Netanyahu comes to Washington as Biden withdraws from presidential race

Immediately after Biden’s announcement, a person familiar with the deliberations in Netanyahu’s office said it was “too early” to say how the trip and Israel’s war effort might be affected. Like others for this story, they spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive topics.

Netanyahu is due to address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. But it is the chaos of the presidential race that has observers riveted, with Biden bowing to pressure to step aside and Donald Trump emerging from a failed assassination attempt. fast switching Political winds could embolden the Israeli leader at a crucial moment in Gaza ceasefire negotiations, analysts say.

The US-backed talks in Cairo are reportedly gaining momentum, with the government pressuring a reluctant Netanyahu to accept a deal that would end the fighting in exchange for the release of more than 100 Israeli hostages held by militants. Dozens of the captives are believed to be alive, Israeli officials believe.

Netanyahu has been accused by critics of prolonging the war for his own political gain, a charge he denies. He insists Israel must fight until Hamas is destroyed, a goal his own generals have called unachievable.

Officially, Netanyahu is neutral in American policy. But he has long been criticized for aligning himself with the Republicans. And he has made no secret of his delight in Trump, who has significantly shifted American policy in favor of the Israeli right during his term — by moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights.

Netanyahu’s tense relationship with Biden has deteriorated sharply in recent months as Israel has ignored numerous requests from the White House to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza and do more to protect civilians. The administration in May imposed a ban on 2,000-pound bombs into Israel, citing their use in populated areas.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, more than 38,900 Palestinians have been killed in the war. The ministry makes no distinction between combatants and civilians, but says most of the dead are women and children.

Some of the prime minister’s allies have begun to more explicitly cheer Trump, seeing the ceasefire talks as a partisan American issue. Itamar Ben Gvir, Netanyahu’s far-right national security minister, warned his colleagues last week that approving a hostage deal “would be a blow to Trump, which would be a victory for Biden,” according to Israeli media. He insisted that any agreement must wait until November.

Some political observers here say Biden’s crumbling position in recent weeks has already given Netanyahu a free hand in Gaza.

Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington, said U.S. pressure on Israel to rein in its military campaign has eased in recent weeks. The administration has offered little public criticism of the escalating attacks in areas crowded with civilians, including Mawasi, an area Israel has designated as a humanitarian zone. Massive attacks there last week targeting senior Hamas leader Mohammed Deif killed at least 90 people, health officials said.

“The pressure is off now,” Oren said before Biden’s announcement. “It’s not like it was.”

Biden’s team has backed off, in part because of signs that the attacks are making Hamas more receptive to a deal, Oren said, and what the president “really needs is a diplomatic victory to show he can accomplish big things internationally.”

U.S. administration officials denied before the president left office that Netanyahu had been significantly emboldened by Biden’s struggles. But they acknowledged that the president’s mounting problems coincided with a hardening of the prime minister’s position. Netanyahu recently made last-minute demands that U.S. negotiators feared would derail the talks in Cairo, according to diplomats familiar with the discussions.

Under the new circumstances, Israel would not agree to withdraw its troops from the Philadelphia Corridor along the Egyptian border, said the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive ongoing negotiations. Israel would also not grant unrestricted access to Gazans who wish to return to their homes in the north — and is demanding that its forces be allowed to set up checkpoints to monitor the movement of the displaced.

“The fact that Netanyahu is making these conditions so public means he feels more confident,” Oren said.

Netanyahu certainly paid attention to the seething U.S. campaign, Israeli officials say. “Everyone recognizes that Biden is weak,” said the person familiar with the deliberations in the prime minister’s office.

But Netanyahu was much more focused on his own political challenges, they said.

The prime minister is caught between an increasingly angry Israeli public over his failure to strike a deal on the release of hostages and his far-right coalition partners, who are threatening to bring down the government if he agrees to stop fighting Hamas. Eight members of Netanyahu’s own Likud party have in recent days come out with a list of “red lines” they could not support in a deal, including an Israeli withdrawal from central Gaza and the Egyptian border.

Netanyahu will work hard to keep his coalition partners in line until July 28, when the Israeli parliament goes into recess for three months.

“The next few weeks are going to be crucial,” said the person familiar with the deliberations. “Right now, the pressure from within is much greater than the pressure from the States.”

Before Biden took the step, Netanyahu had no plans to meet with Trump during his trip to Washington, officials said, or even with Vice President Harris, who quickly endorsed Biden on Sunday to take his place at the top of the list.

The prime minister was well aware that regardless of the outcome of the November election, Israel would have to deal with him until the end of Biden’s term, said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute.

Netanyahu is likely to be on his best behavior during this visit, unlike his controversial speech to Congress in 2015, when he criticized the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran at the invitation of Republicans. Unlike now, that spat came just weeks before an Israeli election and was designed for domestic political impact, Plesner noted.

“It’s a completely different situation now,” he said. “Netanyahu needs President Biden every day.”

While many Democrats remain bitter about Netanyahu’s 2015 trip, and many plan to boycott his speech, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Friday that he had received a “broad preview” of Netanyahu’s speech last week and that it did not appear partisan in tone — instead focusing on “how the U.S. and Israel are working together to confront the terrorist threat” and coordinate on “regional challenges.”

Sullivan admitted, however, that “they will continue to work on that speech until the very last moment, just as we are doing on our side.”

Netanyahu will be in Washington at the height of the partisan frenzy, between the two party conventions and with Democrats scrambling to figure out their next moves. U.S. officials confided that they were nervous about his visit at such a volatile time, worried that he might say or do something to undermine their diplomacy in Gaza.

“It is impossible to be certain how this will play out,” a U.S. official said.

Hudson reported from Washington.