Netanyahu Vows to Expand into Rafah

Tensions are escalating between the US and Israel, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows to press forward with his country’s expanded military operations in Rafah.

Yeah, over the weekend, President Biden drew a pretty wobbly red line as he termed it on the invasion, telling Netanyahu one thing for certain he can’t have another 30,000 Palestinians die as a result of this conflict, and the conflict has entered the holy month of Ramadan, that’s officially underway. Israeli leadership had given Hamas until the start of this holiday to agree to terms of a cease fire, but Hamas has not agreed to terms and so without a deal, Israel is planning to move defense forces into Gaza’s currently most densely populated city.

The escalating tensions between allies coincide with the additional airdrops of humanitarian aid. CBS news, foreign correspondent Chris Livesay joins us from Jerusalem with more on this. Chris, Israel has yet to fully invade Rafah. So where did the ceasefire talks stand at this moment?

Hey, Errol and Tony. Well, right now they’ve failed. However, hope isn’t completely lost. As you mentioned, there was a deadline of coming to some kind of an agreement before Ramadan, which is just now starting this week. The reason for that is because it’s traditionally been not just a time of prayer and fasting, it’s the Islamic Holy Month, but here in Jerusalem in particular, it’s also been a time of violence, prompting clashes between Israelis and Palestinians over Israeli security restrictions to Muslim holy sites here in Jerusalem. And so the hope was to just avoid creating an even more tense environment around that. But as I said, hope isn’t completely lost. CIA director, Bill Burns, was in the region this weekend pushing for some kind of a ceasefire in exchange for the dozens of Israeli hostages who have been held by Hamas now for five months.

Yeah, Chris, it seems like the sticking points on the ceasefire deal is Hamas wants a permanent ceasefire, not a temporary or six week one, and it wants all of Israel’s forces out of Gaza completely. But the Israeli war cabinet is saying they can’t quit now. They can’t go without going through Rafah to eliminate the final battalions of Hamas. So this red line talk from Netanyahu, or from Biden to Netanyahu, it was kind of all over the place. On the one hand, the President said you can’t have 30,000 more dead. I think everyone agrees with that. But on the other hand, he said he would always stand with Israel. So what is the status of the relationship between these two leaders now?

It’s seen seems like President Biden is trying to hasten Netanyahu’s improvement of the humanitarian situation in Gaza, or quite possibly push him out the exit. He’s a wildly unpopular figure here in Israel. He has been ever since October 7th, the terror attack and abduction that took place here in Israel that sparked the war, that happened on Benjamin Netanyahu’s Watch. However, this of plan of President Biden’s to push him to do the right thing in his opinion, could very well backfire. Israelis don’t necessarily like to have policy dictated by Washington, and they might see Benjamin Netanyahu as being the defender of their ideas. After all, this war is by and large supported by Israelis. So if they start to see Benjamin Netanyahu as defending their interests, President Biden pushing him might backfire.

And Chris, we’ve discussed the US and its continued airdrops into Gaza as well as the announcement of building a port at some point in time. But how would the expected expanded operation in Rafah impact what the US is trying to do as far as increased humanitarian assistance?

Well, it would almost certainly hamper humanitarian assistance. I mean, anytime bombs are falling or bullets are being fired, that’s not good for the humanitarian situation on the ground. Now, keep in mind the geography here where the United States wants to put this movable pier, that would be off the coast of Gaza City. So not exactly where we are here in southern Gaza at the border with Egypt and Rafah, where this next stage of the offensive would take place. It’s a very critical point. As I mentioned, right at the border with Egypt, you have an enormous concentration of people there, about a million and a half. There could be a crisis that develops there, a real catastrophe. Egypt has been worried about a human stampede throughout this entire conflict. Civilians trying to push their way into Egypt. And so yes, there are a ton of variables that could happen. Everybody is trying to prevent that at this point.

All right, Chris Livesay, thanks for that report.

All right, let’s bring in our senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang for more on the political context of all this. Weijia Jiang, thank you for being here. It seemed like President Biden was trying to do the impossible here, distance himself from Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, but also reassure people that he supports Israel. It’s a tough balance. How was the White House thinking about these months ahead?

Tony, you’re exactly right. And we watched that dance, if you will, in real time. When the President said he had a red line and then he almost immediately walked back and said, “Well, there can’t be any red lines because we have to continue supplying Israel with weapons because it has its right to defend itself.” So I think what we need to remember is even though we are watching the administration and the President dial up the political rhetoric, the US policy has not changed. There are still no conditions on the aid that the US is supplying to Israel. There are no contracts that say, “If you do this or do not do this, then this is the consequence that follows.” We should mention there is a national security memorandum that requires all countries that receive US resources and weapons from the US to put in writing that they will use all of that within the guidelines of humanitarian law.

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And we’re actually eyeing a really important deadline, guys, coming up in a couple weeks to see if Israel complies in writing with that, even though tacitly it is already supposed to. And so we are watching to see how the administration could alter the way it supplies weapons if it does at all. But it is very complicated because so many have already been sold. So what happens to those contracts? So the bottom line is that you are seeing the President walk this very fine line and it is difficult because he is under political pressure, but he is also under a pressure from many Americans who support his Israel policy. And that’s why you’re seeing, Tony, I think you used the word wobbly, which is perfect, this very wobbly place for him.

Yeah, it’s tough.

These are the pitfalls of drawing a red line, right? President Biden wouldn’t be the first president to draw a red line that eventually gets erased in some formal fashion.

Ask Obama, how’s it going in Crimea?

Precisely. Precisely. And Weijia, we know the President’s issuing a budget plan today for fiscal year 2025. What can you tell us about it?

Well, I can tell you that like most presidential budgets, it is almost certain not going to become a law, but it is really critical, especially given that it is an extension of what the President laid out in his State of the Union address. It includes tax breaks for families, lowering healthcare costs. You can see here he wants to trim the deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade. And it really hammers home how he wants to increase taxes on the wealthy and corporations and have new spending on social programs. He’s also warning of the threats of what a Republican administration would mean. And he says, along with his officials who just gave us a background briefing, that all of those social programs like childcare benefits, a headstart, these important programs that help people live their daily lives could be cut and are at stake. And so this is aspirational, I would say, but also really important political messaging which he’s taking on the road to battleground states this week.

All right. Weijia, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Sure.