Netanyahu's critique of White House arms policy: A high-stakes gamble in US election year-analysis

A week after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ignited a firestorm with his video in English blasting the Biden administration for withholding weapons and ammunition, one question remains: What was he thinking?

That question, which arose immediately after the video was released, became even more pressing when US officials flatly denied the allegations.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “We generally do not know what he’s talking about. We just don’t,” and even as stalwart a supporter as National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Netanyahu’s statement was “vexing and disappointing to us, as much as it was incorrect – so, [it’s] difficult to know exactly what was on his mind there.”

The question has not gone away following Netanyahu’s explanation of the video at Sunday’s cabinet meeting.

Four months ago, Netanyahu said, “There was a dramatic decrease in the munitions coming to Israel from the US.” He said Israel tried to work behind closed doors to solve the problem but to no avail.

The prime minister said he decided to “give this public expression” after months in which there was no change in the situation, and “out of years of experience and the knowledge that this step was vital to opening the bottleneck.”

Netanyahu obviously knew the diplomatic tempest his words would trigger, but said them anyway, and then doubled-down.

Why?

Some argue that Netanyahu’s decision to make these comments, despite the obvious diplomatic risks and fallout with the US, just proves how serious the situation is, and that Washington’s alleged slow-walking of these arms deliveries is significantly damaging the country’s war efforts.

Tellingly, the tone in the Israeli media since Netanyahu released the video and the Americans flatly denied they were withholding arms has been to believe the American version of events. That many Israelis seemingly believe the administration over their own prime minister is not a healthy situation for the state.

Some argue that Netanyahu’s comments have to do with domestic politics – that Netanyahu wanted to upstage Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, currently in the US talking about those very munitions the prime minister said Washington is withholding.

How to spin the story

If the arms shipments are renewed with vigor following Gallant’s visit, Netanyahu, according to this Machiavellian explanation, could take credit, rather than Gallant, a man shaping up as a significant political rival.

If not, if the US does not speed up arms deliveries, then Netanyahu’s office could point a finger at Gallant as someone who was unable to deliver the goods.

There is a third explanation as well, one that has to do with politics – but with US, not Israeli, politics. Consider the article on CNN’s website on Sunday under this headline: “Warning signs for Biden’s Jewish support as the war in Gaza drags on and antisemitism rises?”

After months of the mainstream media pushing the narrative that Biden’s election depends on winning the Arab vote in Michigan and making sure that progressives unhappy with his support for Israel come out to vote or don’t vote for a third-party candidate, this article pointed out an obvious but under-reported fact: as important to Biden’s campaign as are Arabs in Dearborn, Michigan, perhaps even more important are Jewish voters in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona – tight battleground states the president needs to win in November.

“For all the attention over how the Israel-Hamas war has endangered Biden’s standing with Arab-Americans and progressives who have taken up the cause of Palestinians in key states, Jewish Americans – who make up enough of the population to be determinative in tight battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Arizona – have been scrambled too,” the CNN article read.

November’s election between Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump is expected to be excruciatingly close. In the 2020 election, Biden won by flipping five states that had voted for Trump in 2016: Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

Biden’s pathway to another term in the White House likely depends on him retaining most, if not all, of those states, as well as either Nevada or North Carolina. These seven states are the key battlegrounds this time around.

Up until now, most of the attention has centered on the Arab voters in Michigan, and the progressives who may stay at home in Wisconsin. But those are not the only votes Biden will need to win over. He will also need to carry Pennsylvania, where there are nearly 300,000 Jewish voters, according to a Jewish Electorate Institute report in 2021, or almost 3.5% of the state’s registered voters.

Or consider Arizona, a state Biden carried in 2020 by a 10,457-vote margin, or 0.3%. There are some 115,000 Jewish adults in Arizona or about 3% of the electorate. Or take Nevada: Biden won that state in 2020 by fewer than 34,000 votes. There are an estimated 80,000 Jewish voters there, not an insignificant part of the population and one that could very well affect the outcome there as well.

In other words, as the CNN article made clear, the Biden administration needs to be cognizant of Jewish voters. According to a Siena College poll released last week, Biden is outpacing Trump by a small 53% to 46% margin among Jewish voters in New York. This is way below the national average during the 2020 election, when – according to exit polls – only 30% of Jews voted for Trump, compared to 68% for Biden.

Biden has the deep blue state of New York wrapped up, but if that trend among Jewish voters is indicative of Jewish opinion throughout the country, then Biden needs to worry.

This is obviously something that Netanyahu knows as well.

At Sunday’s cabinet meeting, the premier said he decided to go public with his criticism of the administration “following years of experience.”

Netanyahu understands that US Jews are sensitive to arms being shut off to Israel. By publicly declaring there is a problem with arms deliveries, he is doing two things: informing Jewish voters about the issue, and signaling to those in the administration who may be slow-walking arms deliveries to Israel because of threats by a vocal anti-Israeli minority to withhold support for Biden in November, that this – too – may have political consequences.

Some will scream: How dare Netanyahu interfere in domestic US politics? As if the US and the Biden administration are not mixing in the Israeli political game.

All one needs to do to recognize that the US is deeply involved in trying to shape the political conversation here is to think back to Senate Leader Chuck Schumer’s speech in March in which he literally called for new elections in Israel to replace Netanyahu. It beggars belief to imagine that Schumer would give such a speech without getting a green light from the White House.

In Schumer’s case, there was no subtlety about his involvement in Israeli politics at all. It was bald, blunt, and brazen.

It also failed. Netanyahu remains in power and his poll numbers began to rise shortly thereafter; Schumer took considerable blowback from constituents for his remarks; and in the end, the New York senator signed his name on an invitation to Netanyahu to address a special joint session of Congress next month.

Schumer’s efforts to impact Israeli politics had no immediate impact in the best-case scenario, and in the worst-case scenario – at least from his perspective – backfired.

Might a similar fate await Netanyahu, if he is trying – even if a bit more subtly than Schumer – to meddle in US politics?