SUBSCRIBER+ EXCLUSIVE REPORTING -As President Joe Biden and other world leaders grow increasingly frustrated with the bloody stalemate in Gaza—no release of hostages, no end to the fighting and no relief from pain and hunger for Gaza’s two million civilians — Biden’s recent warning of a “red line” for Israel has been welcomed in many parts of the globe as a sign that the U.S. is willing to use its leverage with Israel to force a change in the conduct of the war. But in a matter of days, the warning has been blasted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and its enforcement called into question by officials and analysts who doubt that the White House will do much if the red lines are crossed.
When Biden was asked by MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart whether an Israeli invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than one million displaced Palestinians are sheltering, would constitute a “red line,” Biden replied, "It is a red line but I'm never going to leave Israel. The defense of Israel is still critical. So there's no red line (in which) I'm going to cut off all weapons.” The president then added, “There’s red lines, and if he crosses—you cannot have 30,000 Palestinians dead. There’s other ways to deal with the trauma caused by Hamas.”
It was a rare public warning from an American president to an Israeli leader. And considering the U.S. is Israel’s closest ally - and its most full-throated supporter in this war - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response was remarkably blunt. Asked about Biden’s statement, Netanyahu replied, “I have a red line. You know what the red line is? That October 7 doesn’t happen again.” That, of course, was a reference to last year’s Hamas raid and massacre in southern Israel.
Elsewhere, officials wondered: What exactly is Biden’s red line? And what will happen if it’s crossed?
Where’s the line?
Analysts who spoke to The Cipher Brief agree that Biden’s red line is most likely an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah, the remaining stronghold of Hamas in Gaza, where all those Palestinians are crowded in a small city with minimal food, water and shelter. Israel has warned repeatedly that it plans to move into Rafah, and U.S. officials and international aid workers fear that a full-scale military incursion into the city could result in tens of thousands of additional civilian casualties. Biden has warned repeatedly than an invasion of Rafah would be a mistake.
Certainly the U.S. has leverage with Israel, and if a Rafah assault is the “red line,” the White House has ways to respond if Israeli tanks roll in, and the toll of dead and wounded soars again. The U.S. provides billions of dollars in military aid to Israel and has sent additional weaponry to the country since last October’s Hamas attacks. Presumably that flow of aid could be diminished in some way, or restrictions placed on how the Israelis use American weapons.
In a briefing with reporters on Air Force One Monday, a White House spokesman refused to say what price Israel would pay if it crossed Biden’s red line. In his comments to MSNBC, Biden appeared to rule out cutting off support for any defensive weapons, specifically the U.S.-Israeli Iron Dome missile defense system that has proven successful against missiles fired into Israel by Hamas.
The New York Times’ David Sanger reported Wednesday that Biden “appears to be slowly reconsidering his aversion to limits on how Israel could use the weaponry it buys, some American officials say. He has made no decisions, and still seems to be debating the question in his own mind, according to officials who have spoken with him.”
“The problem with red lines with respect to Israel is that they have a funny habit of turning pink,” Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. Middle East envoy who took part in multiple peace talks from 1998 to 2003, said in an interview with The Cipher Brief. “You have to be ready to impose costs and consequences if a red line is violated, assuming there is a clear understanding on both sides of what that red line is.”
For the moment, such clarity is missing, in terms of both the red lines themselves and any punishment that might come were Israeli to ignore them.
Mick Mulroy, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, told The Cipher Brief that the consequences of crossing the red line would likely be subtle. “Support, in the U.N. in particular, could shift and the U.S. may not stop resolutions from being passed by using its veto,” Mulroy said. “I do not think we would see a cutting of security assistance.”
“I don’t see this coming to fruition in any significant fashion, as frustrated as Biden is,” Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA officer and Cipher Brief expert said in a post on X. “Maybe symbolic suspension of unimportant items (M-4s for example), but no more,” he said, referring to the standard infantry carbine. “Not when there is a war in the north on the horizon. Not in U.S. election season - would be a political gift to GOP.”
That “war in the north” is a reference to the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in southern Lebanon, which remains a profound risk to Israel as well. Few analysts believe will cut off military aid to Israek while that threat remains.
“I don’t see a transformative event that is going to say the U.S.-Israel relationship is now fundamentally and completely broken,” said Miller, pointing to the Biden Administration's 10-year, $3 billion a year arms supply deal for Israel that is expected to pass the Republican- controlled House of Representatives, and another $14 billion for Israel included in the currently stalled funding bill for Ukraine.
White House red lines - a difficult history
The recent history of White House red lines is complicated, to say the least.
In 2012, President Barack Obama drew a clear line for Syria on the issue of chemical weapons. Multiple intelligence reports had indicated that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of Syria was considering the use of chemical weapons in the country’s civil war. Obama said that if Assad used the weapons, he would cross a “red line.”
The following year, the intelligence was clear: Assad had indeed crossed Obama’s red line, but Obama called off a planned strike against Syria, worried that it might lead to more chemical attacks and a wider mideast war.
“The terminology of a red line turned out to be such a burden for Obama,” Jon B. Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Cipher Brief. “The problem is once you’ve said it, everyone remembers what you said.”
Obama’s predecessor had his own red-line difficulties. George W. Bush said in 2003 that he would not “tolerate” a nuclear armed Iran or North Korea. The North Koreans marched across that red line when they conducted their first successful nuclear weapons test during Bush’s tenure. There were fresh sanctions but no military responses - again, for fear of a regional war.
“You would think political folks would stay away from having red lines,” Mulroy said.
A race for more aid
Amidst the red-line confusion, the U.S. has been working in other ways to ease the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. The U.S. is involved in joint efforts with Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, and France to ramp up the amount of humanitarian aid that can get into Gaza, to help stave off the kind of humanitarian disaster that Biden and other world leaders are desperate to avoid.
This week, the U.S. has also begun plans to build a floating dock on Gaza’s Mediterranean coast, where U.S. Navy and other supply ships can unload food and medical supplies to trucks that will distribute them throughout the territory. Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other U.S. officials have been calling on Israel to ensure that the million or so people taking refuge in Rafah are able to move to safety outside the battle zone.
Meanwhile, diplomatic work continues towards an elusive ceasefire deal. The U.S., Egypt, Qatar and other mediators are trying to convince Hamas to release the remaining 100 or so hostages in Gaza, which would in turn place pressure on Israel to agree to a weeks-long halt to the fighting. And that, Miller says, would achieve Biden’s primary objective in the Gaza War: “He has to find a way to de-escalate.”
“A prisoner exchange could buy six weeks of quiet and maybe break the dynamic on the battlefield, but to do that you need the assent and cooperation of the government of Israel,” added Miller.
The Biden-Netanyahu red-line back and forth has also laid bare the animosity the U.S. President has for the Israeli Prime Minister. Biden, says Miller, is trapped between his “emotional bond” with Israel, and his deep personal frustration with Netanyahu, who is facing his own battle for survival with a fractious coalition, polls that show he’s unlikely to be re-elected, and a series of corruption trials waiting to restart when the war ends.
The questions that remain, said Miller, are how Netanyahu will respond to a Biden red line, and what will happen if he crosses it.
“Will Benjamin Netanyahu, who presides over the most right-wing government in Israel’s history, and who is on trial for corruption, will he do what Biden wants, and if Biden actually sanctions Israel, then how does the war end?” Miller asked.
“The departure point for all my analysis on the Middle East,” he said, “is that the Middle East is littered with the remains of empires that thought they could influence the region.“
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