The US put a pause on an arms shipment to Israel as it launched a Rafah offensive. This is not the first time the US and Israel have publicly disagreed, despite their strong diplomatic relationship.
US President Joe Biden’s recent warning to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has limited Israel’s options in Gaza. And neither of Israel’s war objectives appear to have been met.
President Joe Biden greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York City in September 2023.
Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
Jordan Tama, American University School of International Service
Israel has historically made statements and taken actions to placate US anger without always following through. But will Biden’s threat to put conditions on aid force Israel to behave differently?
Though the resolution is binding, it is not enforceable under international law. This leaves the work to international negotiators to hammer out the details of an agreement.
But there is little sign that either side is listening.
Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat (L), US president Jimmy Carter and Israeli premier Menachem Begin at the Israel-Egypt Peace Agreement signing in 1979.
AFP via Getty Images
The US and UK strikes on the Houthis will have limited impact on the group’s Red Sea attacks – and could cause Middle East tensions to spiral out of control.
President Biden has said Israel is losing international support.
Elizabeth Fraser/US Army Photo/Alamy
With so many questions left unanswered, there is a growing disconnect between Netanyahu and the Biden administration in the US.
On 18 October, Joe Biden travelled to Tel Aviv to reaffirm his support for Israel, despite mounting criticisms of Netanyahu’s strikes on Gaza from the party’s left flank.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP
Given its unprecedented scale and nature, could the Israel-Hamas war reshuffle the cards in the U.S. 2024 presidential campaign?
Israeli soldiers move past a military medical vehicle on Oct. 10, 2023, at Kfar Aza, a kibbutz where Hamas militants killed Israelis days before.
Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images
Israel’s intelligence capacities are considered some of the best in the world – but unlike the US, it does not have a central organization coordinating all intelligence.
Settler ‘terrorism’: the US state department has strongly condemned the killing of a 19yr-old Palestinian on the West Bank on August 5.
Xinhua/Alamy Stock Photo
Recent events have put pressure on the formerly strong relationship between the US and Israel.
U.S. President Joe Biden meets with Israel’s President Isaac Herzog in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on July 18, 2023.
(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Biden and Trump are like night and day on foreign policy, and American global engagement would change radically under a Biden presidency. But actual Mideast policy might show only cosmetic changes.
Israeli security forces clash with a Palestinian protesting the construction of Jewish settlements and a ‘separation wall,’ village of Ramallah, West Bank, Aug. 7, 2020.
Issam Rimawi/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
An expert of the Israel-Palestine conflict explains the history of Jewish settlements on the West Bank, and why they are so controversial.
Israeli authorities demolish water wells in the area around the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba, near the West Bank city of Hebron.
Abed Al Hashlamoun/EPA
The US no longer views Israeli settlements on the West Bank as going against international law. What this means for Palestinians.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, left, and U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, right, in the Israeli-held Golan Heights on March 11, 2019.
Ronen Zvulun/Pool via AP