At the time of writing, the Cairo talks to reach a hostage ceasefire deal in Gaza, which lasted for two days, have moved to Doha, Qatar. There is no indication that it is closer to completion than at any time in the last three weeks, despite some press leaks by unnamed Egyptian security officials one day before that the talks saw “positive progress.” To demonstrate its commitment to wrapping up the deal, the American administration had sent CIA Director William Burns to Cairo. He travelled to Doha Sunday.
Previously, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on his seventh tour of the Middle East since 7 October last year, had said that Hamas is the only obstacle to sealing a ceasefire deal emphasising all along that there had been a “generous” proposal by Israel in this respect.
In the thick of negotiations last week, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israeli forces would enter Rafah with or without a deal. When asked about this statement, Secretary Blinken said that people say things, and what is more important is what they do.
Lest his true intentions be misunderstood, Netanyahu reaffirmed his opposition to a ceasefire in Gaza earlier today, saying that his country would not surrender to Hamas’ demands for a permanent ceasefire.
In a phone call with Netanyahu on 5 May, the President of France Emmanuel Macron reportedly “encouraged” the Israeli prime minister to go ahead and push for a deal that could lead to the release of hostages, a ceasefire, and regional de-escalation. Moreover, the French president reiterated his “firm opposition” to an Israeli incursion into Rafah, stressing the need to guarantee the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
Whether the Doha talks will yield a breakthrough in the ceasefire negotiations is hard to tell, but it is certain that even with a deal on hand the road ahead will still be difficult with no guarantees that the deal will stand the test of time, taking into account domestic political considerations in both Israel and the United States. Pressures and counter pressures around the ceasefire in Gaza and the day after, in addition to the path forward for the establishment of a Palestinian state, have so far been impediments to formulating a regional consensus on the steps needed to restore security, stability, and peace in the Middle East.
In remarks he made on Thursday 2 May concerning the student protests at universities across the United States, President Biden supported free speech and the right to peaceful protests but opposed acts of violence as well as both antisemitism and Islamophobia. However, he insisted that events on the university campuses have not led him to reconsider his policies in the Middle East. Such an attitude on his part doesn’t help in reassuring the Hamas leaders that American assurances for a sustained ceasefire have any kind of validity in case of Israelis deciding to violate the agreement whenever they choose. There is no doubt that the Biden administration is sincere in its efforts to reach a hostage-return ceasefire in Gaza, and that it has shown willingness to work with its regional partners and the Palestinian Authority to lay the bases for an independent Palestinian state, but its overriding priority has been the normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
In an interview with Edward Luce of the Financial Times, in last weekend’s edition (Saturday-Sunday, 4-5 May), the White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that a three-way deal between the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia is essential to an “integrated vision” for peace in the Middle East. He added that he expects President Biden and other senior officials in his administration to expand further on “the path we believe could produce a more peaceful region”. He defined this “integrated vision” in these terms: “The integrated vision is a bilateral understanding between the United States and Saudi Arabia combined with normalisation between Israel and Saudi Arabia, combined with meaningful steps on behalf of the Palestinian people.” In this definition lie the difficulties that lie ahead. It contains firm and concrete steps towards the establishment of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel but it speaks in very vague terms of “meaningful steps on behalf of the Palestinian people”.
If we look back on the last four decades of peace-making in the Middle East, we are confronted with the fact that American administrations in drafting grand schemes for peace in the Middle East have always prioritised the normalisation of relations between Arab countries and Israel while relegating the peaceful resolution of the Palestinian question to a lower priority. This perennial strategy proved disastrous on 7 October, 2023.
To avert a repeat of the attacks that had targeted Israel last October, normalisation of Arab-Israeli relations should go hand in hand with concrete steps towards the establishment of an independent and a sovereign state of Palestine. Reaching a ceasefire deal in the absence of such a two-track strategy won’t make any difference in the medium or long term as far as regional security and stability are concerned.
The writer is former assistant foreign minister.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 9 May, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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