A blinking red light for Israel in American politics

In notably blunt terms Thursday, top U.S. officials made a series of warnings to the Israeli government that they were nearly out of patience with its conduct of the war in Gaza.

President Joe Biden and his top deputies said they would consider changing their policy towards Israel unless more consideration was given towards the humanitarian crisis its military was producing. A top Biden ally in the Senate argued that aid could be conditioned should Israel follow through on its threat to invade Rafah. Even former President Donald Trump went public with his belief that Israel was losing the PR battle and needed to end the conflict soon.

It was a screaming neon sign for Israel with respect to American politics — one that made clear just how unnerved policymakers in the U.S. have been by an Israeli strike that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers, including an American. And it marked a major shift in approach towards an ally with whom U.S. officials have customarily tried to be in lockstep.

That shift has come amid rising internal frustrations among White House officials over the conduct of the war and continued debate among the president’s inner circle over the best way to handle the deteriorating relations with the Israeli government, especially since Monday’s attack.

A Democratic official who has been in touch with White House aides since the strike said there has been increased, private discussions among mid-level and lower-level staff about how the U.S. needs to express its — and Biden’s — anger with the targeting of humanitarian aid workers.

A House Democrat who didn’t want to run afoul of the White House added that Biden is “feeling a ton of pressure from outside of his inner circle. Most of us are fed up, and I think the bottom is going to fall out on support for additional Israel security funding, at least in the Democratic caucus.”

The change in posture has been swift inside the White House. Just 24 hours ago, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby had told reporters that the U.S. government wanted to wait to see the outcome of Israel’s review of the deadly strike. By Thursday, Kirby said the U.S. would only give Israel “hours and days” to outline policy shifts and that, absent real changes, “there’ll have to be changes from our side.”

Hours later, Israel opened the Erez crossing for the first time since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, which will allow more humanitarian assistance to enter Gaza.

Even prior to the death of the World Central Kitchen aid workers, President Biden had been under increasing pressure to change his posture towards Israel. But he has so far resisted.

Some top-level officials, in particular the White House’s top Middle East aide, Brett McGurk, have for months counseled the president to refrain from breaking with Israel by conditioning military aid, according to two U.S. officials and a person familiar with the situation, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity. McGurk’s argument has been that a major change could weaken any influence the U.S. has to protect civilians in Gaza, secure the release of hostages and broker diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia in a deal that pushes toward a Palestinian state.

Other aides have played prominent roles in the internal debate. In conversations with larger groups of officials, national security adviser Jake Sullivan has questioned the need to reprimand Israel and widen the rift with the ally, the people said. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also have routinely offered advice to the president and, recently, ratcheted up their criticism of Israel. Blinken said Thursday that the WCK attack should be the last on aid workers while Austin Wednesday night expressed his “outrage” in a call with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over the strike.

The National Security Council declined to comment on dynamics with the president’s advisers.

Biden himself has attempted to separate his growing disdain for Netanyahu from his decades-long belief that the United States must support Israel, according to another senior adviser. Though deeply upset by the civilian death toll in Gaza, the president has also stressed the need not to forget the horrors of the Oct. 7 attack, according to the adviser.

Lower down the ranks of the administration, discontent with the approach to Israel has been growing.

Josh Paul, who worked in the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs for more than 11 years before resigning over the war in October, said he is in regular touch with several hundred Biden administration officials through group chats and one-on-one conversations. He said the number of officials reaching out to him has increased in recent weeks.

“So my impression of these is that there is an immense amount of frustration at all levels within the system, but that there is very little ability to shift anything given that this remains sort of top down direction,” said Paul.

“I’ve had a bunch of people reach out to me and say, ‘I’m thinking about resigning, and this is the last straw,’” he said, referring to the killing of aid workers.

While Biden and his closest advisers are well aware of growing dissension throughout the administration, they had not been convinced that weakening Israel’s retaliation against Hamas does the ally or the U.S. any long-term favors.

That’s been true even as a diplomatic resolution to the conflict has proved elusive. A virtual meeting this week between senior U.S. and Israeli officials over a future military operation in Rafah found little common ground. The American side, which included Sullivan and McGurk, said it should take Israel approximately four months to safely evacuate the roughly 1.4 millions Palestinians in the southern Gaza city. The Israelis countered that it would only take four weeks.

“You’re going to be responsible for the third famine crisis of the 21st century. That is not something we can accept as partners,” Sullivan told his Israeli counterparts during a virtual meeting this week on a future military operation in Rafah, a U.S. official recounted to POLITICO. “If you don’t have a proper plan for the day after, nothing will help you in dismantling Hamas. Not Rafah, not anything else.”

Both sides agreed to coordinate and paper over differences in person later this month.

At the same time, the worldwide fallout from the World Central Kitchen strike has been building, with the governments of Australia, Poland and the U.K. — all of which lost citizens in the attack — calling on Israel to investigate and be held accountable.

In a 30-minute call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, the president delivered the bluntest warning yet that he was willing to condition U.S. aid. “U.S. policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel’s immediate action” on steps to address civilian harm and safety of aid workers, according to a White House readout.

That call, the first between the two leaders in weeks, came as Democrats and influential advisers have spoken out about their desire to see the president take a tougher stand.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Biden’s closest ally in the Senate, told CNN on Thursday that he would support conditioning military aid to Israel if it attempted a massive operation in Rafah without first protecting civilians. Richard Haass, the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations and frequent “Morning Joe” guest, said Wednesday on that show Biden should consider reprimanding Israel.

“At some point, the words become empty,” he asserted, noting six months of criticism had done little to change Israel’s military tactics.

Those comments have left the impression that anger with Biden’s policy has moved from the progressive and pro-Palestinian wings into the centrist, establishment heart of Washington –– and they’ve been echoed by veterans of past Democratic administrations.

“The president doesn't get credit for being ‘privately enraged’ when he still refuses to use leverage to stop the [Israel Defense Forces] from killing and starving innocent people,” said Jon Favreau, a host of Pod Save America, in response to POLITICO’s Wednesday story that an “angry” Biden would not change course on Israel. “These stories only make him look weak.”

Observers suspect that the mounting pressure on Biden will eventually take its toll — and may have already done so.

“There was always going to be a point at which the Biden administration felt that the domestic and international cost of supporting Israel’s campaign in Gaza outweighed the benefit of what Israel was able to achieve on the ground, and it seems clear that we have reached that point,” said Michael Singh, a top Middle East official in George W. Bush’s White House.

Myah Ward contributed to this report.