The limits of Biden’s one-on-one diplomacy with Netanyahu
Biden prefers a personal touch to diplomacy, but changing circumstances in Gaza and Israel might lead to a shifting course.
In multiple calls and meetings since Oct. 7, the Netanyahu government told their American counterparts they would open humanitarian aid routes into Gaza — but that they would do so solely because Washington asked.
“We’re going to say the Americans requested it,” one senior Israeli official said this year, as relayed by a senior Biden administration official.
President Joe Biden has been leveraging his decades-long familiarity with Benjamin Netanyahu to move the Israeli leader, who faced his own domestic pressure to appear hawkish, in directions he didn’t necessarily want. In this case, to pry crossings open and boost the amount of food, water and medicine available to Palestinians in Gaza.
“Their talks are very candid,” said the senior official, like others granted anonymity to detail a sensitive relationship. “They skip past the diplomatic formalities and go right into the substance and work things out on the calls all the time.”