The NPR Politics Podcast - U.S.-Israel Relations And The 2024 Election

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

The Israel-Hamas war has been raging for more than four months. The U.S. blocked another U.N. cease-fire resolution this week and $14 billion dollars in Israel aid is stalled in Congress. How critical is the U.S.' support to the fight against Hamas?This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, and national security correspondent Greg Myre.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell. Our editor is Erica Morrison. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase. Hi, this is Lorne in Melbourne, Australia. I'm outside listening to some very loud sulfur-crested cockatoos in the eucalyptus trees and also the Politics podcast. This podcast was recorded at 1.35 p.m. on Thursday, February 22nd. Things may have changed by the time you hear it. Okay, here's the show. Who's winning, the show. Who's winning?

The cockatoos or us? I was stuck on eucalyptus trees. I wonder if it just smells delightful there. Unless the cockatoos overpower it in this situation. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Tamara Keith.

I cover the White House. I'm Greg Myrie, and I cover national security. And today we're going to talk about the U.S.-Israel relationship and its possible impact on the 2024 election. Greg, we should note you're joining us from Tel Aviv. You've been reporting from Israel for several weeks now. So let's just start here. What is happening on the ground there? Well, there is an effort to work out a ceasefire.

It's been stalled, but it's still going in terms of the effort. U.S. envoys are here in Israel. There's been a lot of back and forth with Cairo. Israel and Hamas don't talk to each other directly. So this makes these negotiations very, very cumbersome. But there is some hope that something could be worked out in the coming days. Now, in Gaza, the fighting is still going on. It's focused very much in the south of the territory, around the southern city of Han Yunis. And then Israel is threatening a major offensive towards Rafah. That is the city on the very absolute southern border of Gaza.

It's really the last Hamas stronghold. Israel says it's not going to leave Hamas with any military power. But there's also a million plus Palestinians, displaced Palestinians in a tent city there. So that's where the real focus in terms of the war is right now. I'm curious what popular support is like right now for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who leading up to the October 7th attack had been a bit of a divisive political figure in the country. And I wonder if support for him has either grown or decreased since then. Yeah, the Israelis do a lot of polling here. And every Friday or so stuff comes out in the paper. And Netanyahu and his Likud party are not doing well. The polls show

that if an election were held today, they would probably be voted out of power and their coalition would collapse. However, the Israelis have made a decision after the Hamas attack on October 7th that they were going to fight the war in a united front, and then deal with the political issues after the war was over. That's pretty much held. We're starting to see that fray maybe a little bit. There have been protests against the Netanyahu government recently, saying that it's time for him to bring this war to an end, to a successful conclusion, to negotiate the release of hostages. So Israelis are getting

a little bit antsy about this front. The war has been going on more than four months at this point. But for the moment, Netanyahu appears firmly in power. But the expectation is there's going to be a lot of political upheaval when the war does end. Tim, Netanyahu is one of those foreign leaders that I think has a pretty well-established name ID here in the U.S. He's been prime minister for the better part of the past 15 years. He's worked with three presidents dating back to Barack Obama. But this is exactly the kind of leader that Joe Biden, when he was running, said, I have

these relationships all over the world. What is his relationship like with Netanyahu? They've obviously known each other a very long time. And is there a sense of probably how tense it is right now, considering everything that's happened? There is certainly a familiarity. They do go way back, way, way, way back. And, you know, I saw President Biden when he met with Netanyahu in New York at the UN General Assembly on the sidelines. And they had a frank conversation at that time about what Netanyahu was trying to do with his new, more conservative majority to try to change the judicial process in the country.

And the Biden administration strongly opposed, and many of the Israeli people strongly opposed, what Netanyahu was trying to do, trying to weaken the independence of the judiciary. Fast forward. October 7th happens. I traveled with the president to Israel. He gets off the plane in Tel Aviv at the airport and literally hugs Netanyahu. That was a really emotional moment. It was right after the attack. And it was also a metaphor that President Biden was hugging Israel close. Even then, he later told us that behind closed doors, he had tough talk for Netanyahu about trying to avoid civilian casualties. At the time, even trying to open up the Rafah Gate to try to get supplies into the Palestinian people. So President Biden's priorities and Prime Minister Netanyahu's

priorities have never been fully aligned this entire time. But the Biden administration has made the calculation, namely President Biden has made the calculation that publicly standing with Israel is a priority. And then privately, they can try to harangue and urge and do all those things. But Netanyahu does what Netanyahu does. Netanyahu's public rhetoric, you know, certainly seems aimed to his right flank. So then let me ask you both about sort of the politics around ceasefire. Greg, earlier this week, the U.S. once again blocked a U.N. resolution vote calling for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. President Biden has been under a lot of political pressure to support a ceasefire from the left of the Democratic Party. How exactly is the

U.S. positioning here, especially as you noted that Israel and Hamas are not talking to each other directly? So how is the U.S. trying to facilitate that or not? Well, the U.S. does have its own plan, even though it vetoed the one that came up this week at the United Nations. The U.S. is still supportive of Israel in its attempt really to eliminate Hamas as a military force in Gaza. Biden continues to give the Israelis some room to operate, but they would certainly like to see this happen as quickly as possible. And they would like to see a ceasefire they would certainly like to see this happen as quickly as possible. And they would like to see a ceasefire. They would like to see the hostages exchanged and then move on. And Biden's longer-term goal is a two-state solution, a Palestinian state, getting back to negotiations. And Netanyahu, through his long career, and he's been prime

minister 13 of the past 15 years, has never entered serious negotiations with the Palestinians, and he's been even more adamant in the past several months since the Hamas attack. So there's the short-term issue in trying to wrap up a war, wrap up the fight, and get to a ceasefire, and then the longer-term goal where there really is a sharp division in terms of what the U.S. would like to see in terms of negotiations and Netanyahu's real opposition to that approach. As Greg mentioned, there have been a flurry of visits by Biden administration officials to the region to try to break loose some sort of an agreement to pause the fighting, an extended pause that would then potentially lead to a ceasefire. And there's a real sense of urgency right now coming from the White House and U.S. officials. Brett McGurk is in Israel right now. He's like a top envoy. He had been in Cairo

before. There is a real sense of urgency that they want to get this done. But I'll say it's been several weeks that they have felt like, well, maybe it's right around the corner. Maybe we're closer. Maybe we're closer. Great. To me, it's an interesting position where the U.S. is because they obviously have an interest in a ceasefire and a peaceful ending to this conflict. But the U.S. is also a critical backer of Israel in its fight against Hamas. Israel aid to the tune of about 14 billion is being held up in Congress right now as part of a broader international aid package. I'm curious how critical that U.S. support is to the prospects of Israeli military success, especially as we've talked a lot about how critical it is in terms of success in Ukraine having U.S. support. Right. So it's a little bit different than Ukraine, which really is suffering from shortages.

Israel has such overwhelming firepower in this battle with Hamas. They can essentially do what they want and have plenty of resources to do that. However, in the sort of long term, this really is critical for Israel. It is still very much a U.S.-built military. All these planes that are dropping bombs on Gaza are U.S. planes, F-15s, F-16s, F-35s. This is U.S. equipment and this largesse of almost $4 billion a year plus an additional $14 billion that's under discussion right now. And war is a very voracious beast. You need to be resupplied. And, for example, Israel needs a resupply of its Iron Dome missile defense system to shoot down all these rockets that

Habas has been shooting out of Gaza. So this $14 billion would go a long way in terms of resupplying, re-upping Israeli ammunition and other capacities needed to fight a big war like this. Tim, it's not as focused as much in the stalled international aid package, but it's worth noting that there is about $10 billion in there for humanitarian aid, specifically to help people like the civilians in Gaza and the West Bank. And it does sort of speak to the fact that the U.S. sort of has a hand in all sides of this conflict, right? They're supporting the military.

They're supporting humanitarian aid. They're trying to help negotiate a deal, but no actual power to execute any of those things. It's a tough position to be in. It is a tough position to be in. You know, this is Israel's war. This is not America's war, even though, as Greg says, a lot of the equipment has a U.S. stamp on it. This is Israel's war being run by Israel. And it is absolutely important to the Biden administration that this humanitarian aid get in000. And it is overwhelming. It is difficult for them to continue making the argument that Israel has done everything that it could to avoid

these deaths. And they frankly aren't making that argument anymore. This is something that the White House says needs to stop. And obviously for humanitarian reasons and not simply because it's also a really big political problem for the president. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll talk more about this when we get back. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, offering over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Hand-selected for their inherent craft, each hotel tells its own unique story through distinctive design and immersive experiences, from medieval falconry

to volcanic wine tasting. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of over 30 hotel brands around the world. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com. Support for NPR and the following message come from Carnegie Corporation of New York, working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy, and peace. More information at Carnegie.org. And we're back. I'd like to put something to both of you and get your input on it. But based off of what you're telling me, it sounds like there is competing political interest here. It seems like it is in the political interest of Prime Minister Netanyahu for the war with Hamas to carry on for some time because it pushes off the question about his own political fate. But at the same time, it is in the interest of

President Joe Biden to have some sort of satisfying conclusion or answer to this, because part of what he's campaigning on is that he is someone who can bring stability to an otherwise chaotic world. Greg, does that seem fair to you? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Sue. Remember, Benjamin Netanyahu has always portrayed himself as Mr. Security, the man who could protect Israel. And then the Hamas attack on October 7th happened on his watch. So this shocked everybody in Israel, and it completely undercut Netanyahu's claim that he was the one man who could protect Israel and keep the country safe. So he really needs a very successful outcome of this war, not a muddy, muddled compromise. So often we see these Israel-Hamas conflicts. They go on for a

couple weeks. They end. We've been seeing this for years and years. Nothing really gets resolved one way or the other. So he really needs a clear-cut victory here if he has any hope of political survival. Again, there's a broad feeling here that he won't survive after this war is over politically. He and his government and his coalition might collapse, and Israel will move in a different direction. So he really wants a successful outcome, and that probably means a longer war, which is exactly the opposite of what President Biden would like to see. Clear-cut political victories aren't something the region is known for. Yeah, President Biden needs this to be over with, at least to be no longer front of mind. He needs the civilian deaths in Gaza to stop because it is a real problem for him, particularly on the left. At the same time, there are other elements of the electorate who have rewarded him for supporting Israel,

not necessarily for supporting Netanyahu, but for supporting the state of Israel, the people of Israel. And I think that's a distinction that you might start to see the White House make more frequently, which is sort of drawing that distinction between like the current government versus the existence of the state of Israel. I think that is a really interesting political needle he has to thread, though, because he can't ignore the left, especially in places like Michigan. We talked earlier on the podcast this week about places like the Arab-American community, the Muslim community in critical states like Michigan. He sent campaign emissaries there to try to make sure that they could soothe hurt feelings within the party. To your point about the general election, I was also struck by a Quinnipiac poll that came out late last month that polled voters in Pennsylvania about their attitudes towards Israel. And it showed that for one of their senators, John Fetterman, he's a Democrat, aligned with the progressive wing of the party,

but has taken a very vocal stance in favor of Israel against his own party in many ways. And it showed that voters there had a more favorable view of him because of taking a strong position on Israel. And that surprised me, right? Because it's kind of counter to what you're hearing right now in the Democratic Party. And it's a reminder that a general election electorate in places like Pennsylvania might be more favorable to a president who stands by the old strong allied relationship with Israel. Right. And it might be more comfortable for the sort of suburban, uncomfortable Republicans who aren't comfortable with Trump but may be willing to think about voting for a Biden, that sort of policy position might be comforting to those sorts of

voters. Elections that are so close, which is what they are now in these key swing states, come down to 10,000 votes here, 20,000 votes there. Are people excited? Are people sitting on the couch, as we're hearing a lot about in the last few weeks? And so every policy move you make when you're an incumbent has the risk of upsetting someone or pleasing someone else. And it's a balance. But I think that the view in Biden world is that the progressive left that is really, really upset about this is perhaps much louder than they are influential. And as an example of that, this is not a great example. You look at New Hampshire, where there was a campaign, I saw signs, there was a push to get people to write in ceasefire instead of Joe Biden. And I got like 1500 write ins. Not nothing, but not nothing, not something that ultimately shakes the fundamentals of a campaign.

Right. Yeah. Greg, what is the view from Israel towards the US and how the US has engaged or not in this conflict? Oh, the Israelis are very appreciative and supportive of everything President Biden and his administration have done. There's really a very broad awareness of that among Israelis. Now, I think the concern is that Prime Minister Netanyahu has become a divisive figure in some ways, and that this U.S. support might not be as solid as it has been because of some of the hardline position he's taken over the years and the way he's handling the war right now. Israel used to be the bipartisan issue in Congress. Anything Israel-related won overwhelming support. But Netanyahu is a divisive figure both here and to some extent in the United States, has made that fray. And there's real irony there for

Netanyahu, who grew up in Philadelphia, attended college at MIT, very Americanized, very American English, and who feels he is an expert on U.S. politics. And because of the positions he's taken over the years and his willingness to go against U.S. presidents, Israel is, in some ways, a bit of a divisive issue now. All right. Well, that is it for us today. We'll be back in your feeds tomorrow with the Weekly Roundup. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Greg Myrie. I cover national security. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.