Gadi Taub
Tablet, May 7, 2024
“What all of these shockingly openly subversive moves against a key U.S. military ally have so far not produced is the desired result—a subservient government run by the would-be King Benny.”
In the eyes of the Biden administration, Hamas is the smaller problem. The bigger problem is Benjamin Netanyahu. The U.S. is willing to live with Iran’s proxies everywhere, as part of its “regional integration” policy—i.e., appeasing Iran. But they are unwilling to live with Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition. The stubborn Netanyahu clearly does not want to learn from his would-be tutors like U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken how to “share the neighborhood” with genocidaires in Gaza, Judea and Samaria, Lebanon, and Tehran, whom his electorate understands to be bent on murdering them.
If the Netanyahu problem is too big to contain, then it follows that it must be solved. And it seems that the Biden administration has zeroed in on what Tony Badran has called a Herodian solution: finding a local proxy who will impose the U.S. agenda on a reluctant Israeli electorate.
King Herod the Great won his throne because the Roman Empire stepped in and helped him defeat his Israelite adversaries. The American empire wants to help install Benny Gantz as Israel’s next prime minister for the same reason: The plan is for the administration to help him defeat Netanyahu, then for him to assemble a dovish coalition that will return Israel to the two-state track negotiations—which, though unlikely to produce two states, would nevertheless help “de-escalate” in Gaza, the last hot spot in the region where Iran’s power is actually challenged.
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