Middle East experts discuss if U.S. weapons pause will change Israel’s tactics in Gaza

Read the Full Transcript

• Amna Nawaz:

  More now on the Biden administration's decision to suspend some weapons deliveries to Israel to pressure it against a large-scale invasion of the Gazan city of Rafah.

  Nick Schifrin is back here in studio now.

  And, Nick, as you have been reporting, President Biden wants the Netanyahu government to do more to limit civilian deaths in Rafah, where more than a million people are now sheltering — Nick.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Amna, the decision pauses the delivery of 3,500 bombs, about half of them 2,000-pound bombs that the U.S. police have caused the most civilian casualties in Gaza. President Biden also warned that more weapons deliveries could be paused if Israel launches that full invasion of Rafah.

  So, will the decision have the desired effect?

  For that, we get two views. Ambassador Dennis Ross played leading roles in the Middle East peace process for more than 12 years. He is now a counselor and a distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Washington think tank.

  And Tom Malinowski was assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor during the Obama administration, and is a former member of Congress. He's now a nonresident senior fellow at the McCain Institute.

  Thanks very much to both of you. Welcome back to the "NewsHour."

  Ambassador Ross, let me start with you.

  Will the Israeli government now take more into account Biden administration over Rafah than it would have had this decision not been made and not been made public?

  Dennis Ross, Former U.S. Envoy to Middle East: Look, it's an excellent question.

  My sense is, from a political standpoint, it will be harder for Prime Minister Netanyahu to look like he's responding to President Biden, not in terms of the body politic of Israel as a whole, but in terms of the right-wing of his own coalition.

  So how he manages that, I think, remains to be seen. Now, having said that, I don't see him wanting to put Israel in a position where suddenly it's losing access to some of the munitions it's likely to need, not so much for Rafah, but because it still faces very real threats from Hezbollah in the north.

  It's not in Israel's interest to create an image of a gap, a division with the United States. That could make a conflict in the north with Hezbollah more likely. And, frankly, it's also not in Israel's interest, because I think it probably also increases the Hamas sense, or at least Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza, increases his sense that he really doesn't need to make any decisions at all right now.

  He's going to play upon the divisions between the United States and Israel. So I think both Israel and the United States have an interest in finding a way to change that image that there's a division.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Tom Malinowski, same question. Is Bibi Netanyahu more likely to take U.S. warnings seriously today than he was before this was made public?

• Fmr. Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ):

  Well, he wasn't taking them seriously before.

  And that's why the president made this decision. Look, this is the most pro-Israel president in American history, who's just reached his limit after months and months of trying to break through to this government in Israel.

  We're still supporting Israel. He's also the first president just last month to put American armed forces on the line defending Israel against attacks, shooting down…

• Nick Schifrin:

  This is the Iranian attack, right.

• Fmr. Rep. Tom Malinowski:

  Exactly, shooting down hundreds of missiles. He'd do it again tomorrow if he had to.

  He's just decided something that I think should be noncontroversial, that we shouldn't be arming a foreign country to do something that the United States thinks should not be done.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Dennis Ross, take on that last point. Should the United States be arming a country, Israel in this case, to do something that it doesn't want done, namely the invasion of Rafah?

• Dennis Ross:

  It's pretty hard to quarrel with that, because the fact is, Israel has its set of interests, but so do we.

  And if we to do something that is wrong or crossed the line or, in fact, is counterproductive, which is the real reason that the president has adopted the position he has — yes, there's a moral dimension to this, but he actually thinks this is self-defeating, if Israel goes into Rafah on the ground.

  Now, having said that, again, the administration's position is actually not different from Israel's that Hamas should not be in control, not only of Gaza, but they shouldn't be in control of Rafah. There ought to be a way for the administration and Israel to reach an understanding on what is a way to deal with the Hamas presence in Rafah without putting at risk 1.3 million people who are crammed into a very small area.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Well, that is certainly what the U.S. wants. Netanyahu has said, at least publicly, that he needs to go into Rafah.

  The impact on the hostage negotiations is the real divide here. Israel has accused President Biden, essentially, of relieving pressure on Sinwar, as Ambassador Ross said. John Kirby made the opposite case, that an invasion of Rafah would actually hurt Israel in the negotiations.

  Tom Malinowski, what do you think?

• Fmr. Rep. Tom Malinowski:

  I agree with John Kirby.

  But, also, I think that, for Prime Minister Netanyahu to make that argument doesn't make a lot of sense to me, because it was Prime Minister Netanyahu who said repeatedly over the last several days that he would go into Rafah whether there's a hostage deal or not.

  He took away his own leverage by making those statements and put the United States and our allies in the region in a — our other allies in the region in the difficult position of trying to convince Hamas, you have to give up the hostages anyway and we will somehow try to restrain the Israelis from doing this.

  So, I don't think he can have it both ways.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Ambassador Ross, take on that point, that Netanyahu took away his own leverage by arguing he was going into Rafah regardless.

• Dennis Ross:

  Yes, I think it was a mistake for him to say that. I think he was saying it because he was trying to appease his ministers on the far right, meaning Ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir.

  The most important leverage Israel has with Sinwar — and, again, Sinwar, I think, is different than the political leadership of Hamas. The key to, I think, putting pressure under him is him feeling that there's a noose that's tightening around his neck.

  But, from that standpoint, the threat of going into Rafah is far more impressive than actually doing it, number one. Number two, if you were saying, we won't go into Rafah if there's a hostage release, that too increases the leverage.

  I am concerned that, if it looks like we're doing everything we can to prevent a threat against Rafah, that that gives Sinwar a certain degree of comfort. So I think there is a great value in the U.S. and the Israelis reaching an agreement on, A, we share the same strategic objective as it relates to Hamas in Gaza — I mean, in Rafah and Gaza more generally, but, B, we have reached an understanding about how to contend with how to remove Hamas from Rafah.

  I think that is something that can be achievable. I do think the issue with Netanyahu relates much more to the politics of his coalition than to the reality of what it will take to succeed in Rafah and to do it in a way that is consistent with what the U.S. can live with.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Well, when it comes to the politics of the coalition, we have got a few graphics to show here.

  We have got a tweet from a member of the coalition who is National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir right there in response to the decision, tweeting: "Hamas loves Biden."

  And a Jerusalem Post editorial, there you go, "Betrayal of Allies."

  So, Tom Malinowski, in the minute we have left, is some of the responses, especially within Netanyahu's coalition, is that posturing or is that genuine anger ahead of Israeli Independence Day, and does it matter?

• Fmr. Rep. Tom Malinowski:

  I think they're amping up the drama. I think they're hoping to affect the American political debate on this, hoping that somehow they can go around Biden and have others pressure the administration to change course, which won't work.

  I — those statements, particularly from ministers who have been convicted by Israeli courts of support for terrorism themselves, are not going to have a lot of impact on the Biden administration's calculus, nor should they.

  I think, when the drama subsides, I agree with Ambassador Ross that, at the end of the day, Israel and the United States need each other. Israel needs the United States and the supply of weapons that we provide and the political support that we provide.

  And I think the understanding, the common understanding that Ambassador Ross rightly says is necessary, about how to actually defeat Hamas will be where we end up.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Tom Malinowski, Ambassador Dennis Ross, thank you very much to you both.

• Dennis Ross:

  Thank you.

Improved audio player available on our mobile page