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President Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel each addressed the future of the battle in Gaza this week, speaking just a day apart but worlds removed from one another in a way that captured the essential tension between the two men after more than four months of fighting.<\/p>\n
Mr. Netanyahu spoke of war and how it would continue even if there is a temporary cease-fire to secure the release of hostages, just \u201cdelayed somewhat.\u201d<\/a> Mr. Biden spoke of peace and how such a cease-fire deal could \u201cchange the dynamic,\u201d<\/a> leading to a broader realignment that would finally end the underlying conflict that has defined the Middle East for generations.<\/p>\n The disparity in visions reflects the opposing political calendars on which the two leaders are operating. Mr. Netanyahu has a compelling interest in prolonging the war against Hamas to postpone the day of reckoning when he will face accountability for failing to prevent the Oct. 7 terrorist attack. Mr. Biden conversely has a powerful incentive to end the war as soon as possible to tamp down anger in the left wing of his party before the fall re-election campaign when he will need all the support he can get.<\/p>\n At the same time, each has reason to think he may yet get a better deal if the other loses his post. Mr. Biden\u2019s advisers are acutely aware that Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s government could fall in response to the terrorist attack while the Israeli prime minister, who goes by the nickname Bibi, may prefer to buy time until November in case former President Donald J. Trump recaptures the White House.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt\u2019s absolutely fair to say Biden and Bibi are on different political timetables with respect to the Gaza war \u2014 and I think it\u2019s an increasingly significant part of the equation,\u201d said Frank Lowenstein, a former special envoy for Middle East peace under President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The divergent goals are playing out this week as negotiators try to hammer out a hostage deal before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins next month. Mr. Biden said on Monday that U.S.-brokered talks were close to an agreement and that he expected a cease-fire to begin by the end of this weekend<\/a>. But that depends on Mr. Netanyahu going along with a bargain with Hamas.<\/p>\n The relationship between the two men has been complicated these past four months. While they hugged on an airport tarmac in Tel Aviv<\/a> when Mr. Biden came to visit just days after the terrorist attack that killed 1,200, their telephone calls have grown increasingly edgy as they quarreled over the Israeli military operation that has claimed nearly 30,000 lives in Gaza.<\/p>\n At one point in December, the conversation grew so heated that Mr. Biden declared that he was done and hung up the phone, an episode previously reported by Axios<\/a>. In public, Mr. Biden has resisted a more open break, continuing to back Israel\u2019s right to defend itself and still describing himself as a Zionist, as he did again on Monday, even as he complained that \u201cthere are too many innocent people that are being killed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Netanyahu has been more willing to publicly defy Mr. Biden, a position that allows him to argue that he is the one person capable of standing up to American pressure for a two-state solution to the Palestinian dispute \u2014 and therefore should be kept in office, whatever the failings leading up to Oct. 7.<\/p>\n \u201cThe farther Netanyahu gets away from Oct. 7, the less responsible and accountable he gets to be held, in his opinion,\u201d said Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul-general in New York. \u201cAnd as time moves away from Oct. 7, it also gets closer to Nov. 5,\u201d the American election that could return Mr. Trump to power.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it goes deeper than that,\u201d he added. \u201cNetanyahu, I think, is seeking a direct confrontation with Biden because it\u2019s good for his political interests. He\u2019s trying to change the narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n It is, however, a risky game. It has become clearer than ever how dependent the go-it-alone Israel really is on the United States \u2014 not just for the munitions it is using in its war against Hamas but for its defense in the international arena, where Washington has vetoed repeated U.N. Security Council resolutions<\/a> and backed Israel at the International Court of Justice<\/a> against calls for unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank.<\/p>\n Moreover, Mr. Biden is offering Mr. Netanyahu something the Israeli leader genuinely wants: the prospect of normalization of diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, which would be a paradigm shift for the Jewish state after three-quarters of a century in a hostile neighborhood and the kind of historic achievement any prime minister would want for his legacy. Mr. Biden\u2019s point is that such a breakthrough can only come if the war is brought to an end and a Palestinian state is on the table.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Biden seemed to offer something of a concession to Mr. Netanyahu on that front during an interview on \u201cLate Night With Seth Meyers\u201d<\/a> on Monday, making clear that he was not insisting on \u201ca two-state solution immediately but a process to get to a two-state solution.\u201d Yet it is unclear whether Mr. Netanyahu, who has resisted such a solution for much of his long career, could accept even a process.<\/p>\n Part of the challenge for Mr. Biden is that when it comes to the military campaign, it is not just a matter of the president versus the prime minister. The Israeli political establishment across the spectrum, from left to center to right, supports the war against Hamas following the terrorist attack that traumatized the country. There is little sympathy for the Palestinians in Gaza even among Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s political opponents.<\/p>\n But there is daylight between Mr. Netanyahu and other political figures on the question of the hostages. While he has expressed a hard line during negotiations to pause the fighting to secure the release of some of the roughly 100 people<\/a> seized on Oct. 7 and still held by Hamas, he has been pushed to do more to free them by others in the government, families of the hostage and protesters in the streets.<\/p>\n Biden administration officials see that as a way to drive a wedge between Mr. Netanyahu and the rest of his allies of convenience in the war cabinet. Either the prime minister accepts a hostage-for-cease-fire deal, in this view, or he will lose critical support that he has counted on to hang onto power.<\/p>\n For his part, Mr. Netanyahu has his own interest in separating Mr. Biden from his own political coalition. \u201cBibi may even stand to gain by driving a wedge between Biden and the Arab American community \u2014 by marginalizing them politically if not defeating Biden,\u201d Mr. Lowenstein said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n