Will Netanyahu’s antagonism jeapordise US support?

The US regards Israel as a responsible and influential actor in the Middle East. It extends political, economic, and military support to ensure its security and regional dominance, and considers Israeli sensitivities in its policies toward the Palestinians.

Likewise, Israel knows the benefits of its relationship with Washington and works to make its policies a central part of America's strategy in the region, based on its own national security vision.

A matter of perspective

However, Israel has two different perspectives on its dealings with the US. The first sees Israel's relationship with the US as strategic and essential to its identity as an extension of the West in the Middle East. It presents itself as a democratic and modern nation to secure ongoing support from the US.

The second argues that the US owes Israel for the services it provides in the Middle East, such as ensuring the safety of American interests and acting as a land-based aircraft carrier. According to this view, supporting Israel costs less than maintaining US aircraft carriers in the nearby seas and oceans.

Regardless of which perspective ministers have, Israel currently shows no interest in complying with US policies that conflict with its own vision of a Greater Israel, or of listening to US concerns when it comes to settling the Palestinian conflict.

As Israeli analyst Hanoch Daous succinctly said back in 2010: "Israel needs America, but it needs its independence more. There is another side to this equation that says that the United States also needs Israel."

Netanyahu's trail of antagonism

More recently, US-Israel relations have faced tension due to the policies of Netanyahu, Israel's longest serving premier, who is now in his third stint as prime minister.

During his first term, following the assassination of the peace-negotiating Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, Netanyahu worked to undermine the Oslo Accords and the New Middle East Project, which the then US President Bill Clinton hoped would strengthen the position of both the United States and Israel in the region.

In his second term, Netanyahu refused to halt settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories when asked to by the US. His failure to freeze the process created tension with then US President Barack Obama.

Netanyahu's third term, which began in late 2022, remains ongoing, but there is no indication that he will suddenly acquiesce to American overtures on settlements or anything else, particularly since he now leads an extremist government.

His coalition of strictly Orthodox parties and religious ideologists want to trample on the rights of Palestinians and Palestinians citizens of Israel and now seems willing to erode the democratic nature of the State of Israel in order to further its aims in the occupied territories.

A bonfire of human rights

This time, it is not only about demolishing the town of Hawara. It is about ending the existence of the Palestinian people and settling in every inch, from the river to the sea.

It is also about changing Israel into a Jewish state rather than a Jewish democratic one, into a Jewish religious state rather than a Jewish secular one, and into a racist, authoritarian state, rather than a liberal democratic one.  

These changes, which have horrified both Biden and many Jewish communities around the world, involve limiting Israel's democracy to elections, establishing a militia [National Guard] affiliated to the extremist minister Ben-Gvir, and allowing the executive [government] to overrule the judiciary with only a slim parliamentary majority.

Israeli analyst Zvi Barel described Israel's constitutional crisis as having been caused "by a prime minister accused of criminal offenses, a paranoid justice minister, an internal security minister convicted of criminal offenses, and a racist finance minister".

He said they had "begun to change the way they govern, replacing relative democracy with absolute dictatorship, politically liquidating those considered to be opposed to the regime, and classifying half of the people as traitors".

If Israel today feels like a storm is blowing in from the West, particularly from the US, it is in addition to the storm its current far-right government has whipped up internally. How it deals with both will shape the future of Israel and its relations with the world.