A sweeping investigation published in The New Yorker reveals the depth of frustration within the Biden administration toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, showing how Israel maintained its military freedom of action throughout the war in Gaza and Lebanon—even under heavy White House pressure.
4+Former senior Biden administration officials, including National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, his deputy Jon Finer, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, describe in the investigation their attempts to influence Israeli policy, push for ceasefires, limit the fighting, and even consider conditioning arms shipments. In practice, according to their accounts, Netanyahu didn’t align with American expectations and continued managing the campaign according to Israel’s own strategic considerations.
Sullivan admitted the administration considered applying sharper pressure on Jerusalem several times, including before the Rafah operation in spring 2024 and again in July of that year. Still, Biden refrained from breaking with Israel, partly due to concerns about the hostages’ fate, Israel’s security, and the prospects for negotiations.
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4+Former administration officials claimed Netanyahu and his team didn’t provide the answers they wanted regarding the war’s timeline. Former Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer said it’s now clear to him that Israel didn’t present the administration with its full intentions. From the Biden administration’s perspective, it was deep frustration. From Israel’s perspective, as reflected in the investigation, it was maintaining room to maneuver during wartime.
One tense moment described in the investigation involved conversations between Secretary of State Blinken and Minister Ron Dermer, a Netanyahu confidant. According to the report, Israeli officials repeatedly said the fighting would continue for “another two weeks,” until Blinken erupted and said he didn’t want to hear that phrase anymore. Dermer, according to the investigation, shot back with a jab: “Then I’ll say a fortnight.”
4+The assassination of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah was also presented in the investigation as an event that intensified tensions between Washington and Jerusalem. According to a former White House source, Biden felt “humiliated” that Netanyahu ordered the assassination without meaningful warning, just two days after the United States and its allies called for a three-week ceasefire with Hezbollah. Despite this, the United States refrained from sharp public criticism of Israel and was forced to stand by its side against the possibility of a regional response.
The investigation also describes Biden’s direct involvement in decision-making. According to former senior administration officials, the president repeatedly rejected proposals to use arms shipments as leverage against Israel. Sullivan described the situation in hindsight as a “trap” the administration found itself in, because every time escalation against Israel was considered, questions about the hostages, Israel’s security, and concerns about damaging ceasefire contacts resurfaced.
4+Other senior administration officials voiced harsh criticism of the scale of destruction in Gaza and the number of civilian casualties. Blinken said it’s hard not to regret the price paid by innocent civilians, and Austin warned in closed conversations that unnecessary harm to civilians could create more terrorists. Still, even from this criticism it emerges that the White House failed to impose on Israel the way it wanted the war conducted.
The investigation reveals that Biden even considered delivering a speech directly to the Israeli public, in which he was supposed to warn against continuing to pursue “total victory.” According to the report, after Netanyahu and Dermer made clear to the White House that Israel was seriously considering a hostage deal, the speech was changed at the last minute and became a call for Israel to accept the deal.
The investigation presents a clear picture of an ongoing confrontation between an American administration that sought to narrow Israel’s room for action, and a prime minister who insisted on keeping it in Israeli hands. Biden officials describe it today with frustration, but in practice admit that Netanyahu didn’t cave to pressure, didn’t adopt Washington’s rules of the game, and continued conducting the war according to the interests defined by the Israeli government.