Gallant’s US trip strengthens potential challenge to Israel’s Netanyahu

Israeli defence minister’s visit comes a month before Netanyahu’s, and highlights his position as an alternative to the PM.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has been on a mission in the past few days to shore up bipartisan support in the United States for Israel, in advance of what could potentially be all-out war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Gallant set the stage before he left for the US on Saturday, emphasising that ties between the two countries were “perhaps more important than ever”. After meetings with his US counterpart Lloyd Austin and other top officials, Gallant’s message was consistent: the US and Israel are strong allies, and need to be on the same side in the face of the perceived threat from Iran and its supporters in the region.

But the Israeli and US government don’t quite see eye to eye on everything at the moment.

Many observers believe that one of the most important items on Gallant’s agenda was a frozen shipment of heavy-duty 2,000-pound (907kg) and 500-pound (227kg) bombs. The Biden administration paused the shipment in May, apparently in protest at the potential use of the bombs in Gaza, where the Israelis have killed more than 37,500 people, with continued US backing.

The frozen shipment has served as a riposte to critics of the US government who say that President Joe Biden continues to support what critics are calling “genocide” in Gaza. But, in reality, the US has refused to expand that pause to other military shipments. The administration even responded to comments from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which he claimed that more arms shipments had been held back, by stressing that only one shipment has been stopped.