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“We are shocked,” one US official told CNN after Netanyahu rejected the ceasefire proposal before Israel launched the all-out attacks.
It’s the latest in a series of incidents in which the Israeli leader has ignored or rejected President Joe Biden’s attempts to restrain Israeli military action in Gaza and, more recently, Lebanon.
Netanyahu believes he is ‘winning the war’
A former British military chief said that may be because Netanyahu believes that he is winning the war in the Middle East.
General Lord Richard Dannatt told Sky News on Sunday that Netanyahu believes he can “press on” with the conflict.
“A ground invasion of Lebanon is increasingly threatened,” he told the outlet.
He said the US has been urging Israel to pull back but hasn’t been doing enough to “effectively” stop Netanyahu.
“It is still supplying weapons and a lot of the stuff that Israel needs,” Dannatt said.
“On the one hand. the US is calling for restraint, but on the other. they are not effectively stopping Netanyahu, and he believes that he is winning this war.”
Ignoring red lines
The US is by far the biggest supplier of arms to Israel.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, since the start of Israel’s war with Hamas on October 7, 2023, the US has put in place legislation providing at least $12.5 billion in military aid to Israel.
Overall, since 2009, it has provided Israel with $3.4 billion in funding for missile defense, including $1.3 billion in the development of Israel’s Iron Dome system, according to figures from the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.
It’s a big trading partner outside of arms, too. US exports to Israel last year amounted to just over $14 billion, per figures from the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade.
Despite this, Netanyahu has ignored a series of red lines from Biden over how Israel conducts its campaign and rejected US pressure to reach a cease-fire deal with Hamas.
Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, in an article for Foreign Policy in September, argued that Biden’s reluctance to hold Israel to account was undermining the rules-based international order the president claims to champion.
Some are claiming that as his term in office coming to an end, Biden is giving up. The White House has pushed back against these claims.
“No, he absolutely hasn’t given up,” White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told CNN about reaching a deal to end the war in Gaza last week.
After the devastating blows Israel has dealt to its enemies in recent days, exposing the limits of their power and the reach of Israeli intelligence and weapons, Netanyahu likely believes that the impetus is with him.
But a widening conflict would likely not come to a conclusion quickly, US officials are warning.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned in the wake of last week’s collapsed US peace effort that if Israel rejects diplomacy, it will result in “greater instability and insecurity, the ripples of which will be felt around the world.”
“The choices that all parties make in coming days will determine which path this region is on with profound consequences for its people now and possibly for years to come,” Blinken said.