The rift between Biden and Netanyahu is widening

There has never been any love lost between President Joe Biden and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but until this week, one could usually say with high confidence that their dysfunctional personal relationship would take a backseat to the historic alliance between the US and Israel.

Not anymore.

Mr Netanyahu, the longest-serving head of government in Israel’s 75 years of statehood, had been experiencing a cold shoulder of sorts from Mr Biden after returning to government. The American president was wary of his Israeli counterpart on account of Mr Netanyahu and the Likud Party’s efforts to remake Israel’s judiciary into a more political, more compliant and less powerful entity, more akin to Viktor Orban’s Hungary or the Polish judiciary under the Law and Justice Party. And Mr Netanyahu’s long history of antagonising and undermining US leaders elected from the Democratic Party was well-known.

Then the terror attacks on 7 October happened. The sheer brutality of Hamas’ assault and the existential threat to Israel posed by the militant group outweighed what Biden aides have described as a healthy scepticism of the Israeli leader’s intentions. The two leaders got a little closer.

The president’s natural inclination to support Israel’s right to self-defence, Biden confidantes say, took precedence over prominent Democrats’ suggestion that he take a more realpolitik-infused approach to the US-Israel relationship. Such a strategy would have seen Mr Biden take harder lines on Gaza. Many in Mr Biden’s own party had imagined the president might use military aid as leverage to force changes in how the Israel Defense Forces operated in the region.

Doing so would have been a marked departure from decades of US policy. But