Will the Iranian threat ease the strain between Israel and the U.S.?
Don’t expect Biden to start pulling punches on Israel’s prosecution of its war against Hamas, experts say. But also don’t expect anything but unwavering support from him as Israel braces and prepares for Iranian aggression.
“Iran is an existential threat in a way the Palestinian issue is not,” said Dov Zakheim, a former undersecretary of defense in the George W. Bush administration. Its nuclear ambitions and support for terrorists across the Middle East, he said, represent a challenge that requires U.S. deterrence.
The U.S. and Israel intelligence services are warning of imminent missile or drone attacks by Iran on Israeli strategic sites to avenge the hit on the consulate, which killed two Iranian generals. These assessments led Biden to deliver a warning to Iran on Thursday. “As I told Prime Minister Netanyahu, our commitment to Israel’s security against these threats from Iran and its proxies is ironclad,” he said.
A ‘passive-aggressive’ relationship
The pledge contrasts sharply with recent statements by the president, who called Netanyahu’s approach to Gaza a “mistake” and demanded an immediate ceasefire. He also issued an ultimatum to Netanyahu after the Israel Defense Forces’ deadly strike on seven humanitarian aid workers from the World Central Kitchen, threatening to condition military aid to Israel if the plight of Palestinians in Gaza did not improve. On the heels of that statement, 56 House members signed a letter urging the administration to halt a transfer of new arms to Israel.
But while the U.S. could conceivably condition military aid to Israel over Gaza, it will not condition its commitment to protect Israel from a more powerful threat.
“This disagreement over Gaza is not over the fundamentals,” said Evelyn Farkas, a former Pentagon official in the Obama administration. “It is over the way Israel is prosecuting the military campaign.”
That campaign, she added, threatens an elusive goal of Biden’s, to broker a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A prolonged war, she said, jeopardizes the possibility.
Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Biden’s assurances to Israel do not reset what he described as the president’s “passive-aggressive” relationship with Netanyahu. But they might, he continued, serve as a “stress reducer.” The Biden administration will continue to try to reign Netanyahu in, he said. But “the last thing they want to do is signal to Hezbollah and Iran that there is any daylight between the U.S. and Israel on this particular issue.”
Tough talk
With his “ironclad” promise to Israel, Biden put Iran on notice that escalating tensions could bring the U.S. into the fight. And Netanyahu is pledging to strike back.
“We set a simple principle: Anyone who hits us, we hit them,” Netanyahu told pilots at an F-15 air force base on Thursday, the same day that Gen. Michael Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, visited Israel to discuss the Iranian threat.
Netanyahu “is not bluffing,” said Zakheim. “The probability that Israel could hit Iran is very, very high.”
Despite its promise to take revenge on Israel, Iran may actually be interested in drawing tensions down. It signaled after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that it is not seeking a direct conflict with Israel. And “they definitely don’t want war with the United States,” said Farkas.
Domestic considerations
Americans are somewhat split over the war in Gaza, with approval of Israel’s military action in Gaza dropping from 50% in November to 36% in March. Despite growing support for a ceasefire, Democrats and Republicans — leaders and voters alike — consider Iran a bad actor. If it attacks Israel, support for a U.S. military response is likely to be strong. Sympathy for Palestinian suffering in Gaza is widespread. Sympathy for Tehran does not register. Americans reject Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and hold it responsible for its proxies’ attacks on American troops.
And Democrats who want to condition aid to Israel do not oppose the U.S. supplying defensive arms.
“Nobody,” Farkas, executive director of the McCain Institute at Arizona State University, said, “is giving a pass to the Iranians.”
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