Two weeks of non-stop western shuttle diplomacy appear to have reached the brink of failure since, as it stands, the west can only point to 20 aid trucks crossing into Gaza as the visible fruit of its labour. At the same time, Israel’s neighbours are taking to the streets and acts of terrorism are returning to the capitals of Europe.
With more than 4,000 Palestinians and 1,400 Israelis already dead, the only certainty is that Gaza’s depleted healthcare system will collapse if Israel launches a lengthy land invasion to wipe out Hamas.
The round of western diplomatic visits to Jerusalem had a dual purpose. They were public acts of solidarity in which the visit was the message, but there was also private questioning of the Israeli war cabinet, and what comes after an invasion.
In particular Joe Biden, for all the empathy that he showed to victims and the families of hostages, has been quite sharp in urging caution on Israel, though he was subtle in couching that counsel in terms of the lessons the US has taken from fighting terrorism.
Biden told Israel not to be consumed by rage as the US was after 9/11, saying: “While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.” In a stopover with reporters on the way back from Israel, he revealed the US military had discussed with the Israeli military whether an alternative to a ground assault was available. He said he had been blunt with Israel that its reputation was at stake. He relayed to reporters he had told the Israelis: “If you have an opportunity to alleviate the pain, you should do it. Period. And if you don’t, you’re going to lose credibility worldwide. And I think everyone understands that.” It was a version of the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken’s careful refrain to the Israelis that what you do matters, but so does how you do it.
Biden rested the judgment of his visit, the first by a US president to Israel in wartime, on the opening of the Rafah crossing, saying: “Had we gone and this failed, then, you know, the United States failed, Biden’s presidency fails, et cetera, which would be a legitimate criticism.”
Aid groups have welcomed the breakthrough he claimed to have secured, but also say 20 trucks for 2 million people hardly amounts to sticking plaster. The hope is that this is only a start, as shown by the personal presence of the UN secretary general, António Guterres, at the crossing on Friday.
Blinken’s bigger US goal to establish safe zones in Gaza’s war zone was never easy, and may ultimately prove a mirage. Tzipi Hotovely, the Israeli ambassador to the UK, pointed to the bombing of Dresden in the second world war, as she insisted civilian casualties were inevitable in wars.
Very little progress has been made in gaining the release of the 200 or so hostages. A mother and daughter from Chicago who were taken on 7 October and held hostage in Gaza were released after Qatar brokered negotiations with the militant group. Hamas at present seems unwilling in its discussions with its interlocutors the Qataris to let the International Committee of the Red Cross visit them, fearing their location will be leaked to the Israelis. There was a trace of impatience in the Downing Street readout of the meeting between Rishi Sunak and Qatar’s prime minister, in which Sunak said the UK was willing “to use all the tools at its disposal” to rescue British hostages.
So much is being left unsaid. Sunak, in telling Benjamin Netanyahu he wanted Israel to win, did not describe what victory looked like or when it becomes pyrrhic.
One idea being touted by desperate diplomats is for Arab states to order the Hamas leadership collectively to leave Gaza for exile.
Some thinktanks, such as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), are already working up plans for an interim administration in Gaza. They fill a vacuum, even if they sound far-fetched.
The WINEP has said: “Public safety and law enforcement could be directed by a consortium of the five Arab states who have reached peace agreements with Israel: Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco. Only those Arab states would have Israel’s confidence, which is essential for this effort to succeed.
“Special care should be taken to ensure that this is not viewed as an ‘occupation force’ which both the contributing nations and local Palestinians would reject. Instead, it should be presented and structured as a ‘public safety force’.”
It seems implausible that any Arab alliance or Mahmoud Abbas would want to take on the task of being Israel’s administrator. Abbas has found governing the West Bank nigh on impossible and is wildly unpopular. To ride back into Gaza on the back of an Israeli tank would be political suicide. Yet all the Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has said is that he does not wish to control life in Gaza.
More worrying for the US are the signs that some of its closest Arab allies, driven by popular anger, are losing their patience with Washington, putting pressure on the US diplomats to be able to show results.
Take these three examples of diplomats who should be rock-solid allies of the US. The Jordanian foreign secretary, Ayman Safadi, said: “People are outraged and everyone is outraged. Eleven Palestinians are killed every hour.” He said no one was going to buy Israel’s explanation for the bombing of the al-Ahli hospital. Too many previous Israeli denials had proved false.
Lana Zaki Nusseibeh, the United Arab Emirates UN envoy and the linchpin of Arab diplomacy in New York, told the security council this week: “We support a humanitarian ceasefire not at the expense of Israel security but so that people can tend to the wounded, bury their dead and begin to put their lives back together.
“Hamas is indeed responsible for sparking this latest fire that is now engulfing the streets of Arab capitals around the region. We have called them out openly for their heinous attacks but, make no mistake, the kindling was already there, fuelled by decades of violent dehumanisation, dispossession and despair. That is why we cannot, however convenient, lose sight of the context of this crisis: the longest-going occupation in the world by people who do not want to be ruled and have been let down again and again and again by all of us.”
Prince Turki al-Faisal the former Saudi ambassador to the US, speaking in Washington, said: “I’ve been hearing a repeated phrase in American media: unprovoked attack. What more provocation is required to make it provoked than what Israel has done to the Palestinian people for three-quarters of a century?”
For Biden, Sunak, Olaf Scholz, Emmanuel Macron, and assorted defence and foreign ministers – all of whom have flown to the region – the additional risk now is that whatever tenuous support the west was gathering in the global south for the war in Ukraine will evaporate.
The sight of the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, in the UN security council chamber on Wednesday morning slowly raising her lonely hand to veto a resolution calling out Hamas and urging a humanitarian pause has put it in grave peril.
Biden’s tortuous attempt to link the war in Ukraine with Israel may only compound the error.
