Biden's Red Line: Why Rafah Has Become a Political Battleground Between the U.S. and Israel - Israel News - Haaretz.com
There are compelling reasons for the Israel Defense Forces to launch a major campaign in Rafah.
It is the final major stronghold of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Hamas is holding dozens of Israeli hostages there. And without occupying Rafah, there is no realistic way for Israel to disrupt and shut down the smuggling of arms from Egypt to Gaza.
There are compelling reasons for the IDF not to launch a campaign in Rafah.
An estimated 1.4 million civilians, most of whom have been displaced from northern Gaza are concentrated in its 25 square miles, and there are no facilities to provide them shelter elsewhere. Operating in large forces in Gaza, abutting the Egyptian border, could create a breakdown in Israel's crucial alliance with Egypt. An even more crucial ally of Israel, the United States, has drawn a red line around invading Rafah. And for an effective operation in Gaza, the IDF will have to re-mobilize large numbers of reservists and re-deploy regular units.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a security briefing with commanders and soldiers in northern Gaza in December.Credit: Avi Ohayon/Government Press Office/AP
The bottom line is that while a large-scale operation may still be launched in Rafah, it won't take place in the coming weeks, and probably at least not for another couple of months. Not while there is still a chance of a temporary cease-fire and hostage release agreement and Israel is hoping to avoid an escalation during Ramadan. Not until understandings can be reached with the Biden administration and the Egyptian regime. Meanwhile the IDF has yet to start mobilizing and redeploying the necessary personnel and units and has not called upon civilians in Rafah to move to "humanitarian enclaves" which do not yet exist.
So: If there's no prospect of a Rafah operation before the late spring, at the soonest, why is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu constantly talking it up, and why are U.S. President Joe Biden and other senior members of his administration seriallywarning against it?
In a statement last week, Netanyahu said that he had authorized plans for a Rafah attack. There were a number of false and misleading details in that statement.
- An SOS to sane Israelis: Save us from Netanyahu and his insane government
- Netanyahu's bid against 'sister democracy' U.S. veils his goal of staying in power
- On eve of fateful decision on Israeli hostages in Gaza, Netanyahu government is in no rush
For a start, the prime minister doesn't authorize military plans. The cabinet does. But Netanyahu is trying to make this about him. And the plans existed and were authorized already in the past and they will be updated and authorized yet again in the future. That's the nature of military plans. They will constantly change up until the moment when the cabinet authorizes not just the plans, but the order to act upon them.
In their phone call on Monday, Netanyahu and Biden agreed that an Israeli team would fly to Washington to discuss the Rafah plans with the administration. So obviously, whatever plans were authorized last week are not cut and dried, but rather a basis for discussion and changes. And who's flying to D.C.? Strategic Affairs minister Ron Dermer, who is not only not a military planner, but has zero military experience, having not even served in the IDF, and National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi, a political hack.
Once again, this isn't about any concrete plans for a military operation in Rafah. This is about Netanyahu's grandstanding.
What's less clear is why the Biden administration is playing along. Why are its officials making a big issue out of an operation that they should know by now is not about to happen anytime soon, especially when there are much more pressing issues right now in Gaza, like an imminent famine? It's hard to avoid the rather cynical impression that they are trying to show their own domestic constituency that they actually have influence by opposing an operation that they know won't happen in the near future.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaking in Las Vegas on Tuesday.Credit: Lucas Peltier/AP
It's yet another mistake by the Biden administration. By prematurely inflating the Rafah operation as a terrible catastrophe they are frantically trying to avert, they're playing into Netanyahu's hands. He is in no rush to order the IDF into Rafah, but he it has now become a regular feature of his press conferences and interviews, because it fits neatly in to his false narrative of the "total victory" that only he can deliver.
The mere specter of the Rafah operation offers even more political capital for Netanyahu. It is now both an excuse for extending the war indefinitely – to squelch talk of an early election which he would almost certainly lose – because ending the war without going into Rafah is now unthinkable.
But if the Rafah operation doesn't happen, Netanyahu will blame Biden and rivals nearer home, like Benny Gantz and Yoav Gallant, whom he'll characterize as defeatists, who are in cahoots with the White House and thus denying Israel its ultimate victory. It is a stab-in-the-back conspiracy theory that his online proxies are already circulating.
Whether or not the IDF ever invades Rafah, it is already a political battleground between Jerusalem and Washington that Netanyahu, with the active but inadvertent help of the Biden administration, could end up winning.