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The change in tone has not gone unnoticed in Israel.
“When someone like Richard Haass is joining the progressives Democrats like Bernie Sanders, it is very problematic, I agree,” acknowledged Eldad Shavit, the director of the American program at INSS, Israel’s leading defence and security think tank.
“I read somewhere that there 17 senators, Democrat senators, that call on President Biden to condition arms. That’s a lot of senators. It’s a little bit less than half of the [Democrat] senators. It is not a development we can ignore. Something is happening.
“But I wouldn’t characterise it as a crisis. I would characterise it as rising tensions.”
Crisis or mere tensions, it did not come out of nowhere.
This month’s rift is the result of “a series of events peaking with the WCK strike and that started with the flour massacre in February,” said Mairav Zonzsein, Crisis Group’s senior Israel researcher, referring to the killing for more than 100 people when Israeli forces opened fire on a crowd around an aid convoy on February 29.
“There are more and more incidents that are building up a massive amount of evidence why this war is not going the way Israel and the US may have hoped,” she added.
Still confidence in American support
The sign of a major turning point came in March, when the United States for the first time refused to use its veto to stop a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire.
This is not uncharted territory. Margaret Thatcher’s government imposed an arms embargo on Israel over its 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Tony Blair’s government did the same over its behaviour in the West Bank in 2002.
In 1956, the United States forced Israel, France and Britain to abort their invasion of Egypt during the Suez crisis.
And in 1991 George H W Bush’s White House clashed with Yitzhak Shamir’s government when he delayed US loan guarantees over the settlement of Soviet emigres in the Occupied Territories.
And Mr Biden’s White House has made clear it is not calling on Israel to agree to a ceasefire without a deal releasing the hostages.
For that reason there is still considerable confidence in Israel of American support.
“They have a lot of criticism of Israel – but they talk, but they don’t act,” argued Mr Shavit (he was speaking before Thursday evening’s phone call between Mr Biden and Mr Netanyahu).
“They don’t act not because they feel Israel is doing what they want, but because they understand the situation is sensitive. If we lose the war it will be their loss too. I don’t think the decision of the administration to not veto the last Security Council resolution is an indication they believe it is time to force Israel to force a ceasefire without conditions.”
“This isolation is still in the realm of rhetoric rather than policy change,” concured Ms Zonzsein.Allowing the UNSC resolution to pass was a signal – but it didn’t lead to a ceasefire.”
“It is surprising that it has taken this long. But what would it take – if it didn’t take a strike targeting an aid convoy in a deconflicted zone, if it didn’t take 30,000 dead – what is it going to take for people to really put their foot down?”
The next point of contention is Rafah – the southern Gaza border town where 1.4 million civilians, many of them refugees forced out of the northern part of the strip by Israeli military operations, are living in atrocious conditions.
Israel says there are four Hamas brigades in Rafah, and its war aim of destroying the group’s military force and political leadership cannot be completed without an offensive there.
Humanitarian groups – and the United States – have warned such an offensive would be a bloodbath.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has warned an offensive into Rafah “risks further isolating Israel around the world’’. Kamala Harris, the US vice president, has said it “would be a huge mistake’’.
Mr Netanyahu is under pressure from his far-right coalition partners, including Itamar Ben-Gvir, to push ahead regardless – and still refuses to rule it out.
That speaks to a division in Israeli society.
The Israeli public remains overwhelmingly supportive of the goal of eliminating Hamas no matter what.
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