Gallant’s diplomatic mission: Trip aims to resolve conflict between Israel and the USA
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Saturday evening that an agreement with the United States on the design of the third phase of the Gaza war was crucial for Israel on all security fronts.
He made the statement just before traveling to Washington on Saturday evening to meet with senior American foreign and defense officials from Sunday to Tuesday, amid a new crisis that has erupted between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden.
Both the southern and northern fronts are at stake.
More specifically, it covers the future of the war and post-war Gaza policy, efforts to avoid war with Hezbollah, the state of arms sales in a number of areas, Iran policy and related regional issues.
Due to the difficult relationship between Netanyahu and Biden and the lack of a fully empowered Israeli foreign minister, Gallant was often the second most important interlocutor between the two countries.
In this context, Gallant said that stable relations with the United States are perhaps more important today than ever before in Israel’s history.
Earlier this week, Netanyahu attacked the Biden administration for delaying arms sales, but on Wednesday one of his spokesmen said he had resumed American arms sales.
Netanyahu was referring to Biden’s public statement in May that Israel was withholding a shipment of large bombs to prevent Jerusalem from using them in an attack on Rafah.
Netanyahu is blamed for worsening the crisis
However, sources close to Gallant, as well as those in the Israeli army and the defense establishment, accuse Netanyahu of having exacerbated the arms crisis rather than managing it skillfully and quietly. This is especially true because the Israeli army is on the verge of taking Rafah without having significantly angered the United States through its conduct of the battle.
During his last trip to Washington on March 25-26, he met with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and several times with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. He is expected to meet these officials again, as well as CIA Director Bill Burns and Special Envoy for the Lebanon Crisis Amos Hochstein.
In the past, some of these meetings were planned, but others were added after a similar crisis between Netanyahu and Biden in March, when both sides canceled several meetings. Gallant was able to fill some of those gaps at the time.
Some speculated that Netanyahu lashed out at Biden earlier in the week, declaring on Wednesday – before Gallant arrived in the US – that he had resolved the arms crisis so that the prime minister could take credit for it.
Instead, mixed US and Israeli sources seemed unclear about whether Netanyahu’s recent attack on Biden had prompted the US to suspend the approval process for Israel’s purchase of F-15EX aircraft.
Israel had already delayed this process twice: the first time because of too many ballots and the second time recently because of disputes between Gallant and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. Smotrich demanded additional control and the defense establishment viewed his intervention as an attempt to politicize national security.
Israel and the United States are currently wrangling over whether Israeli forces should enter Rafah and, if so, how to conduct the invasion in light of the number of Palestinian civilians killed, the overall humanitarian situation in Gaza, Netanyahu’s refusal to propose a solution for administering Gaza the next day, and whether American arms support should be conditioned on Israel following certain U.S. policy recommendations.
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