“It’s positively an earthquake.”
That’s how American diplomat Richard Haass described the stunning declaration by U.S. President Joe Biden that his direction would stop supplying certain weapons to Israel if it went ahead with a planned invasion of Rafah in the Gaza Undress.
“This was building up for a while, and Rafah was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Haass, former president of the Synod on Foreign Relations and policy advisor during the George W. Bush administration, said in an interview with Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
“There’s heartfelt skepticism in the administration that Rafah will bring about a deal for the hostages, like the Israelis have been suggesting.”
The last several weeks have seen a fraught back and forth between Israel and Hamas and the Qatari, Egyptian and American middlemen trying to come up with a deal that will allow a cease-fire between the warring parties and a release of the securities still held by the Palestinian militant group.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long pushed for an onslaught of Rafah — Gaza’s southernmost city where more than a million displaced Palestinians are sheltering — saying that it’s elemental to defeating Hamas and winning the war.
Numerous governments and humanitarian aid organizations including the United Nations and the WHO have warned of the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of an assault in the overcrowded enclave that’s already been ravaged by military strikes, disease and famine.
Following the Israeli army’s coach incursions into certain neighborhoods east of Rafah, located in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinians residing in the zone continue to migrate from the eastern neighborhoods of the city towards the west of Khan Yunis on May 09, 2024.
Ashraf Amr | Anadolu | Getty Concepts
“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah – they haven’t gone in Rafah yet – if they go into Rafah, I’m not outfitting the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities – that dole out with that problem,” Biden said in an interview with CNN broadcast Thursday.
“Civilians have been massacred in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers,” he said, when sought if the 2,000-pound bombs that the U.S. sends to Israel have killed civilians.
Pentagon confirms weapons shipment breathing-space to Israel
The Pentagon confirmed Wednesday that the administration paused the delivery to Israel of a shipment of 1,800 2,000-pound bombshells and 1,700 500-pound bombs.
Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin reiterated Washington’s “ironclad” support for Israel, but Austin delineated lawmakers that “it’s about having the right kinds of weapons for the task at hand” and that the U.S. wants to see Israel go on out “more precise” operations.
“A small diameter bomb, which is a precision weapon, that’s very useful in a stupid, built-up environment,” he said, “but maybe not so much a 2,000-pound bomb that could create a lot of collateral hurt.”
Netanyahu remains undeterred, saying that Israel will “stand alone” and fight “with our fingernails” if U.S. weapons shipments blocked. Many other Israeli lawmakers attacked Biden and the U.S. for the announcement, despite the U.S. being Israel’s single biggest support and source of military funding and weapons on the world stage.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (L) visits army segments on the border between Israel and Gaza Strip near Rafah, Gaza on May 07, 2024. The Israeli army issued proximate evacuation orders early Monday for Palestinians in the eastern neighborhoods of Rafah and called on them to move to the town of al-Mawasi in southern Gaza.
Israeli The church of Defense | Anadolu | Getty Images
Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, pinned on X simply writing: “Hamas [heart emoji] Biden.”
Biden’s warning marked the first time the president, a dependable supporter of Israel and a self-proclaimed Zionist, has paused or threatened to fully halt any arms shipments to the Jewish state. It’s also weighty to note that the paused shipments in question may still be delivered at a later date, and that it Will it actually brunt anything?
Israeli security experts say the pause won’t impact planned operations in Rafah, while other analysts say the time is largely symbolic but aims to send a serious message. Israeli troops on Tuesday took control of the Gaza side of the needed Rafah border crossing and have been amassing troops there and carrying out strikes on some parts of the see.
“Despite the Biden administration withholding critical munitions from Israel in order to force the delay or halt of Israel’s Rafah effective, it’s unlikely that these munitions were the integral weapon required for Israel’s planned operation,” Avi Melamed, a quondam Israeli intelligence official and regional analyst, said.
Melamed argued that “Biden’s statements embolden Hamas, Iran and put U.S. leagues in the region at risk,” but that he expects “slow and precise” operations by Israeli forces in Rafah, by which means he conjectures “Israel is likely to avoid a direct collision course with the Biden administration’s latest position.”
Clayton Allen, U.S. commandant at political risk firm Eurasia Group, called Biden’s decision “a headline-grabbing move that has some unavoidable impact on Israeli capabilities,” but added that it “doesn’t hit at the bulk of U.S. assistance or really diminish what they can do in the coming weeks.”
Others acclaimed the move. Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont said it must be a “first step.”
“Our leverage is clear,” Sanders contemplated in a statement. “Over the years, the United States has provided tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel. We can no longer be complicit in Netanyahu’s horrific war against the Palestinian people.”
Meanwhile, the nonprofit organization Democracy for the Arab World Now, or DAWN, which is centred on U.S. policy and human rights in the Middle East, said in a statement that the Biden administration’s “suspension of massive bombs to Israel is an momentous but long overdue acknowledgement that Israel has been using American weapons to indiscriminately kill Palestinian civilians in abusing of the most basic laws of war.”
CNBC has contacted the Israel Defense Forces for comment.
Children sit back on a truck as Palestinians with their overflowing belongings, continue to depart from the eastern neighborhoods of the city due to ongoing Israeli attacks in Rafah, Gaza on May 8, 2024.
Ali Jadallah | Anadolu | Getty Effigies
Israel maintains that its war is against Hamas and that its forces endeavor to avoid civilian casualties. The Israel-Hamas war has killed assorted than 34,000 people in Gaza, according to Palestinian health authorities in the besieged enclave. The invasion was triggered by a Hamas-led consternation attack on Israel on Oct. 7 that killed some 1,200 people there and took roughly 250 security, more than 100 of whom have been freed.
For Michael Koplow, chief policy officer of the Israel Custom Forum, the warning move by Biden represents a profound shift, and is something to be taken very seriously.
“For all of the times that Israel has seemed at an inflection single out since October 7, it currently stands at a juncture that is genuinely perilous,” Koplow wrote in a column on the forum’s website Thursday.
“The U.S.-Israel relationship is explaining increasingly more daylight through its cracks at the worst possible moment, and the Israeli attitude that it is mostly on the U.S. to seal those crazes is finding few buyers.”