Hamas loves Joe Biden — or so says Israel's powerful Minister for National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Joe Biden has engaged in "an anti-Semitic lie" — or so says Israel's influential Minister for Finance, Bezalel Smotrich.
These two men are kingmakers in Israeli politics. They form part of the character of the Israeli government.
They can bring down Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a single phone call. Without their support, Netanyahu's fragile coalition government would collapse.
These two men are influential in driving Israel's war in Gaza. They have resisted for months any calls for a ceasefire as — in their view — there should never be any deal with Hamas.
And these men are not just far-right extremists but, in fact, terrorists according to Ami Ayalon, who ran Israel's security service Shin Bet.
Loading...Ben-Gvir this week tweeted that "Hamas [loves] Biden", using a red heart emoji, in response to the US President pausing one shipment of bombs to Israel because, in Biden's view, Israel is killing too many civilians.
And when Biden issued sanctions against four Jewish settlers in the West Bank who have repeatedly committed violence against Palestinians, Smotrich threw the anti-Semitism allegation at him (in the six weeks after the October 7 Hamas attack, the AP reported that Jewish settlers in the West Bank killed nine Palestinians, according to Palestinian health authorities, forced 900 Palestinians from their homes, the UN said, and destroyed 3,000 olive trees, according to a Palestinian Authority official).
While there is undoubtedly a surge in anti-Semitism, if ever proof was needed that the accusation of anti-Semitism is also being used to attack or silence people who merely make criticisms of Israel, this was it — Biden has been a life-long supporter of Israel.
The notion he would engage in anything anti-Semitic is absurd.
Even more remarkable than Biden's decision to pause a shipment of bombs was his comment that Israel "go after population centres".
Biden's growing criticism of Israel left Netanyahu having to choose between Israel's strongest supporter, which bankrolls its military, and two far-right politicians — one of whom claims that Palestinians don't exist (Smotrich) and the other (Ben-Gvir) who pulled out a gun in front of a group of Palestinians in Jerusalem.
He chose to back Ben-Gvir and Smotrich over a president.
For Palestinians, Biden's tough words come too late
The latest tensions result from Washington's anger that Israel continues to attack Rafah, even though the small city is now crowded with people who have been told by the Israeli army for the past seven months that this would be a safe zone.
With 1.3 million people packed into Rafah, the US is saying enough is enough.
Biden had earlier said Israel's bombing of Gaza was "indiscriminate".
This week he paused a shipment of 3,500 bombs to Israel: "Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centres."
The description of Israel "going after population centres" was the strongest rhetoric the president has used so far.
For Palestinians, though, Biden's tougher words come too late.
With at least half of Gaza's buildings damaged or destroyed the pausing of one shipment will make little difference.
Well before this war Gaza was one of the most miserable places on earth.
David Cameron, when he was Britain's prime minister, said in 2010: "Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp."
It was allowed to remain a prison camp, and the world is now seeing the consequences.
When this war finishes what will be left will be a Gaza that is not functional.
What Hamas and Netanyahu have in common
Neither Israelis nor Palestinians are going anywhere — which means their deeper animosities post-war will only make the prospect of peace more difficult.
But one note of hope: support among Palestinians for a two-state solution is increasing.
Forty-five per cent of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza now support a two-state solution, up from 34 per cent three months ago and 32 per cent six months ago, according to the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research.
In the international community, there have never been as many calls for a two-state solution.
Loading...A two-state solution would see the implementation of a United Nations resolution. On November 29, 1947, the UN passed Resolution 181 which called for a Jewish state alongside an Arab state — Palestine. Australia helped to drive that resolution to partition the British Mandate.
Ironically — and tragically — Hamas and Netanyahu now share a common position: both are opposed to a two-state solution.
On Friday, Australia voted to upgrade the status of Palestinians at the United Nations — as one of 143 countries to vote in favour.
The overwhelming vote appears to reflect growing international frustration that amid the atrocities of the October 7 attack by Hamas, and the subsequent seven-month war in which Israel has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, the possibility of a long-term solution is not being pursued.
The United States, Israel and seven other countries voted no to the upgrading, while 23 countries abstained.
A key obstacle to a two-state solution is Benjamin Netanyahu. His political career has been underwritten by his opposition to a Palestinian state.
The evidence for this is his own words.
One example came in 2001, two years after he lost the prime ministership for the first time. He visited an illegal Jewish settlement in the West Bank.
"I know what America is," he told the settlers, not realising someone was recording him.
"America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get their way [in terms of a two-state solution]."
Netanyahu confided that Washington had asked him before the 1996 Israeli election whether he would honour the Oslo peace process.
"I said I would. But I'm going to interpret the Accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the '67 borders."
As part of the Oslo Accords, President Bill Clinton agreed that Israel could carve out "defined military zones" from the West Bank — these would not be under Palestinian control.
The whole process was based on Israelis and Palestinians acting in good faith.
Netanyahu explained that: "From that moment on I stopped the Oslo Accords. How did we do it? Nobody said what 'defined military zones' were. 'Defined military zones' are security zones; as far as I'm concerned the entire Jordan Valley is a 'defined military zone'. Go argue. I de facto put an end to the Oslo Accords."
Biden caught in a cleft stick
While Biden's rhetoric is stronger than his actions, the last US president prepared to genuinely stand up to Israel was Ronald Reagan.
In 1982, Israel was bombing Beirut. President Reagan believed Israel was killing too many civilians, so telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.
His message was clear: stop bombing or Washington will consider withdrawing military aid.
Within hours Begin ended the bombing.
In an election year, Biden is unlikely to risk the wrath of the Israeli lobby in the US by ordering the complete cessation of bombs. But he's caught in a cleft stick — the famously interventionist Israeli lobby which can cause him damage on one side and Arab American voters who can cause him damage on the other.
Many Arab-American voters are now saying they will not vote in the November presidential election, raising the possibility of Donald Trump winning a state such as Michigan where the Arab-American community is larger than the margin by which Democrats hold the state.
So where does the war go now?
In a recent interview Netanyahu, when asked how long the war could continue, said "maybe six weeks, maybe four".
"We've destroyed three-quarters of Hamas' fighting terrorism battalions. And we're close to finishing the last part in warfare."
He estimated that 13,000 Palestinian fighters had been killed. Given that the estimates by Israeli defence sources before the war were that there were between 30,000 and 40,000 Hamas fighters, this means Israel has killed only a small proportion.
Adding to the reality that Hamas has not been destroyed is that Hamas' leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar — the mastermind behind the October 7 atrocities — is still on the loose.
Meanwhile, Gaza descends further into a humanitarian abyss.
An American doctor from Chicago, Sam Attar, has visited Gaza three times recently.
On his latest trip, he joined an international team trying to combat growing malnutrition. The UN's World Food Program this week said there was now a "full-blown famine" in the north of Gaza which was "moving its way south".
Dr Attar told the BBC: "The extent of Israel's continued restrictions on the entry of aid into Gaza, together with the manner in which it continues to conduct hostilities, may amount to the use of starvation as a method of war."
Loading...Israel rejects claims that it's using starvation as a tool of war — it blames the United Nations and other aid agencies for slow delivery of food and medicines.
Dr Attar told the BBC of a mother who looked at him "with just a blank numb stare" while she told him that her 10-year-old son had just died.
"The staff had been trying to cover up his body with blankets but she just refused to let them. She wanted to spend more time with him."
He told of a man in his 50s who had had both legs amputated and had been "forgotten" in a room of the hospital.
"He had lost his kids, his grandkids, his home and he's alone in the corner of this dark hospital, maggots going out of his wounds and he was screaming 'The worms are eating me alive, please help me'."
He told of a 32-year-old woman suffering from malnutrition, along with her son and parents. She suffered a cardiac arrest, and could not be resuscitated. He says her eyes gazed upward at the moment of death.
He told of a fellow doctor whose daughter was killed but even while grieving he spent time comforting a mother whose son had incurred brain injury caused by bomb shrapnel.
And he told of a seven-year-old girl who was "just skeleton and bone". Suffering from cystic fibrosis as well as malnutrition, the girl never talked.
When Dr Attar began talking to the girl's mother about possibly moving the girl to the south of Gaza, other mothers saw the two talking and "they all swarmed me" hoping he could also talk to them about their children.
UNICEF says Gaza has become "a graveyard for children".
The organisation's James Elder recently wrote that on a recent trip to Gaza he saw newly-dug graveyards filling with children.
At one hospital he met a paediatric surgeon who was hunched over a small boy, Mahmmoud.
"He [Mahmmoud] had massive head trauma from a bomb that had hit his family home. ‘What did this little boy do?' the doctor asked, a tear forming in his eye. Dr Ghaben was 30 hours into his 36-hour shift. He feared Mahmmoud would be dead by the time he returned for his next shift. He was right."
He wrote that there was approximately one toilet for every 850 people and one shower for every 3,500 people.
Mr Elder wrote: "This war is breaking some of humanity's darkest records".