Netanyahu is not ignoring Biden’s wishes

Several commentators have claimed that Benjamin Netanyayhu is thumbing his nose at President Biden and is ignoring the desire of the Biden administration for Israel to adopt a less aggressive stance towards the Palestinians, Lebanon, and Iran.

For example, in October of 2024, Tom Engelhardt wrote: “But if you want a measurement of just how far the Lone Superpower has fallen, keep in mind that, once upon a time not so terribly long ago, an Israeli leader like Benjamin Netanyahu would never have dared to pay so little attention to the desires of Washington when it came to his actions in the Middle East.”

I think that is a naive view of what’s happening in the Middle East.

The reality is that the U.S. is using Israel as a bludgeon/proxy to attack Iran and, indirectly, Russia. The U.S. eagerly supplied Israel with all the weapons it wanted to destroy Gaza and, now, to attack Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. Open war on Iran is something that neocons in the government have wanted to do for decades. Books have been written about the covert wars the U.S. has been waging against Iran since the 1979 revolution. For example: The Twilight War: The Secret History of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran, and Ronen Bergman’s The Secret War with Iran.

Responsible Statecraft reported in January 2024 that Senators Cotton and Wicker want war with Iran:

“The only answer to these attacks must be devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East,” added Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) “Anything less will confirm Joe Biden as a coward unworthy of being commander in chief.”

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services committee, said that Washington must strike “directly against Iranian targets and its leadership.”

Bret Stephen’s Oct 1st opinion piece in the NY Times is: We Absolutely Need to Escalate in Iran. NBC News reported in October, 2024 that Lindsey Graham “said he will introduce a resolution in the Senate to ‘allow military action by the United States in conjunction with Israel to knock Iran out of the oil business.'”

In Revealed: The Israeli Spies Writing America’s News, Alan MacLeod describes how former Israeli spy Barak Ravi is an American journalist who has whitewashed Israel’s war on Gaza and tried to make it look like Biden was tough on Netanyahu, with headlines such as Biden “running out” of patience with Bibi as Gaza war hits 100 days and Israeli minister lambasted at White House about Gaza and war strategy. Biden awarded Ravi with the prestigious White House Press Correspondents’ Award “for overall excellence in White House coverage.”

Some commentators agree that the U.S. wants war with Russia but say that it’s because the U.S. is a slave to the Israel lobby.

For example, in Biden Stands Aside as Netanyahu Incinerates Gaza, Now Lebanon , Ralph Nader describes Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Lebanon, similar to how it decimated Gaza, and Israel’s use of illegal weapons, tactics, and expansionist policies. Nader says, “The White House knows all this. It doesn’t care. Wherever Israel invades, bombs, assassinates, or boobytraps pagers and walkie-talkies, Bibi-Biden continues his servility to the Israeli terror regime and its genocidal leader Netanyahu, who is despised by three out of four Israelis for his domestic policies and is under indictment by Israeli prosecutors for corruption.” Congress, too, is under the thumb of the Israel lobby, according to Nader; it gave Netanyahu fifty-two standing ovations.

To some extent, the U.S. is subservient to Israel, but I think that it’s also true that the U.S. is using Israel to attack Iran (a Russian ally), to fulfill the dreams of the neocons for American dominance in the Middle East. The U.S. would rather have Israeli troops and citizens die than American troops and citizens. This is similar to how the U.S. used Ukrainians as pawns and cannon fodder in a proxy war with Russia.

I will grant one thing. Netanyahu prefers that Donald Trump become president, so Bibi is trying to make Biden look bad. But overall, the U.S. and Israel are staunch allies and have similar goals. Biden is subservient to the forces, both in Israel and native to the U.S., that want war with Iran. And he’s willing to risk losing to Trump (who is running as a peace candidate) rather than oppose those forces.