{"id":114282,"date":"2023-11-05T07:46:44","date_gmt":"2023-11-05T12:46:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=114282"},"modified":"2023-11-05T07:46:44","modified_gmt":"2023-11-05T12:46:44","slug":"biden-faces-uphill-battle-to-contain-war-in-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2023\/11\/05\/biden-faces-uphill-battle-to-contain-war-in-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden Faces Uphill Battle to Contain War in Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"VOA \u2014 WASHINGTON \u2014 <\/span>Until the Israel-Hamas war, President Joe Biden\u2019s foreign policy goals in the Middle East were to further integrate Israel with its Arab neighbors and to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Both of those goals may now be in jeopardy as he focuses on keeping the conflict from spiraling into a regional war involving Iran-backed combatants in Lebanon, Yemen and Syria.<\/p>\n

Biden has spoken nine times with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since the conflict broke out, said a senior administration official briefing reporters Friday. The official said Biden has also spoken to regional leaders \u2014 including those of Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia \u2014 while national security adviser Jake Sullivan has engaged \u201calmost daily\u201d with partners in the region.<\/p>\n

As Arab capitals erupt in anti-Israel demonstrations, U.S. officials believe the provision of humanitarian relief for Palestinian civilians in Gaza is a key to containing the war.<\/p>\n

On Friday and Saturday, Biden\u2019s top diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, was back in the region for the second time in less than a month to push for humanitarian pauses to allow for increased aid deliveries into the Gaza Strip and the evacuation of civilians.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to do more to protect Palestinian civilians,\u201d Blinken declared in Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu, however, ordered thousands of Palestinian migrant workers back to Gaza and said Israel will neither allow fuel into the territory nor agree to a temporary stop in fighting that does not include a hostage release. More than 200 people were captured by Hamas during its October 7 attack on Israel and at least 1,400 were killed.<\/p>\n

Blinken will be met with opposing demands in a meeting with his Arab counterparts in Amman, Jordan, on Saturday. Washington\u2019s Arab partners are pushing for a more sustained cease-fire in Gaza, where Israeli attacks have killed more than 9,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry there.<\/p>\n

Observers say that even if the U.S. can navigate the diplomatic stand-off in the short term, it must also keep an eye on the political horizon \u2014 laying the groundwork for decisions about who will govern post-war Gaza and how to achieve a two-state solution.<\/p>\n

Containing the conflict<\/strong><\/p>\n

The United States is \u201cdetermined that there not be a second or third front opened in this conflict,\u201d Blinken said. It has deployed military assets to the region as a deterrent.<\/p>\n

On Israel\u2019s northern border with Lebanon, Hezbollah, a powerful militia and Hamas ally, has been engaged in cross-border fighting with Israeli soldiers. On Friday, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah stopped short of announcing his militia would fully enter the conflict but warned the U.S. that if Israel did not stop its assault on Gaza, the conflict could widen.<\/p>\n

Yemen\u2019s Houthi rebels on Tuesday claimed responsibility for missile and drone strikes targeting Israel, following the group\u2019s attacks last month that were intercepted by U.S. ships in the Red Sea.<\/p>\n

American troops in Iraq and Syria have also been under attack from Iran-allied groups, prompting concerns about strikes on other U.S. bases across the region.<\/p>\n

Violence is also escalating in the West Bank, where more than 100 Palestinians have been killed in fights with Israeli soldiers and armed Israeli settlers.<\/p>\n

Barbara Slavin, distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center, said the longer Israel\u2019s offensive on Gaza goes on, the more militancy brews in the region, the higher the risk of miscalculation and the harder it will be to contain the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cArab public opinion is inflamed by these terrible scenes [in Gaza],\u201d she told VOA. Even countries that have recently normalized relations with Israel, including United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, are under growing public pressure to sever those ties.<\/p>\n

Biden has repeatedly warned Iran and its proxies not to escalate the conflict. Tehran officials have also declared they do not want to widen the war.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\"A<\/div>\n<\/div>
A man in Tel Aviv walks past graffiti of Joe Biden that depicts the U.S. president as a superhero defending Israel on Oct. 30, 2023. Biden, whose popularity in Israel has soared because of his support in its war with Hamas, has repeatedly warned Iran not to escalate the conflict.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Iran likes \u201cto be on the brink of a conflict without crossing that brink,\u201d said Elisheva Machlis, senior lecturer of Middle East Studies at Bar-Ilan University. She told VOA that Iran is likely instructing its proxies not to create another front in the war but to cause just enough problems to draw the Israeli military\u2019s attention away from Gaza.<\/p>\n

With the potential for miscalculation, that strategy could backfire even if Tehran has no desire to get directly involved.<\/p>\n

What happens next?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Both Israel and the U.S. have ruled out a return to a Hamas-controlled Gaza and largely agree that Israel will not govern the territory post-war. The allies differ on what happens next, with Washington insisting that the goal of the war cannot be only to defeat Hamas but must also be to work toward a two-state solution.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt some point, what would make the most sense is for an effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority to have governance and ultimately security responsibility for Gaza,\u201d Blinken told the Senate Appropriations Committee earlier this week.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s office has released a statement saying the goal of the war is the elimination of Hamas and that \u201ctalk of decisions to hand over the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority or any other party is a lie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike Hamas, the Palestinian Authority recognizes Israel and supports a two-state solution. Plagued by corruption and deeply unpopular with its own people in the West Bank, it has declared no interest in assuming power in Gaza on the back of an Israeli military victory.<\/p>\n

Blinken promised to talk to partners about \u201cwhat will happen once Hamas is defeated,\u201d beginning with the Saturday summit in Amman. At his Senate hearing, Blinken said if a permanent solution to Gaza cannot be achieved in one step, there are \u201cother temporary arrangements\u201d involving countries in the region and international agencies to provide security and governance.<\/p>\n

In Amman, Blinken will discuss the \u201ccritical importance\u201d of having a unified governance in Gaza and the West Bank and putting the foundation in place for a \u201cvery serious\u201d process that will lead to a two-state solution, the senior administration official said.<\/p>\n

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, fellow for the Middle East at the Baker Institute, said there is also a need to ensure there is no further radicalization and empowerment of extremists across the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be a need for Arab states to take the lead in trying to devise some sort of policy response which can tackle the underlying issues as well as the most immediate ones which prompted this attack on October 7,\u201d he told VOA.<\/p>\n

Hamas has cited Israel\u2019s decades-long occupation of the West Bank, Israeli police raids on Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, and the detention of thousands of Palestinians in Israeli jails as motivation for its attack.<\/p>\n

Securing a pause in fighting will be the first challenge to both the administration\u2019s short-term goal of protecting Palestinian civilians and the longer-term aim of working toward a lasting peace in the region.<\/p>\n

In what may be the clearest signal on the U.S. position on Arab demands for an indefinite cease-fire, the senior administration official said it \u201cdepends on the Israelis feeling secure\u201d that something like Hamas\u2019 October 7 massacre cannot happen again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VOA \u2014 WASHINGTON \u2014 Until the Israel-Hamas war, President Joe Biden\u2019s foreign policy goals in the Middle East were to further integrate Israel with its Arab neighbors and to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Both of those goals may now be in jeopardy as he focuses on keeping the conflict from spiraling into a regional war […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":114283,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latests"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114282"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114285,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114282\/revisions\/114285"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}