U.S. Trying to Oust Netanyahu?
Last Thursday, U.S. President Biden was caught on hot mic saying he needed a “come to Jesus meeting” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On Sunday, Biden told MSNBC that Netanyahu and his policies are “hurting Israel more than helping Israel.”
“Netanyahu’s viability as [a] leader as well as his governing coalition of far-right and ultra-orthodox parties that pursue hardline policies on Palestinian and security issues may be in doubt,” the U.S. recently stated in its annual Threat Assessment report. “We expect large protests demanding his resignation and new elections. A different, more moderate government is a possibility.”
On Tuesday night, a senior Israeli political official pushed back against U.S. involvement in Israeli government decisions, saying, “Israeli citizens, and not anyone else, elect the prime minister. Israel is not a protectorate of the US but an independent and democratic country whose citizens are the ones who choose the government.”
Biden appears to be attempting to separate Israel’s leadership from its people in order to condemn Netanyahu while maintaining support for the Jewish state. Such a tactic might earn him points with voters opposed to Netanyahu and the war while still demonstrating support for Israel. But as the Israeli official asserted, Netanyahu is the people’s choice for prime minister, and the push to remove him from the premiership seems to be more of a U.S. initiative than a consensus of Israeli voters. It is not the U.S.’s place to try to make such decisions for the sovereign nation of Israel, particularly now, when Israel’s survival is at stake and depends on the dismantling of Hamas’s terrorist organization.
