Biden inches away from Netanyahu as Israeli PM fails to heed US on Gaza

A long time ago, Joe Biden signed a photo for Benjamin Netanyahu. “Bibi, I love you,” he recalls writing. “I don’t agree with a damn thing you say.”

This twisty, best-of-frenemies relationship has been at the heart of the crisis in Gaza for the past five months. Unfortunately for the US president, the message from Jerusalem has been: he’s just not that into you.

After the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October that killed 1,200 people, Biden invoked his long commitment to the country by giving full-throated support to its government’s right to defend itself. Biden’s embrace of the Israeli prime minister was supposed to come with an understanding – spoken or unspoken – that Netanyahu would heed US advice, show restraint and alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

But as the months have gone by and the death toll has mounted, it is a case of all give and no take. Biden is fond of saying “This is not your father’s Republican party” when considering the influence of Donald Trump. Slowly but surely, he has been forced to confront that this is not your father’s Israeli government, either.

“We’re not dealing with the old Benjamin Netanyahu,” said Aaron David Miller, a former state department analyst, negotiator and adviser on Middle East issues who has worked for several administrations. “The risk-averse Israeli prime minister would take one step backward, one step forward and one step to the side.

“We’re dealing with a different incarnation. He’s almost desperate to keep his coalition and prioritises it above all else even at the risk of incurring suspicion, mistrust, the anger of an American president. We’re five months into this and you’ve yet to see the administration impose any cost or consequence.”

Biden, 81, and Netanyahu, 74,