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'Biden did not prioritize Israeli-Palestinian talks', Arab leaders say region is now paying the price

2023-10-17 23:32:10Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA ASSOCIATED PRESS
'Biden did not prioritize Israeli-Palestinian talks', Arab leaders say
Netanyahu and Biden

From his first months in office, President Biden's administration made a particular decision about its Middle East policy: to de-prioritize a half-century of efforts by past American presidents, especially Democratic ones, to broker a comprehensive and lasting peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Since President Richard Nixon, successive US administrations have tried to urge Israeli and Palestinian leaders to resolve the disputes that underlie 75 years of tensions in the Middle East.

Unlike the last American presidents, Mr. Joe Biden has not done this.

Instead, administration officials outlined from the start what they called Mr. Biden's policy of quiet diplomacy. They pushed for more modest improvements in freedoms and living conditions for Palestinians under the hardline government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has continued to build settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Mr. Netanyahu has included in his governing coalition partners who oppose the peaceful solution with the creation of two states, a solution that is also supported by Washington.

The less ambitious approach fits with President Biden's determination to shift his foreign policy from Middle Eastern hotspots to China.

But the long-term dangers of sidestepping the Israeli-Palestinian conflict emerged again with Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7 and Israel's heavy bombing of Gaza in response. Angry Arab partners of the United States are pointing to America's failure to actively engage as Israeli-Palestinian violence returns to the spotlight.

The bloody onslaught by Hamas militants from Gaza and Israel's escalating military response, which have killed thousands of civilians in Israel and Gaza, have prompted Mr. Biden to take two aircraft carriers to the region. The situation now threatens to spread the conflict and Palestinian refugee flows across borders.

In Cairo this weekend, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi was among Arab leaders who warned Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the Israel-Hamas war threatens the stability of the entire Middle East.

President Biden is likely to hear the same thing as he meets with the leaders of Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority in Jordan on Wednesday, after visiting Israel.

President Sissi, who fears that the Israeli military offensive will prompt Gaza's 2.3 million residents to cross the border into Egypt, blamed almost insensible international pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's government and the Palestinians to return to negotiations.

He spoke of what he called the “accumulation of anger and hatred for more than 40 years” and the lack of any “hope to resolve the Palestinian issue; a solution that gives hope to the Palestinians", for a state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, pointed to their "repeated warnings of the risk of an outbreak" of a conflict.

Arab leaders "are very aware that the situation could worsen while at the same time thinking that they can throw it this time or the next time, as has happened in the past," said Yezid Sayigh, senior fellow at the Middle East Center. Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie” in Beirut, Lebanon.

"But this is not a comfortable position they could live with indefinitely," with endless cycles of Israeli-Palestinian wars. that threaten the region's peace and economies, Mr. Sayigh said. The latter accused the US of encouraging Prime Minister Netanyahu to think that it was not necessary to address Palestinian concerns.

President Biden's call to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last weekend, amid the tense situation in Gaza, was the US leader's first since taking office, underscoring his administration's reduced emphasis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In 1973, the Arab nations' surprise attack on Israel and the Arab oil embargo against the US and other countries for their support of Israel in that war convinced US leaders that a lasting solution to Palestinian demands for statehood it was in America's strategic interest.

But after some early successes, repeated violence, the frustrations of failed mediation efforts in the past, and the scale of the dispute helped undermine American peace efforts. By the time Mr. Biden, a staunch supporter of the state of Israel, took office, Israeli support for negotiations was weak.

Secretary Blinken and other US officials have pointed to steps taken by the administration that they say were aimed at improving conditions before exerting any form of pressure for a return to talks on a political solution to the long-running conflict. This includes restoring US aid to the Palestinians after previous President Donald Trump cut off almost all of it. Then there was Mr. Blinken's January trip to the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, where he said President Biden remains committed to the Palestinian demand for statehood.

It is unlikely that a more ambitious commitment by President Biden to the Israeli-Palestinian issue would have made immediate progress, or done anything, to deter the onslaught of Hamas, which seeks the destruction of Israel. .

Even after an outbreak of fighting in 2021 between Hamas and Israel, members of the administration argued that a major push into peace efforts would undermine other, more easily achieved goals, such as the cease-fire agreements reached with Hamas.

Instead, Mr. Biden has enthusiastically pursued the new path Mr. Trump had laid out for Middle East peacemaking: lobbying for so-called normalization deals with Arab countries, in the absence of any Israeli-Palestinian agreement.

Under President Trump, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco signed normalization agreements establishing diplomatic relations with Israel.

By October 7, President Biden appeared to be fast approaching brokering a normalization deal with the most important country of all, Saudi Arabia, the country that carries the most weight in the region.

Then, the Hamas offensive from the Gaza Strip shattered what National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan had described as a period of calm in the Middle East. The violence has been the bloodiest of the five wars between Hamas and Israel, killing more than 1,400 people in Israel and nearly 2,800 in Gaza.

It is currently unclear what will happen to President Biden's normalization efforts. Despite the angry comments and varying degrees of popular support among the public for the Palestinian cause, America's Arab partners are pragmatists and, like the US and Israel, are opposed to Hamas and other Iranian-backed groups.

Moreover, many analysts argue that the immediate and comprehensive support of the Mr. Biden administration for Israel's defense after the Hamas massacres on October 7 can only increase the desire of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to strengthen the alliance of security with the US for the kingdom.

"I think the Gulf partner states are looking at the quick and decisive response that the US has given to Israel and are very jealous," said Jonathan Lord, director of the Middle East security program at the New American Security think tank.

The brokering of these alliances would stabilize the Middle East on its own, without the need for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, supporters of the idea have argued.

Critics say the nightmare now unfolding for Israeli and Palestinian civilians means the opposite when it comes to President Biden's approach.

"As long as core issues remain unresolved, ignoring them does not make them go away," said Yousef Munayyer, who directs the Palestine-Israel program at the Arab Center, a Washington think tank. "I think this is a lesson for everyone."


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