Diplomatic Disaster
Biden administration
The most horrific and fatal diplomatic disaster of our time may out to be the Biden administration’s persistent inability to achieve a comprehensive and long-lasting ceasefire in Gaza. The guiding principles have been in place for weeks; Hamas has accepted the broad parameters and supported the UN Security Council’s resolution on June 10 calling for a ceasefire. Thousands of Palestinian lives are being lost as a result of US submission to Israeli stubbornness, even though Israel continues to blame Hamas.
US-Israeli relations
One who closely monitors US-Israeli ties may have anticipated this. Ironically, the US’s complicity in Israel’s unparalleled assault on Gaza has deep historical roots dating back 30 years, to the start of the Oslo “peace process” in 1993. We have reached this most recent brink because of the US’s unwillingness to stand up to its ally, save it from itself, and insist on a visionary route of reconciliation.
For instance, let’s go back to June 2006, when Jerome Segal, a private US citizen, left the Gaza Strip with a letter intended for Washington. The head of Hamas at the time, Ismail Haniyeh, wrote the letter. Segal, who founded the Jewish Peace Lobby at the University of Maryland, was scheduled to make an unexpected proposal at the State Department.
Palestinian lives
The Palestinian people had voted for change and elected Hamas because they were fed up and furious with the corrupt Palestinian Authority, which was governed by Fatah. Leader of the Islamist opposition in Palestine for a considerable amount of time, Haniyeh was suddenly faced with the difficult task of navigating through economic and humanitarian difficulties, in addition to continuing Israeli military pressure and an impending economic siege on Gaza. In the secret letter, Haniyeh asked for leniency.
Even though Israel should be eliminated according to Hamas’ charter, Haniyeh was accommodative in his letter to President George W. Bush. According to Haniyeh, “We don’t mind having a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders and offering a truce for many years because we are so concerned about stability and security in the area.” Two of the main demands made of Hamas by the US and Israel were effectively acknowledged, namely the end of hostilities and de facto recognition of Israel. Prognostically, Haniyeh continued, “The continuation of this situation will encourage violence and chaos in the whole region.”
Was Hamas sincere? It was reportedly in talks to establish a unity government with the PA, indicating the letter wasn’t a hoax. Haniyeh was now on board with the idea of a two-state solution. It was an astonishing admission, if genuine.
A radical, militant group that the US considers terrorists would almost certainly approach the negotiating table. After all, Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress and the PA’s precursor, the PLO, were both longtime terrorist organizations. In addition, the British government labeled Jewish militias that were fighting for Israel’s independence before 1948 as terrorists; two of these individuals, Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, went on to become prime ministers of Israel. Even still, their paths to reconciliation were not identical, despite having such different objectives and levels of achievement.
A minority within Israel’s security apparatus expressed support for working with Hamas. Commander of the Israeli military’s Gaza division and former brigadier general Shmuel Zakai urged Israel “to take advantage of the calm to improve, rather than markedly worsen, the economic plight of the Palestinians in the [Gaza] Strip.” You can’t just launch strikes, abandon the Palestinians in Gaza to their dire economic circumstances, and then expect Hamas to do nothing except stand by and watch.
A former Mossad director was another supporter of the discussion. Efraim Halevy stated, “I think there’s a chance that Hamas, the devils of yesterday, could be reasonable people today.” “We ought to endeavor to include them in the solution, rather than viewing them as a problem.”
However, it remains to be seen if Hamas was sincere in trying to find a solution. Haniyeh’s letter received no response from the US. Rather, it began a clandestine attempt to incite a Palestinian civil war in 2007 in an attempt to remove Hamas, but it was unsuccessful. Hamas engaged the PA fighters, backed by the US, in hand-to-hand street fighting. After winning the Battle of Gaza, Hamas has been in power ever since. As predicted by Haniyeh, there has been near-constant bloodshed and turmoil. Israel has failed to eradicate Hamas despite its repeated promises to do so.
When it came to rejecting a new agreement with Hamas, which was engaged in fresh unification talks with the PA, and agreeing to a deal with Israel and the West in 2014—one that was even more favorable than Haniyeh’s appeal eight years earlier—the Obama administration would go the same route as the Bush administration. The scholar and analyst Nathan Thrall, who is based in Jerusalem, stated that the recent attempt at reconciliation “could have served Israel’s interests.”
“It provided a base for Hamas’s political opponents in Gaza; it was established without the involvement of a single Hamas member; it kept the same prime minister, deputy prime minister, finance minister, and foreign minister based in Ramallah; and, most importantly, it promised to adhere to the three requirements for Western aid that the United States and its European allies have long demanded: nonviolence, respect for previous agreements, and recognition of Israel.”
Rather, Israel’s “splintering strategy” to split up the Palestinian factions and the territory itself was implicitly supported by the US. The head of Israel’s military intelligence informed the US ambassador in Tel Aviv in a State Department cable that was leaked to WikiLeaks that a victory by Hamas would permit Israel to “treat Gaza” as a separate “hostile country” and that he would be “pleased” if PA leader Mahmoud Abbas “set up a separate regime in the West Bank.” As a result, the West Bank and Gaza were virtually cut off from one another, and the idea of a corridor connecting the two areas of a sovereign Palestine was lost.
Additionally, the US has supported Israel’s strategy of dividing Palestine, undermining the aspiration for self-determination and almost eliminating the possibility of a two-state solution. Following the signing of the Oslo Accord thirty years ago, the number of settlers in the West Bank has increased fourfold, military checkpoints continue to be erected, and more than a dozen Jewish colonies now encircle East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians still regard as their capital.
However, over those thirty years, not a single US president has dared to hold Israel responsible by tying US military support to an end to the country’s continued colonization of the West Bank. Secretary of State James Baker did it during the first Bush administration in 1992, making him the latest US official to do so. As a result, Israel has been able to expand its settlements and slaughter tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza without cause because of US inactivity.
Humanitarian crisis Gaza
Hamas has now, with Gaza in ruins, consented in principle to a ceasefire, first on May 6 and then again following the UN Security Council Resolution on June 10. According to reports, Hamas wants assurances of an Israeli pullout and the lifting of the embargo on Gaza. Any proposed revisions are “not significant,” a senior Hamas official told Reuters, and Haniyeh asserted that Hamas’s stance is “consistent” with the agreement’s tenets. Meanwhile, Israel is refusing, announcing once more that it will not stop until Hamas is eliminated.
However, Israel hasn’t delivered on any of its prior pledges to eliminate Hamas. Israel’s persistent intent on removing Hamas amounts to a dream to justify the unending bloodshed, given the group’s growing popularity among Palestinians. During his recent visit to the area, US Secretary of State Blinken failed to instill confidence. He blamed Hamas for everything in his speech on June 10 in Cairo, omitting to mention the 274 Palestinians killed in the Israeli military operation to free four hostages in Nuseirat.
The United States would stop its very subjection to Israel, show its strength, and employ the power it strangely forbids to employ if the Biden administration had any political vision at all, let alone compassion. What’s at risk is the US’s meager international credibility. The lives of the more than two million Palestinians in Gaza depend on it, which is far more important.
Biden’s Middle East Policy
However, it may be too much to expect a behavior change anytime soon given that Biden’s party invited Netanyahu to speak to the US Congress about “the Israeli government’s vision for defending democracy,” that the prime minister of Israel is using the leader of the free world as a willing punching bag, and that all political logic and moral clarity have been abandoned by the Washington intelligentsia that is being held captive by pro-Israel interests.
It has to be said, though. The US ought to demand an immediate, comprehensive, and long-lasting ceasefire and stop putting up with Israel’s erratic and destructive behavior.