Also on the horizon, blazing like an infernal nightmare, is the prospect of an escalation of the current war in Gaza and the spread of destabilizing violence to every corner of the Middle East.

The direction that the region takes could be determined by a feat of imaginative diplomacy. Or an act of murderous stupidity.

Which will it be?

The Widening War

The United States still maintains 40,000 troops across dozens of military bases in the Middle East. Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 and Israel invaded Gaza in response, these U.S. facilities and allied forces have sustained over 160 attacks. A number of militias in the region have demonstrated their solidarity with Hamas by attacking Israel across the Lebanese border (Hezbollah), U.S., British, and Israeli ships in the Red Sea (Houthis), and U.S. bases in the region (Iran-allied militias in Iraq and Syria).

Last month, an attack on one such base, Tower 22 in Jordan, left three Americans dead. The Biden administration blamed Iran for the attack. Since Tower 22 is a key node in the coordination of U.S. attacks on Iran-aligned militias, it was a logical target. Responding in part to pressure from its more hawkish critics in Congress, the administration retaliated by launching attacks on 85 sites in Iraq and Syria that are linked to Iran.

Iran’s “axis of resistance” links up a number of groups that have different ideologies, religious beliefs, and positions within their own societies. Israel’s invasion of Gaza has given this constellation of forces a new focus and a new cohesion.

Hezbollah, with 40,000 fighters, is perhaps the most significant, given that its political wing has dominated Lebanese politics. After October 7, Israel and Hezbollah have traded attacks across the border. Most recently, Hezbollah launched drone attacks in northern Israel and Israel responded by destroying weapons depots deep in Lebanese territory. The key to preventing a wider war in the region is negotiating some kind of agreement between the Israeli government and Hezbollah.

The United States has also retaliated against the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, through which 12 percent of global trade passes. These retaliatory strikes don’t seem to have had much effect on the Houthis’ resolve. This weekend, they struck a ship operating under the flag of Belize and also knocked out a U.S. drone. The Houthis enjoy the advantage that real estate agents always talk about: location, location, location. They’ve already caused a dip in the global economy as ships have begun to reroute around South Africa, adding time and cost to shipments of oil and other commodities.

In Iraq, several pro-Iranian militias emerged from the wreckage caused by the U.S. invasion in 2003, including the Popular Mobilization Forces and Kata’ib Hezbollah. Although there is overlap, the former has effectively become part of the Iraqi army while the latter has joined with other groups to form an umbrella organization unaffiliated with the Iraqi government called Islamic Resistance in Iraq. They all want the remaining U.S. troops out of their country.

The Times and the Sunday Times Video: “Israel launches fresh airstrikes on Rafah in southern Gaza”

And they are all incensed by the war in Gaza.

Israel has defied international law and even common sense by continuing to prosecute its war against Hamas and killing nearly 30,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children. It’s not exactly news that Israel is ignoring considerations of human rights and basic morality in its destruction and disenfranchisement of the Palestinian community. What’s different this time is the failure of the Netanyahu government to put the lives of Israeli hostages first and pursue negotiations for their release.

Approximately 130 of the original 253 hostages that Hamas and related organizations seized in Israel on October 7 remain in Gaza. Hamas released 105 in an exchange and four others unilaterally. Israel rescued three and killed three others in a botched rescue attempt. In addition, at least 30 of the 130 remaining hostages are believed to be dead. These hostages are the only real bargaining chip that Hamas has.

Grand Bargain

With negotiations over a ceasefire stalemated in Egypt, the Netanyahu government is planning to launch a new offensive on Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city. The United States, basically pleading with its obdurate ally not to attack Rafah, has gone so far as to support for the first time a UN initiative for a temporary pause in fighting (even as Washington continues to reject resolutions calling for an “immediate ceasefire”).

Hamas has proposed a 150-day ceasefire that turns into a permanent truce, a prisoner exchange that would release thousands of detained Palestinians, and an Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza. Netanyahu has dismissed this proposal as “delusional.” He doesn’t want to promise a troop withdrawal. And he insists on a ratio of three Palestinian prisoners released for each hostage.

If the details can be worked out—and there’s no guarantee that Netanyahu in particular will budge—this kind of ceasefire could serve as the keystone of a grand bargain in the region.

Antony Blinken, Biden’s secretary of state, has been racing around the capitals of the Middle East to build support for an audacious plan. It looks roughly like this: Saudi Arabia extends diplomatic recognition to Israel and the world comes together to support a new Palestinian state. In effect, Blinken is trying to reignite the Abraham Accords that Jared Kushner started during the Trump administration, but linking Saudi recognition of Israel to a two-state solution rather than simply a cash payout to the Palestinians. According to Axios, “There are several options for U.S. action on this issue, including: Bilaterally recognizing the state of Palestine; not using its veto to block the UN Security Council from admitting Palestine as a full UN member state; encouraging other countries to recognize Palestine.”

You might think that the spoiler in this scenario would be Iran. After all, Tehran has activated its “axis of resistance” in support of Hamas. It has never been coy about its opposition to Israel. And it’s not exactly been cozy with the United States either.

But Iran is actually not the spoiler.

In recent days, the Iranian government has been trying to rein in its allies’ militias in Iraq. Though not all of these forces agree, there have been no attacks on U.S. positions in Iraq and Syria since February 4.

This restraint is not just about avoiding a direct conflict with the United States. Iran’s position on Israel has been evolving as well. Even though the Iranian leadership continues to lambaste Netanyahu and his colleagues, it has moved toward embracing a two-state solution. Explains Javad Heiran-Nia at Stimson:

The Iranian position has been that Israel is illegitimate and that a future state should be determined through a referendum of Palestine’s pre-1948 inhabitants and their descendants. However, Iran has been trying not to be isolated in the Islamic world and recognizes that other countries such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey are likely to play a bigger role in diplomacy and reconstruction following the Gaza war. In addition, there are divisions among Iranian Shi’ite clerics about Palestine, with some members of the Qom Seminary supporting a two-state solution. Former reformist president Mohammad Khatami, himself a senior cleric, has said that Iran would accept a Palestinian state alongside Israel if the elected Hamas government chose this path.

Another key part of this evolution was, courtesy of China’s diplomatic efforts, a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia last spring. The longstanding Saudi-Iranian feud, which is both confessional and geostrategic, came to a head recently in the war in Yemen, with Tehran and Riyadh supporting separate proxies in the conflict. That war has large subsided, though talks to bring a formal end to the conflict have stalled. Nevertheless, Iran and Saudi Arabia seem willing to negotiate modest agreements of mutual benefit.

When the elephants are no longer fighting, the grass has a chance to regrow.

Remaining Challenges

Netanyahu has promised to launch the assault on Rafah by the start of Ramadan if the remaining Israeli hostages are not released. Ramadan begins on March 10.

Three weeks is not a lot of time to pull together a grand bargain or even a minor agreement. Barring such an agreement, however, the opportunities for murderous stupidity multiply.

Getting Netanyahu to agree to anything is not easy. But he seems to believe that bringing home the remaining hostages can salvage his tattered reputation. The dismal track record of the Israeli military rescuing those hostages should push him in the direction of a ceasefire and a prisoner exchange. But Netanyahu still has the Entebbe model in his head, the daring rescue of hijacked airline passengers in Uganda in 1976 (the only casualty among the Israeli commandos was Netanyahu’s brother). Without the element of surprise on its side, Israel is not likely to repeat the Entebbe model in an assault on Rafah.

Preventing such an attack on Rafah will be challenging enough. The larger deal that could bring about a Palestinian state faces even longer odds.

Netanyahu has made it clear that his vision of Gaza’s future is as an occupied territory, administered by Israel. Meanwhile, Israeli settlers have eaten away at what might constitute the core of a Palestinian state in the West Bank. That doesn’t leave a whole lot left for an independent state, particularly a non-contiguous one. Meanwhile, Israel has generally insisted that any Palestinian entity can’t have a military. And, because Netanyahu’s government has vowed to eliminate Hamas, it would be difficult to imagine Israel tolerating a role for organization in such an entity.

Which means that a Palestinian state at this point would have to be something of a sleight of hand. The leadership would have to include some representation from Hamas—given its current popularity among Palestinians—but those representatives would probably have to “disconnect” from Hamas. The state would lack such requirements of a state as a military, but it could have bodies like a domestic security force that could one day become an army. There would have to be some “land for peace” arrangement that provides the new state with enough contiguous territory to ensure viability. And Jerusalem would become something of a Brussels shared by the two states.

Ironically it has become easier to get Iran and Saudi Arabia to agree than to expect Netanyahu and Hamas to come to some understanding. There’s no waving of a magic wand to replace the leadership of Israel and the Palestinians with more accommodating leaders. The best scenario is to achieve some reduction of tensions, some release of hostages, some stepping away from the brink of a wider war. With a reduction in tensions comes the possibility of new elections in Israel and the emergence of new leadership in Palestine.

The world waits. Never has the risk of a wider war been greater. Never has the need for imaginative diplomacy been so urgent.

Via Foreign Policy in Focus

Some 78% of Muslim Democrats favored an immediate ceasefire, the same proportion as Democrats in the general public. 57% of Jewish Democrats wanted an immediate ceasefire, while 30% opposed it. Still, that means that a majority of the two religious groups who lean Democratic agree on this principle. Even 54% of Republicans in the general public wanted a ceasefire.

Young Jews and young Muslims are closer to one another than are older Jews and older Muslims. Among Jews 18-29, 54% favor a ceasefire (among Jews over 50 it is only 46%). Among Muslims 18-29, 68% favor a ceasefire (among Muslims over 50 it is 80%). There is only a 14 point spread between young Jewish Americans and young Muslim Americans, whereas there is a 34 point spread among Jewish Americans over 50 and Muslim Americans over 50.

It is interesting to me that almost the same proportion of Catholics (71%) wanted a ceasefire as Muslims (75%). Among Protestants the proportion is 60% and among white evangelicals it is 58%. The latter statistic is also remarkable since white evangelicals are strongly biased in favor of Israel; but even so they want a ceasefire in the horrific Gaza conflict.

Democracy Now! Video: “Incandescent” with Rage: Matt Duss on Voter Anger over Biden Support for Netanyahu & Gaza Assault”

ISPU also asked for views on who is responsible for the war. Among Muslims, 47% blame Hamas and Israel equally for the violence or blame Hamas alone. 40% blame Israel. That is the highest percentage who blamed Israel alone among all American religious groups. But still, more blamed Israel-and-Hamas or blamed Hamas alone (12%).

Protestants and non-affiliated had similar proportions who blamed Israel-and-Hamas equally (34% and 38% respectively).

Some 47% of Catholics blamed Hamas alone, while 51% of Evangelicals put the entire onus on Hamas. Among Jews, 65% blamed Hamas alone.

But note that 10% of Jews blamed Israel alone and 19% blamed Israel-and-Hamas equally, so over a quarter of them generally agreed with Muslims in their point of view on the conflict.

It is heartening to see so much unity on the issue of an immediate ceasefire across party lines and across religious affiliations.

ISPU commissioned Qualtrics to “field the survey to a non-probability online sample of self-identified American Muslims, American Jews, and members of the American general public.” 1,296 surveys were completed from Dec. 22 through January 15 of this year. Muslims filled out 330, jews 316, and the general population 550.

The peace treaty has been the cornerstone of Egyptian-Israeli relations for nearly half a century.

The Egyptian government had not said much in public about these reports until yesterday. Mahmud `Abd al-Raziq of al-Khalij 35 reports reports that on Sunday, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry issued a stern warning to Israel that any operation in Rafah City would have “severe consequences.” The communique said that Egypt “continues its contacts and actions with various parties in order to arrive at an immediate ceasefire, enforce calm, and achieve an exchange of hostages and prisoners.” That is, Egypt is seeking another Israel-Hamas agreement, along with the US and Qatar.

Africanews Video: “Israel’s assault on Rafah endangers peace accords with Egypt, officials warn”

The ministry asked responsible international actors (we’re looking at you, Joe Biden) to pressure Israel not to do anything that would “complicate the situation further and cause harm to the interests of everyone without exception.”

Prominent Egyptian parliamentarian and journalist (he has a talk show!) Mustafa Bakri had openly said earlier that the Egyptian border is a “red line” and its breach would threaten the Camp David Accords.

In an interview with Sky News, the former deputy head of Egyptian military intelligence, Gen. Ahmad Ibrahim, had said that from his country’s point of view any Israeli take-over of the Philadelphi Corridor would constitute a breach of the Camp David Accords. He warned that Egypt’s military is “powerful.”

The Saudi foreign ministry also condemned the planned attack on Rafah City and any further coerced displacement of the Palestinians there. The Saudis called for an immediate ceasefire and a UN Security Council resolution against Netanyahu’s plan.

This position was echoed by the spokesman for the Gulf Cooperation Council, which rejected the Israeli plan to assault Rafah after forcibly expelling the civilian population.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Arab states called Friday for immediate, concrete and irreversible steps to recognize a Palestinian state.

It seems clear that even countries that are more or less at peace with Israel, whether formally (Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates) or informally (Saudi Arabia) have their hair on fire about the proposed Rafah operation.

Although American newspapers depict Egypt as broke, desperate and easily manipulated, my own estimation is that Cairo absolutely will not accept the Palestinians of Gaza as refugees on its soil. The Sinai is already a security problem for Cairo, and 2 million radicalized Palestinians would make it ungovernable. No amount of debt forgiveness would make such a bitter pill go down.

( RFE/RL ) – Like two heavyweight boxers, the United States and Iran circle the ring — flexing their muscles without stepping close enough to actually trade blows. It is clear that neither wants to fight, but they also have no interest in settling their stark differences.

That is how experts say Washington and Tehran have dealt with each other for more than four decades, only changing their stance when it is mutually beneficial.

Tensions have soared between the two foes, who have no formal diplomatic ties, amid the fallout from Israel’s devastating war in the Gaza Strip. But despite calls for de-escalation, observers say there is little room for détente.

“I’ve rarely seen a situation in which the tensions have been so high and the exit ramps are nearly nonexistent and there were no real channels of communication between the two sides,” said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group.

“And that makes the current situation even more dangerous, because there’s plenty of space for miscommunication and misunderstanding,” Vaez added.

Current tensions in the Middle East have had deadly consequences even as each side tries to avoid getting drawn into a direct military confrontation.

The United States has hit Iran-backed militants in response to attacks against U.S. forces and interests in the region, including the deaths of three U.S. soldiers in Jordan last month, while underscoring that its aim is de-escalation.

Iran, which like the United States has said that it does not want war, has continued to back militant groups that make up its so-called “axis of resistance” against Israel and the West, while calling for diplomacy to resolve the crisis.

Tehran and Washington have carefully avoided direct conflict, but are in no position to work out their differences even if they wanted to, experts say.

Washington and Tehran have not had formal diplomatic ties since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, leaving them to negotiate through back-channels or third states when needed.

But political and ideological pressures at home — amplified ahead of a parliamentary vote in Iran in March and a presidential election in the United States in November — has meant that neither side is looking to back away any time soon from the stark red lines the two have drawn.

Avenues For Diplomacy

“There are ways that communication can be had between the two countries, and they do so,” said Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran Program at the U.S.-based Middle East Institute. “But they tend to do it on select files, or moments of crisis.”

Vatanka said those lines of communication include Iran’s envoy to the United Nations who resides in New York and the Swiss Embassy in Tehran which handles American interests in the Islamic republic. There are also third-party mediators, including Qatar, Oman, and Iraq, he said.

The U.S.-Iran prisoner swap worked out in September, which followed years of secret negotiations involving Gulf states and Switzerland, is the most recent example.

Under that deal, four Americans held hostage in Iran were released in exchange for Washington unfreezing $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue held up in South Korea.

As part of the agreement, according to Vaez, “Iran committed to rein in groups that were targeting U.S. interests in Iraq and Syria” and Washington received a commitment that Tehran would not supply ballistic missiles to Russia for use in Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

Shortly after Iran-backed Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, carried out its deadly assault on Israel on October 7, the unfrozen Iranian funds came under intense scrutiny. Republicans in the United States who are gearing up for the presidential election in November have been particularly vocal in criticizing the deal worked out by the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden.

In response, Washington worked out an agreement with Qatar, where the unfrozen Iranian funds were moved and to be released only for humanitarian purposes, to prevent Tehran from accessing them at all. But the deal has remained a hot-button issue.

The Gaza war and the ensuing resumption of attacks on U.S. forces and interests by Iran-backed groups have attracted even more political discord.

Africa News Video added by IC: “Iran will keep supporting Hezbollah – FM Amirabdollahian”

After Israel’s large-scale offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 27,000 Palestinians, Iran-backed militant groups have carried out attacks in solidarity with Hamas. The Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen have targeted maritime shipping and U.S. naval forces in the Red Sea. Meanwhile, Iran-backed militias in Iraq killed three U.S. soldiers in Jordan in a drone attack.

That, in turn, has led to U.S. and U.K. attacks on Huthi targets in Yemen, and by the United States against Iran-backed militias and Iranian-linked sites in Syria and Iraq.

Iran, for its part, has said that the axis of resistance, which it denies directing, would continue to carry out strikes until a permanent cease-fire is worked out to stop what it calls a genocide in Gaza. And in what was widely seen as a show of its capability to strike back in the event Iran itself is attacked, it has launched ballistic missile strikes against “enemy” targets in Iraq, Pakistan, and Syria, the latter of which showcased that Israel was within striking distance.

The recent spike in violence came after the United States had experienced “the longest period of quiet in the Middle East” from March until the Hamas assault on October 7, Vaez said.

That relative peace came about not because of displays of power, but because Iran and the United States were negotiating, Vaez said.

“It wasn’t because the U.S. had flexed its military muscle and deterred Iran, it was because it was engaged in diplomatic understandings with Iran that came to fruition and culminated in a detainee deal,” Vaez said.

Tehran and the United States, currently trading threats of ever-stronger responses, “are seeking to pressure each other into greater flexibility,” said Trita Parsi, co-founder of the Washington-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

“Both would like to get back to the truce they enjoyed prior to the October 7 attacks” by Hamas against Israel, Parsi said in written comments. “But whether the political will is available for real de-escalation remains unclear.”

“President Biden has been unmovable in his opposition to a cease-fire in Gaza thus far,” Parsi said, referring to mounting calls for a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hamas. “And without such a cease-fire, real de-escalation remains very unlikely.”

Military Message

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on February 6, halfway through his latest trip to the Middle East to reduce regional tensions, that a proposal for a temporary cease-fire put together with the help of Qatar and Egypt and presented to Hamas and Israel, was “possible and, indeed, essential.”

While details of the proposal have not been made public, Blinken said that the goal is to use any pause in fighting to address humanitarian and reconstruction needs in Gaza and “to continue to pave a diplomatic path forward to a just and lasting peace and security for the region.”

Asked by RFE/RL whether Washington is employing any diplomatic means, either directly or indirectly, to decrease tensions with Iran, a U.S. State Department spokesperson pointed to recent strikes carried out against Iranian-backed groups in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq.

“Our military response to the killing of three U.S. service members by Iran-aligned militia groups and our continued action to degrade the Huthis’ ability to threaten international shipping sends the clearest message of all: the United States will defend our personnel and our interests,” a U.S. State Department spokesman said in written comments on February 7.

“When we are attacked, we will respond strongly, and we will respond at a time and place of our choosing,” the spokesman said.

Prior to the deadly attack on the U.S. base in Jordan, there had been reports of Washington using third states to send a nonmilitary notice to Iran.

Shortly after the Hamas assault on Israel in October, the U.S. Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said that a congressional delegation to China had asked Beijing to exert its influence with Tehran to prevent the Israel-Hamas conflict from spreading.

In early January, the Lebanese news publication Al-Ahed News quoted Iran’s ambassador to Syria as saying that a delegation from an unidentified Gulf state had carried a message from the United States seeking to reduce the risk of an expanded regional conflict.

The U.S. State Department spokesperson said that beyond the recent U.S. strikes, “our message to Iran, in public and in private, has been a singular one: cease your support for terrorist groups and militant proxies and partners.”

Washington welcomes “any efforts by other countries to play a constructive role in trying to prevent these Iran-enabled attacks from taking place,” the spokesperson added, but referred to White House national-security spokesman John Kirby’s February 6 comment that “I know of no private messaging to Iran since the death of our soldiers in Jordan over a week ago.”

Lack Of Vision

The limits of diplomacy between the United States and Iran, according to Vatanka, “is not a lack of the ability to communicate, the problem is a lack of vision” to repair relations.

For political reasons and for a long time, Vantanka added, neither side has been interested in mending the bad blood that has existed between the two countries going back to 1979.

“Right now, the White House cannot afford to talk to Iran at a time when so many of Biden’s critics are saying he’s too soft on the Iranian regime,” Vatanka said. “On the other hand, you’ve got an Iranian supreme leader who is 84 years old. He’s really keen on two things: not to have a war with the Americans, because he doesn’t think that’s going to go well for Iran or his regime. But at the same time, he doesn’t want to see the Americans return to Tehran anytime soon. Certainly not when he’s alive.”

This, Vatanka explained, is because Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini “does not think the Americans want anything other than the fundamental objective of bringing about the end of the Islamic republic.”

The other major voice in Iranian foreign policy — the leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps — also see anti-Americanism as a worthwhile instrument to further their ideological and political aims at home and abroad, according to Vatanka.

“They think anti-Americanism is the ticket to mobilize the Islamic world around their flag and around their leadership,” Vatanka said.

More moderate voices when it comes to Iran’s foreign policy, Vatanka said, are labeled as traitors and weak and “are today essentially marginalized.”

Via RFE/RL

Although some officials focus on Israel’s intent, others consider the consequences of Israel’s actions for the people of Gaza.

This latest U.S. attack followed the U.S. bombing of seven targets on February 2, three in Iraq and four in Syria, with 125 bombs and missiles, killing at least 39 people, which Iran called “a strategic mistake” that would bring “disastrous consequences” for the Middle East.

At the same time, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been touring the shrinking number of capitals in the region where leaders will still talk to him, playing the United States’ traditional role as a dishonest broker between Israel and its neighbors, in reality partnering with Israel to offer the Palestinians impossible, virtually suicidal terms for a ceasefire in Gaza.

What Israel and the United States have proposed, but not made public, appears to be a second temporary ceasefire, during which prisoners or hostages would be exchanged, possibly leading to the release of all the Israeli security prisoners held in Gaza, but in no way leading to the final end of the genocide. If the Palestinians in fact freed all their Israeli hostages as part of a prisoner swap, it would remove the only obstacle to a catastrophic escalation of the genocide.

When Hamas responded with a serious counter-proposal for a full ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, Biden dismissed it out of hand as “over the top,” and Netanyahu called it “bizarre” and “delusional.” 

The position of the United States and Israel today is that ending a massacre that has already killed more than 27,700 people is not a serious option, even after the International Court of Justice has ruled it a plausible case of genocide under the Genocide Convention. Raphael Lemkin, the Polish holocaust survivor who coined the term genocide and drafted the Genocide Convention from his adopted home in New York City, must be turning in his grave in Mount Hebron Cemetery. 

The United States’ support for Israel’s genocidal policies now goes way beyond Palestine, with the U.S. expansion of the war to Iraq, Syria and Yemen to punish other countries and forces in the region for intervening to defend or support the Palestinians. U.S. officials claimed the February 2 attacks were intended to stop Iraqi Resistance attacks on U.S. bases. But the leading Iraqi resistance force had already suspended attacks against U.S. targets on January 30th after they killed three U.S. troops, declaring a truce at the urging of the Iranian and Iraqi governments.

A senior Iraqi military officer told BBC Persian that at least one of the Iraqi military units the U.S. bombed on February 2nd had nothing to do with attacks on U.S. bases. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani negotiated an agreement a year ago to clearly differentiate between Popular Mobilization Force (PMF) units that were part of the “Axis of Resistance” fighting a low-grade war with U.S. occupation forces, and other PMF units that were not involved in attacks on U.S. bases. 

Tragically, because the U.S. failed to coordinate its attacks with the Iraqi government, al-Sudani’s agreement failed to prevent the U.S. from attacking the wrong Iraqi forces. It is no wonder that some analysts have dubbed al-Sudani’s valiant efforts to prevent all-out war between U.S. forces and the Islamic Resistance in his country as “mission impossible.” 

Aljazeera English Video: “US carried out an airstrike in Iraq killing high-ranking member of an armed group linked to Iran”

Following the elaborately staged but carelessly misdirected U.S. attacks, Resistance forces in Iraq began launching new strikes on U.S. bases, including a drone attack that killed six Kurdish troops at the largest U.S. base in Syria. So the predictable effect of the U.S. bombing was in fact to rebuff Iran and Iraq’s efforts to rein in resistance forces and to escalate a war that U.S. officials keep claiming they want to deter.  

From experienced journalists and analysts to Middle Eastern governments, voices of caution are warning the United States in increasingly stark language of the dangers of its escalating bombing campaigns. “While the war rages in Gaza,” the BBC’s Orla Guerin wrote on February 4, “one false move could set the region alight.” 

Three days later, Guerin would be surrounded by protesters chanting “America is the greatest devil,” as she reported from the site of the U.S. drone assassination of Kataib Hezbollah leader Abu Baqir al-Saadi in Baghdad – which could prove to be exactly the false move she feared. 

But what Americans should be asking their government is this: Why are there still 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq? It is 21 years since the United States invaded Iraq and plunged the nation into seemingly endless violence, chaos and corruption; 12 years since Iraq forced U.S. occupation forces to withdraw from Iraq at the end of 2011; and 7 years since the defeat of ISIS, which served as justification for the United States to send forces back into Iraq in 2014, and then to obliterate most of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, in 2017.

Successive Iraqi governments and parliaments have asked the United States to withdraw its forces from Iraq, and previously scheduled talks are about to begin. But the Iraqis and Americans have issued contradictory statements about the goal of the negotiations. Prime Minister al-Sudani and most Iraqis hope they will bring about the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces, while U.S. officials insist that U.S. troops may remain for another two to five years, kicking this explosive can further down the road despite the obvious dangers it poses to the lives of U.S. troops and to peace in the region.

Behind these contradictory statements, the real value of Iraqi bases to the U.S. military does not seem to be about ISIS at all but about Iran. Although the United States has more than 40,000 troops stationed in 14 countries across the Middle East, and another 20,000 on warships in the seas surrounding them, the bases it uses in Iraq are its closest bases and airfields to Tehran and much of Iran. If the Pentagon loses these forward operating bases in Iraq, the closest bases from which it can attack Tehran will be Camp Arifjan and five other bases in Kuwait, where 13,500 U.S. troops would be vulnerable to Iranian counter-attacks – unless, of course, the U.S. withdraws them, too.

Toward the end of the Cold War, historian Gabriel Kolko observed in his book Confronting the Third World that the United States’ “endemic incapacity to avoid entangling, costly commitments in areas of the world that are of intrinsically secondary importance to [its] priorities has caused U.S. foreign policy and resources to whipsaw virtually arbitrarily from one problem and region to the other. The result has been the United States’ increasing loss of control over its political priorities, budget, military strategy and tactics, and, ultimately, its original economic goals.”

After the end of the Cold War, instead of restoring realistic goals and priorities, the neocons who gained control of U.S. foreign policy fooled themselves into believing that U.S. military and economic power could finally triumph over the frustratingly diverse social and political evolution of hundreds of countries and cultures all over the world. In addition to wreaking pointless mass destruction on country after country, this has turned the United States into the global enemy of the principles of democracy and self-determination that most Americans believe in.

The horror Americans feel at the plight of people in Gaza and the U.S. role in it is a shocking new low in this disconnect between the humanity of ordinary Americans and the insatiable ambitions of their undemocratic leaders. 

While working for an end to the U.S. government’s support for Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people, Americans should also be working for the long-overdue withdrawal of U.S. occupying forces from Iraq, Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies are the authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books in November 2022.

However, Blinken was also asked about his recent meeting with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the possibility of normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Blinken said (as quoted by the US Department of State): “But with regard specifically to normalization, the crown prince reiterated Saudi Arabia’s strong interest in pursuing that. But he also made clear what he had said to me before, which is that in order to do that two things are required: an end to the conflict in Gaza and a clear, credible, time-bound path to the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

In other words, the Saudis are strongly in favour of normalisation but, in addition to ending the conflict in Gaza, they believe that there should be a “clear, credible, time-bound path to the establishment of a Palestinian state.” This paints a fairly rosy and optimistic picture of Israel-Saudi negotiations and the prospects for normalisation of relations.

Shortly after that press conference, the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement which puts the record straight and which seems to contradict the main thrust of what Blinken said. The difference between what Blinken said and what the statement of the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs stresses is stark and revealing.

There has been a “clear, credible, time-bound path to the establishment of a Palestinian state” for the past 30 years, called the Oslo Accords. However, despite that process, which has been as long as a piece of string, the Israelis and especially Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu have opposed it and prevented its implementation.

What the Saudis are clearly saying is that they are not happy with a similar process, but want to go back to the Saudi Plan for the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, as well as a reference to the Palestinian refugee problem and the right of the Palestinians to return to their occupied land.

That plan was adopted unanimously by all the members of the Arab League in 2002 at their summit in Beirut. Subsequently, it was also approved by all 57 states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (formerly known as the Organisation of Islamic Conference) at a summit meeting that was held in Riyadh, including Iran which was represented by President Mahmud Ahmadinezhad. The Palestinian Authority led by Yasser Arafat immediately embraced the plan.

In 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also expressed tentative support for the Initiative, but in 2018 he rejected it as a basis for future negotiations with the Palestinians. In his infamous speech at the United Nations’ General Assembly on 22 September 2023 in New York, he held a map of “The New Middle East”, with Palestine completely wiped out. The elimination of Palestinian territories from the map of the Middle East angered the Palestinians and was one of the reasons that led to the 7^th October attack by Hamas militants on Israel. Since the start of the Gaza war, Netanyahu has emphatically opposed the establishment of a Palestinian state and has even said that it will reoccupy Gaza for the foreseeable future.

The statement by the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs clearly shows that the Saudis are not happy with Israeli policies and that there will be no prospect of normalizing relations with Israel under the current circumstances.

It states: “The Kingdom has communicated its firm position to the U.S. administration that there will be no diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognised on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, and that the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip stops and all the Israeli occupation forces withdraw from the Gaza Strip. The Kingdom reiterates its call to the permanent members of the UN Security Council that have not yet recognized the Palestinian state, to expedite the recognition of the Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, so that the Palestinian people can obtain their legitimate rights and so that a comprehensive and just peace is achieved for all.”    

Video: “Saudi Arabia: No Israel ties without recognition of Palestinian state” | Latest English News | WION

Abraham Accords

Towards the end of the Trump Administration (between August 2020 and January 2021), a series of agreements were reached between the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and Israel to normalise their relations, which came to be known as the Abraham Accords. The ceremonies were held with great fanfare on the Truman Balcony of the White House, hosted by President Trump, flanked by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, in order to give the impression that they represented major and historic peace agreements. It should be stressed that at least the first three countries on the list were not at war with Israel and in fact had covert cordial relations with her.

A close examination of the Abraham Accords shows that they were a series of cynical moves to bribe some Arab regimes to normalise relations with Israel by bypassing the Palestinians. Israel’s long-term plan to isolate and bypass the Palestinians by reaching agreements with Arab regimes outside the immediate neighbourhood was enthusiastically championed by Pompeo and Kushner, and behind them by Netanyahu.

The UAE wanted to buy some advanced US weapons, including F-35 fighter jets. They were promised that they would be able to buy them if they normalised relations with Israel. After doing so, the United States reneged because Congress opposed the sale of those sophisticated weapons to the UAE. Once the UAE decided to normalise relations with Israel, little Bahrain also decided to follow suit.

In 1993, Sudan was first added to the list of states that sponsored terrorism, but the overthrow of President Al-Bashir in April 2019 improved relations between Sudan and the United States and in December 2019 the two countries announced their intention to exchange ambassadors. Sudan’s Ambassador to the United States presented his credentials in September 2020.

US government promised to remove Sudan from the State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST) list if the Sudanese government agreed to normalise relations with Israel. Sudan agreed, and on 14 December 2000 the US Government removed Sudan from the SST list, just in time for Sudan to normalise her relations with Israel and to join the Abraham Accords. Of course, after the breakout of the latest civil war in Sudan between various army factions, the situation has gone from bad to worse.

There has been a long-lasting conflict between Morocco and the Polisario Front, backed by Algeria, about the ownership of the Western Sahara. Large parts of Western Sahara were controlled by the Moroccan Government and known as the Southern Provinces, whereas some 20% of the Western Sahara was controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), the Polisario state with limited international recognition.

The United Nations officially considers Morocco and the Polisario Front as the main parties to the conflict and has called on them to reach a negotiated settlement. The Obama administration disassociated itself from the Moroccan autonomy plan in 2009 and put the option of an independent Western Sahara on the table. Clearly, the issue had to be settled by the UN negotiation through consultation with both sides. However, Trump unilaterally and illegally gifted the Sahara to Morocco if she normalised relations with Israel.

Then it was the turn of Saudi Arabia, which came under enormous pressure to normalise relations with Israel but, even before the events of 7^th October, Saudi Arabia refused to join the Abraham Accords without the acceptance of the two-state solution by Israel. The latest statement by the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows that Saudi normalisation of relations with Israel is dead in the water, at least for the time being.

Of course, genuine peace between Israel and the Arab states would be very Welcome, provided that it brought with it positive gains for both sides and was not at the expense of the Palestinians.

Instead of rejecting those phony agreements and pushing for some real and lasting solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Biden Administration supported those agreements and even pressured Saudi Arabia to join them. The realization of total US support, created a feeling of impunity among the Israeli right-wing government and was responsible for excessive demands by Netanyahu’s latest extreme right government, which contributed to the disastrous terrorist attack on 7^th October and Israel’s indiscriminate war and genocide in Gaza.

Given the events of the past four months and the collective punishment that Israeli government has inflicted on Gaza and the West Bank, it would be highly unlikely that any Arab government would dare to normalise relations with Israel due to their fear of their own populations.

A Statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the discussions between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States of America on the Arab-Israeli peace process:

The “peacetime” that followed the devastation of those two cities and the killing of at least 100,000 Japanese civilians in them would, for the next 46 years, be stoked by what came to be known as the Cold War. In it, a nuclear-armed America and a soon-to-be-nuclear-armed Soviet Union, as well as its “commie” — the term of the time — allies, faced off against each other globally. (Estimates done for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1961 suggested that a full-scale U.S. nuclear attack on the Soviet Union and Communist China would then have killed between 200 million and 600 million people.) Both sides would rush to create vast nuclear arsenals able not just to obliterate the United States and the Soviet Union, but the planet itself, while, in the course of the next three-quarters of a century, seven other countries would, cheerily enough, join the nuclear “club.”

Two of the countries waging war at this moment, Russia and Israel, are nuclear powers. And today, more than 78 years after those atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with perhaps 1,700 nuclear weapons deployed (most of them staggeringly more powerful than those first atomic bombs), the U.S. is in the midst of a multi-decade “modernization” of its nuclear arsenal to the tune of at least $1.5 trillion and possibly far more.

All in all, consider that quite an inheritance from that childhood of mine.

We kids grew up then amid what I came to call a “victory culture” — and what a potentially devastating culture that proved to be! Doesn’t the very thought of it leave you with the urge to dive under the nearest desk (something that, in my youth, was called “duck and cover” and that we kids practiced at school in case a Russian nuclear bomb were to go off over New York City)? Yes, there would indeed be a certain amount of ducking and covering of all kinds during that 40-odd year-long Cold War with the Soviet Union. After all, for the U.S., it involved a deeply unsatisfying war in Korea in the early 1950s and a bitter disaster of a war in Vietnam in the 1960s and early 1970s, fearsome anti-communist crusades at home, and Washington’s support across the planet not just for democracies but for quite a crew of autocrats (like the Shah of Iran).

Still, domestically the U.S. became a distinctly well-off land. In the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement grew to challenge the racial hell that was the inheritance of slavery in this country and, by the end of the Cold War, Americans were generally living better than ever before.

Of course, a grotesque version of inequality was already starting to spiral out of control as this country gained ever more billionaires, including a fellow named — yes! — Donald Trump who would be no one’s apprentice. But in all those years, one thing few here would have imagined was that American-style democracy itself might, at some moment, prove increasingly out of fashion for a distinct subset, if not a majority, of Americans.

If I Had Told You…

Now, let’s take a leap from the end of the Cold War in 1991 to the present moment and the question is: What are we headed for? Sadly, the answer (no given, but certainly a possibility) could indeed be an all-American version of fascism, brownshirts included, should Donald Trump be reelected in a chaotic November to come, including — absolutely guaranteed! — a contested election result (and god knows what else) if he isn’t.

Honestly, tell me that you even believe this world we’re supposedly living in exists!

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As I approach 80, I find just being in it increasingly unnerving. Wherever I look, nothing seems to be faintly working right. It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about our secretary of defense disappearing as this year began (yes, at my age I can empathize with an older guy who doesn’t want to share information about his prostate cancer, but still…); the increasingly extreme and disturbingly fascistic — a word I once reserved for Francisco Franco, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, and the war my father fought in — bent to what’s still called the “Republican” Party; the utter madness of one whale of a guy, Donald Trump, and the possibility that such madness could attract a majority of American voters in 2024; the urge of “my” president, that old Cold Warrior Joe Biden, to bomb his way into a larger, far more disastrous war in the Middle East (and who cares whether that bombing is faintly “working” or not?); oh, and (to make sure this is my longest paragraph ever) when some of that bombing is being done to “protect” American troops in Iraq and Syria (not to speak of those who recently were wounded or died in — yes! — Jordan), who cares why in the world our soldiers are stationed there in the first place; not to speak of the all-too-unstoppable human urge to set parts of our globe aflame with war after war (and don’t forget the way those wars throw staggering amounts of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, so that it isn’t just Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Ukraine, or Gaza burning but, in some sense, our whole planet); and, of course, the fact that we humans seem bent on all too literally heating this world to the boiling point in a fashion that, historically speaking, should (but for all too many of us doesn’t) seem beyond devastating. I mean, give us credit, since 2023 was the hottest year by far in human history and yet, some years down the line, it may seem almost cool in comparison to what’s coming.

And consider that paragraph — possibly the longest I’ve ever written — my welcome mat to the 2024 version of our world. And welcome, as well, to a country whose leaders, in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed, felt distinctly on top of this planet of ours in every imaginable sense. They saw the U.S. then as the ultimate superpower (or perhaps I mean: THE ULTIMATE SUPERPOWER!!!), a power of one and one alone. After some rugged years on the foreign policy front, including that disastrous war in Vietnam that left Americans feeling anything but triumphant, victory culture was back in a big-time fashion. And that, unbelievably enough, was only a little more than three decades ago. Yet today, while the Biden administration pours weaponry into Israel and bombs and missiles into Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East, who would claim that the United States (or any other country for that matter) was the “lone superpower” on this planet?

In fact, in 2007, with this country’s post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq already dragging on disastrously, I wrote a new introduction to my book on victory culture and it was already clear to me that “perhaps when the history of this era is written, among the more striking developments will have been the inability of a mighty empire to force its will or its way on others in the normal fashion almost anywhere on the planet. Since the Soviet Union evaporated, the fact is that most previously accepted indices of power — military power in particular — have been challenged and, in the process, victory has been denied.”

In historical terms, that should be seen as a remarkably swift fall from grace in a world where this country hasn’t been able to win a war in living memory (despite having something like 750 military bases scattered across the globe and a near-trillion-dollar “defense” budget that leaves the next 10 countries combined in the dust). These days, in fact, the former lone superpower seems in danger of coming apart at the seams domestically, if not in an actual civil war (though there are certainly enough weapons of a devastating kind in civilian hands to launch one), then in some kind of a strange Trumpbacchanalia.

Yes, if we were in 1991 and I told you that, in an election season 32 years later, the very phrase “civil war” would no longer just be a reference to a distant historical memory of the Blue and the Gray, but part of everyday conversation and media reportage, you would have laughed me out of the room. Similarly, if I had told you that a strange yellow-haired man sporting an eerie grimace, a former 14-season TV apprentice (rocked by divorces and bankruptcies), would have won the presidency and then, three years after leaving office, be back at it again, reveling in the mere 91 criminal charges outstanding against him in four cases (not to speak of two civil trials) and campaigning on a promise of a one-day dictatorship on his first day back in office when he would, above all else, just “drill, drill, drill,” you would undoubtedly have thought me mad as a hatter.

If I had told you then that North Korea — yes, North Korea! — might have a missile that could reach the United States with a nuclear weapon and that its ruler (the man President Trump first called “a sick puppy” and later a “great leader”) was threatening his southern neighbor with nuclear war, would you have believed it? If I had told you then that the U.S. was fervently backing its ally Israel, after its own version of 9/11, in a war in Gaza in which staggering amounts of housing, as well as hospitals and schools in that 25-mile strip of land were being destroyed, damaged, or put out of action, more than 27,000 Palestinians (including thousands of children) slaughtered, 85% of the population turned into refugees, and perhaps half of them now in danger of starvation, would you have believed me? I doubt it. If I had told you that, more than 22 years after its own 9/11, my country would still be fighting the “war on terror” it launched then, would you have believed me? I doubt that, too.

If I had told you that, in 2024, the two candidates for president would be 81 and 77 years old (keep in mind that the oldest American president previously, Ronald Reagan, left office at age 77); that one of them would look ancient wherever he went and whatever he did, while the other, on the campaign trail, would begin slurring his words, while mixing up his Republican opponent with the former Democratic House leader, what might you think? (Oh, and don’t forget that the leader of the Senate Republicans, Mitch McConnell, is almost 82 and last year froze twice while speaking with reporters.)

Honestly, could you have ever imagined such an ancient version of an all-American world — the world of a distinctly disintegrating superpower? And yet given how we humans are acting, the U.S. could well prove to be the last superpower ever. Who knows if, in a future that seems to be heading downhill fast in an endless blaze of heat, any country, including China, could become a superpower.

Kissing It All Goodbye?

In all those years past, the one thing few could have imagined was that democracy itself might begin to go out of fashion right here in the U.S. of A.

Of course, the question now is: What are we headed for? And the answer could indeed be an all-American version of fascism, should Donald Trump be reelected this year, or an unimaginably chaotic scene if he isn’t.

And by the way, don’t blame Donald Trump for all of this. Consider him instead the biggest Symptom — and given that giant Wendy’s burger of a man, the word does need to be capitalized — around!

Imagine this: in a mere 30-plus years, we’ve moved from a world with a “lone superpower” to one in which it’s becoming harder to imagine a super anything on a planet that’s threatening to go down in a welter of wars, as well as unprecedented droughts, fires, floods, storms, and heat.

And if Donald Trump were to be elected, we would also find ourselves in an almost unimaginable version of — yes! — defeat culture (and maybe that will have to be the title of the book I’ll undoubtedly never write after I turn 80 and am headed downhill myself).

But don’t make me go on! Honestly, you know just as well as I do that, if the man who only wants to “drill, drill, drill” ends up back in the White House, you can more or less kiss this country (which already happens to be the biggest oil producer and natural gas exporter around) and possibly this planet goodbye. And if he doesn’t… well, you may have to kiss it goodbye anyway.

And that would be defeat culture, big time.

Copyright 2024 Tom Engelhardt

Via Tomdispatch.com

( Middle East Monitor ) – One of the most prominent results of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza and its residents, who were cornered in Rafah on the Egyptian border to force them to migrate to Sinai, is the spread of Arab and international awareness and informing the public of the importance of the Palestinian issue, after its decline and marginalisation.

The Trump administration also succeeded, in exchange for gains, in reaching the “Deal of the century”, or the Abraham Accords, to integrate Israel into the Arab environment by normalising and establishing diplomatic relations with the UAE and Bahrain in the heart of the Arabian Gulf, and with Sudan and Morocco. This is at the expense of the Palestinian cause and not for its benefit, and violates the Arab initiative agreed upon by the Arabs at the Arab Summit in Beirut in 2002, “Land for Peace”, that is, Israeli withdrawal from all occupied Arab Territories in exchange for full Arab recognition of Israel and normalising relations with it.

As the war on Gaza turned into a costly war of attrition for both sides and with it entering its fifth month, the war brought the Palestinian cause to the forefront and highlighted the systematic, brutal Israeli behaviour against the Palestinians. It also exposed the crimes committed by the Occupation, which have been documented over 75 years, and put an end to the decline in the status of the Palestinian issue, despite the repeated closing statements issued at Arab summits and meetings, stating that the Palestinian issue remains their central issue.

Today, we are witnessing signs of the expansion of the war with the first round of American retaliation against targets belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Iranian-backed factions in Syria and Iraq and, before that, against the Houthis in Yemen.

In light of this, the US and British foreign ministers announced their idea of recognising a demilitarised Palestinian state as a solution to ending the Arab-Israeli conflict and the recurring Gaza wars.

However, these promises, which have been repeated for decades, hit obstacles that are difficult to overcome, starting with the position of Netanyahu and his partners in his government, the most extreme in the history of occupation governments, including the Religious Zionism Party, which is given a biblical religious aspect and which believes in the right to establish the Greater State of Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates and refuses to demarcate the borders. Netanyahu personally bragged that he rejects the Oslo Accords, 30 years after it was signed between Rabin and Yasser Arafat through the mediation of President Clinton in 1993, which led to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu also boasts and publicly reiterates his rejection of the two-state solution because it threatens Israel’s security, providing the example of Hamas’s operation against Israel as the Al-Aqsa Flood. This embarrasses President Biden and his vision of promoting the importance of establishing a Palestinian State to end the conflict.

The challenge for those who promote the two-state solution, which seems to be a mirage is, first, how to reach a ceasefire and end the war of genocide, as well as convince the most extremist government that blatantly and publicly rejects the two-state solution to accept the two-state solution vision.

The important question is: How serious is the American-British proposal? How can the two-state solution be achieved, which continues to be the vision and strategy adopted by successive American administrations? The US State Department spokesman confirmed at the end of January, “We are actively pursuing the establishment of an independent Palestinian State, with real security guarantees for Israel, because we do believe that is the best way to bring about lasting peace and security for Israel, for Palestinians and for the region.” US news site, Axios, reported Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, asked the State Department to conduct a review and present policy options on possible US and international recognition of a Palestinian State after the war in Gaza and considering not using its veto to block the UN Security Council.

CIA Director, William Burns, stressed, in an important article in Foreign Affairs magazine, a few days ago, the need for “resurrecting hope for a durable peace that ensures Israel’s security as well as Palestinian statehood and takes advantage of historic opportunities for normalisation with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.”

Guardian News Video: “David Cameron: UK could recognise a Palestinian state before a deal with Israel”

However, Biden’s positions are complicated, by his insistence on refusing to stop the war and providing the Israeli killing machine with weapons and cover. This is despite the differences and disagreements between Tel Aviv and Washington, the increased disputes within the Israeli war government, Biden’s expansion of his war in the region and the role of Congress, along with the House of Representatives, in supporting a bill banning the entry of all members of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and members of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad Movements into the US. These are all challenges that are difficult to overcome!

Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, confirmed that the British government is thinking of recognising the Palestinian State, and that the Palestinians must be given a political horizon to encourage peace in the Middle East. This is an interesting position from the UK, which has a colonial past, the Balfour Declaration and has paved the way for the establishment of the Occupying entity and the division of Palestine.

Meanwhile, President Biden, after a long wait, issued an executive order imposing US Treasury sanctions on 4 settlers involved in violence in the West Bank for threatening the security and interests of the US, as if the problem lies in the violence of the settlers and not in the approach and the American administrations’ empowerment and enablement of Israel’s governments, and especially Netanyahu, the most extremist Prime Minister in the history of the Occupation, to allow groups of settlers to wreak havoc, destruction and abuse on the Palestinians, their property, farms and crops, by destroying and burning them, and even allowing them to kill the Palestinians in the West Bank.

Journalist, Thomas Friedman, in the New York Times, who is close to decision-makers in the US, also promotes and explains a clear doctrine adopted by President Biden, consisting of three tracks. One of those tracks is working to develop an unprecedented American diplomatic initiative to promote a Palestinian State, which would “involve some form of US recognition of a demilitarised Palestinian State in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that would come into being only once Palestinians had developed a set of defined, credible institutions and security capabilities to ensure that this State was viable and that it could never threaten Israel. Biden administration officials have been consulting experts inside and outside the US government about different forms this recognition of Palestinian statehood might take.”

However, the clear truth is that the best that can be expected after marathon negotiations without specifying a time limit is not a fully sovereign State, but rather a “demilitarised Palestinian State” that is preceded by pressures to proceed with normalisation with the Arab environment, especially the biggest prize: Saudi Arabia. This completely reverses the Arab initiative by granting normalisation before the establishment of the alleged Palestinian State, so let us not be fooled by the promotion of the two-state solution illusion.

This article first appeared in Arabic in Al-Quds on 4 February, 2024

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

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Via Middle East Monitor