The Biden administration remains in an intense phase of Middle East diplomatic activity working to avoid a regional war while optimistically spinning the prospects for a Gaza breakthrough deal.
Following the latest round of provocative Israeli extrajudicial killings in Tehran and Beirut and the intensified exchange of fire between Israel and Hezbollah over the weekend, the region appeared to lurch further in the direction of all-out war. Preventing that is a worthy cause in itself.
With a US election looming and policy on Gaza, Israel and the Middle East unpopular with the Democrats’ own constituency and a potential ballot box liability in key states, there are also pressing political reasons for a Democratic administration to avoid more war and to pursue a diplomatic breakthrough. Countering domestic political criticism with hope for a deal was a useful device to deploy at the Democratic convention in Chicago and will be needed through to 5 November.
Team Biden is attempting a difficult trifecta. First, the Biden administration is trying to deter the Iranian axis from further responses to Israel’s recent targeted killings in Tehran and Beirut. Joe Biden no doubt has wanted to hold out the prospect of a ceasefire, which Iran would prefer not to upend, while he simultaneously bought time for the US to beef up its military presence in the region as leverage and a threat against Iran.
The US is also trying to help a key regional ally, Israel, reclaim its deterrence posture and freedom of military operation after the balance of forces shifted against it during the current conflict.
Second, the Biden administration is trying to reach election day on a positive note, by bringing an end to a divisive conflict – or, as a fallback, to at least avoid further escalation and a potentially debilitating regional explosion into which Israel could pull the US. Third, and more speculatively, the Biden administration might want to bring an end to the brutal devastation and killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, the humanitarian crisis there, and the hellish ordeal of the Israelis held in Gaza and their families. A ceasefire would also have the benefit of avoiding further damage to US interests and reputation as a consequence of Biden running political cover for and arming Israel throughout this war.
Ordinarily, delivering on those first two goals – and merely scoring two out of three – might constitute an acceptable achievement. It is made more attainable by the Iranian-led axis of resistance not wanting to fall into the trap of all-out war. However, failure to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza risks everything else unravelling and keeps the region at boiling point. Regional de-escalation and domestic political quiet will be that much more difficult to sustain if the Gaza talks again collapse, especially against the backdrop of raised expectations.
Sadly, that is the direction in which things are headed, exacerbated by the current US diplomatic push being exposed as clumsy or fraudulent or both.
It should go without saying that putting an end to the unprecedented daily suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, as well as bringing the Israelis who are held there home, is reason enough to throw everything at achieving a ceasefire. But the Biden administration has been singularly incapable of treating Palestinians as equals with the humanity and dignity accorded to Jewish Israelis – one of the reasons this has played so badly with the Democratic voting base.
The staggering shortcomings in the Biden administration’s approach, exacerbated in secretary of state Antony Blinken’s latest mission, are highly consequential and worth unpacking. Alarm bells should have been set off when Blinken at his recent press conference in Jerusalem announced that Benjamin Netanyahu had accepted the US “bridging proposal” – when the Israeli prime minister himself declared no such thing. Within hours, it became clear that Israel’s chief negotiator, Nitzan Alon, would not participate in the talks as a way of protesting against Netanyahu’s undermining of the deal.
That was followed by senior US and Israeli security officials anonymously briefing the press that Netanyahu was preventing a deal. Similar conclusions were also reached and made public by the main forums representing the Israeli hostage families. On his ninth visit to Israel since the 7 October attack, Blinken again failed – not just at mediating between Israel and Hamas, but even in closing the gaps between the competing camps inside the Israeli system. The US refusal to take seriously that there are Hamas negotiating positions which are legitimate, and which will need to be part of a deal (and with which the US ostensibly agrees to in substance – such as a full Israeli withdrawal and a sustainable ceasefire), has condemned US-led talks to repeated failure.
Repackaging Israeli proposals and presenting them as a US position may have a retro feel to it, but that does not make it cool. And it won’t deliver progress (it can’t even sustain Israeli endorsement given Netanyahu’s constant shifting of the goalposts to avoid a deal). That the US has zero credibility as a mediator is a problem. That it has conspired to make its contributions not only ineffective but counterproductive is devastating. Even Itamar Eichner, a diplomatic correspondent for the Israeli Yedioth newspaper, describes Blinken’s visit as having displayed “naivete and amateurishness … effectively sabotaging the deal by aligning with Netanyahu”.
This is a US government modus operandi with which Netanyahu is extremely familiar, and which falls very squarely inside his comfort zone. Netanyahu knows that he has won once the US mediator – whatever the actual facts – is willing to blame the Palestinian side (Arafat during Oslo, Hamas now). Despite having the US having changed its own proposal to accommodate Netanyahu, and Netanyahu still distancing himself from the terms and being called on it by his own defence establishment, Biden and senior US officials continue their public disinformation campaign of claiming that only Hamas is the problem and should be pressured.