Aaron Mann

Netanyahu supporters seem to be taking advantage of @Brett_McGurk’s book and interviews to claim vindication for Netanyahu’s conduct of the war in Gaza. But while Brett’s front-row account is valuable, that doesn’t mean it is definitive or its perspectives widely shared—including among former members of the Biden administration. I would say most of my former colleagues think that President Biden should have put more pressure on Israel to conduct the war differently and end it sooner, and few think that the biggest mistake Biden made was to show daylight with Israel. And even Brett’s account makes clear that hostages were not the top priority for Netanyahu and that when U.S. pressure actually was applied—as after the World Central Kitchen strike—it worked. Brett tells the story of the Biden phone call after that tragedy, but not the story of how Biden called Netanyahu on July 4, 2024 to press him to conclude the hostage deal after Hamas had finally accepted the basic framework, dropping its demand that Israel commit to a permanent ceasefire before any hostages were released. Netanyahu instead added so many of his own conditions—against the advice of his own security chiefs—that the deal became impossible for another six months, during which nearly 9,000 more Palestinians were killed and more Israeli hostages died, including the six that Hamas executed in August. The Israeli changes included a demand that Israel retain forces along Gaza’s entire border with Egypt, which the IDF had seized only after the original proposal, and a new enforcement mechanism to screen Gazans who were returning home to the north which would have required Israeli troops to remain in central Gaza. Both of those new conditions were dropped in the deal ultimately concluded in January 2025. Nothing in the book or elsewhere changes the reality that October 7 happened on Netanyahu’s watch; that he prioritized “total victory” and the maintenance of his coalition over a hostage deal or an end of the war; that his conduct of the war and management of its humanitarian consequences catastrophic; that it has left Israel more isolated and insecure; and that it has deeply damaged, perhaps irreparably, Israel’s relationship with the United States—which should have done more to change Israel’s conduct rather than enable it. There was never an easy way forward in Gaza, but no version of the story vindicates Netanyahu.