Joe Biden 'Loves' Israel and Netanyahu to Death
As Tony Blinken Arrives for his 11th Visit Since October 7, Bob Woodward Reveals what the US Secretary of State thinks about Israel - Book Review: Bob Woodward's 'War'
Joe Biden 'Loves' Israel and Netanyahu to Death.
Bob Woodward's latest book, War, covers the Biden administration's handling of Russia's War on Ukraine and the October 7 War in Israel. It also takes a few swipes at Donald Trump along the way. Woodward, aged 81, is one of America's most famous newspaper reporters. In the movie All The President's Men, about the Nixon administration's Watergate scandal, Robert Redford played Woodward's role.
The celeb journalist intimates that Claire McMullen, a 30-year-old Australian-born lawyer, basically wrote his latest book. He refers to her as his "remarkable full-time assistant…who made this book possible." She may well be the key to why the Woodward brand is associated with a book that is tone-deaf and color-blind to Israel. I suppose that if you were born around 1994 and did not understand the complexity and context of the Arab-Israel conflict (beyond what you scanned in the woke media), this is the book you'd produce.
Or, just maybe, the sentiments about Israel that permeate the pages of War accurately reflect the thinking of Secretary of State Tony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and Coordinator for Middle East and North Africa at the NSC Brett McGurk.
Blinken and Sullivan are the stars of the book and its primary sources on the US side, while Ron Dermer, Minister of Strategic Affairs, is the primary Woodward source on the Israeli side.
What comes across is an administration that immediately loses patience with Israel. Yes, Hamas launched a devastating surprise attack on October 7, 2023. Yes, loads of Israelis were killed, and a bunch were taken captive to Gaza, but the pained point that comes across is: "Why can't the Israelis move on?"
And because they can't, President Joe Biden and his devoted team are stuck doing exhaustive damage control. In fact, Blinken is in Israel today on his 11th trip since the War began, trying to get Israel to agree on a ceasefire, trying to get Israel to approve the necessary steps to get the hostages released. You see, from Blinken's viewpoint, Israel is the problem, the pebble in his shoe.
Binyamin Netanyahu is Woodward's villain (alongside Vladimir Putin in the Ukraine section of the book and Trump in a few throwaway chapters about that mad-hatter). For the Biden Team, Netanyahu is the obstacle to the commonsense need to de-escalate. I could not find mention of Hezbollah attacking Israel on October 8. From the Blinken viewpoint, that is beside the point; it is up to Israel, not Hezbollah, to stop fighting.
Even when Woodward is pressed by the harsh chronology of events to implicate Hamas in, say, breaking a ceasefire – he makes no judgment about the "militant" group. The book's message is that, in the last and final analysis, Israel is culpable in sabotaging any ceasefire. If Israeli flexibility does not elicit flexibility from Hamas, then the Biden-Blinken solution is to demand more elasticity from Israel.
Woodward channels Blinken, the purposeful peace processor, faithfully invoking the two-state mantra. Never mind that the Palestinian leadership (including the "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas) never recognized the right of the Jewish people to a national homeland anywhere in Israel. Or that a majority of Palestinians support Hamas. Blinken soaks up whatever the Emir of Qatar tells him as if that country was not a foremost enabler of the Islamist idea. Blinken takes the Jordanian monarch at his word. He has patience for the ruler of Saudi Arabia. Whatever Bibi is, he never ordered his secret police to chop journalists who criticize him into pieces. Yet the only leader Blinken can't bring himself to trust is Netanyahu.
Israel is a nuisance, and while political expediency requires the administration to provide Israel with the wherewithal to defend itself – the notion that the Jewish state has a legal and moral right to take its battle to the enemy is anathema; that it would try to defeat Hamas and sideline Hezbollah is seen as delusional. To be fair, Woodward does allow Dermer to give voice to what defeating Hamas would mean – namely, that Hamas would not govern Gaza or pose a military threat to Israel. But this is poo-pooed as beyond reach.
Blinken does not believe that any war can be won or that any enemy can be defeated. It is all about management and de-escalation, and we Israelis are too wrought up to think clearly. He learned this not just from Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy mags but from his learned boss.
"What's your strategy, man?" a clearheaded, coherent, sage-like Biden challenges a befuddled Netanyahu during an April phone call.
"We have to go into Rafah," Netanyahu answers.
"Bibi, you've got no strategy," Biden responded.
Fundamentally, in the Biden-Blinlkin worldview, the Palestinians are the victims and the Israelis the provokers. When he's not reminiscing about Golda Meir, Joe Biden tells everyone he "loves" Bibi, just that he doesn't agree with anything he does. Funny, no?
In fact, Woodward reveals (are you sitting down?) that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris loath Netanyahu. "That son of a bitch, Bibi Netanyahu, he's a bad guy. He's a bad fucking guy!" Biden said.
And it is not just Bibi. "18 out of 19 people who work for him" are also liars. Blinken belatedly figures out that Netanyahu’s war policies pretty much reflect Israeli public opinion across the political spectrum. Most of us don't think it is unreasonable to want proof that our hostages are alive before we talk about making more concessions.
Woodward shows Israel to be a problematic client and America an irritated patron.
Under Biden, Israel is in the dependent position of needing US forces on our soil to operate the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system. It used to be we were at least granted the "right to defend" ourselves. Now, we've been compelled to contract out even that "right" lest we go too far.
I don't want America to go to war with Iran on our behalf. However, I would have wanted Biden to sell Israel the bombs it needs to stop Iran from building atom bombs intended for our destruction. He won't do it. In fact, he stopped the shipment of 3,500 ordinary bombs and has now slow-walked other ordinances to protest Palestinian Arab civilian casualties. What Biden does not do is put the blame squarely where it belongs on Hamas, which has militarized mosques, UNWRA facilities, schools, and private dwellings.
Now, here's the rub – Blinken and Biden have made this personal so that even to those of us who are not Netanyahu admirers, what comes across is that Team Biden has conflated Bibi with Israel. And as Michael Corleone advised: Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment. Maybe Biden-Blinken delude themselves into thinking they are fed up with Bibi, but to me, it is plain they are at the end of their rope with Israel in general. That is why after a number of arch-terrorists were liquidated, Biden's response was not relief or appreciation, but "Bibi, what the fuck?"
All of Woodward's most memorable books (he's written 22) offer riveting leaks and an insider's view of decision-making at the highest levels. The old reporter has access to just about everyone in Washington. I have to trust that he and Claire McMullen have accurately portrayed how Biden, Blinken, and Sullivan feel about Israel. They are pro-Israel in the most policy-wobbly, morally confused, and begrudging manner possible. To the extent that Biden advised Israel to "do nothing" and leave Hassan Nassralah and Yahya Sinwar alive to fight another day – and "take the win."
What “win” would that have been?
It is no great leap to infer from Woodward that Kamala Harris would cut Israel far less slack than Biden and his so-called pro-Israel team. As she tells pro-Hamas protestors again and again, their concerns are "real," and their narrative gets her “respect.” I expect she would take being “pro-Israel” to a new nadir.
Bob Woodward War ($32)