Two weeks before the US presidential elections on 5 November, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken headed for the Middle East on his 11th visit since October 2023. In his latest tour of the region, which lasted from 21 to 25 October, Blinken visited Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and then the UK. In London, he conferred with his Jordanian and Emirati counterparts.
The visit came in a different political context compared to the previous ten tours.
A few days earlier, Israeli forces operating in the Rafah area killed head of the Hamas Political Bureau Yahya Sinwar, the Palestinian leader who planned and oversaw the 7 October attacks against Israel last year.
Both the US administration and to a lesser degree the Israeli government saw the disappearance of Sinwar as an opportunity to move forward on the question of the release of the hostages from captivity by Hamas. However, the two sides do not share the same definition of what “moving forward” means and whether we are talking about a ceasefire in Gaza or on the day after the war ceases.
After Blinken’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the latter’s office put out a statement in which the emphasis was on the release of the hostages in Gaza. It added that the most important thing was to have a unified position vis-à-vis Iran. Two days later, the Israelis launched their long-expected attack on Iran in retaliation for the Iranian missile attacks on Israel on 1 October.
From a US point of view, as expressed by Blinken, Israel has achieved its “strategic objectives” in its war on Gaza. I guess he had the Israeli attacks on Lebanon in mind when he said this, adding that the time has come to end the wars on Gaza and in Lebanon, although he also made it clear that reaching a ceasefire in Gaza was separate from finding a diplomatic solution in Lebanon.
“Since October 7 of 2023, Israel has achieved important strategic objectives in ensuring that October 7 can never happen again,” Blinken said. It is here that the US and Israeli positions diverge, at least until a new administration takes office in January 2025.
For the Biden administration, as spelled out by Blinken, “there are really two things left to do: get the hostages home and bring the war to an end with an understanding of what will follow.” He outlined, and rightly so, three major questions, namely security, governance, and the reconstruction of Gaza after the guns fall silent.
One of the results of the 11th visit by Blinken to the Middle East was the resumption of the ceasefire and hostage-release talks that came to an end two months ago. As a reminder, the previous talks centred on the implementation of the three-stage outline, or road map, announced by US President Joe Biden on 31 May and later adopted in UN Security Council Resolution 2710 in June.
It seems that the resumed talks will differ in approach, but the hoped-for end result will remain the same – in other words, a permanent ceasefire in Gaza followed by the withdrawal of Israeli forces. The Israelis said that they would participate in the resumed talks in the context of a “new framework” without elaborating the details of this, though I suspect it will concentrate on the release of the Israeli hostages in Gaza without a commitment to a total ceasefire let alone the withdrawal of Israeli forces.
Meanwhile, the military confrontation between Israel and Iran is continuing, and in the wake of the Israeli attacks on Iran on 26 October there have been no signs that either side is interested in closing the vicious circle of attacks, counterattacks, and mutual retaliation.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei wrote on X after the Saturday attacks that the “Zionists are making a miscalculation with respect to Iran. They don’t know Iran. They still haven’t been able to correctly understand the power, initiative, and determination of the Iranian people. We need to make them understand these things.”
In a statement, the Iranian Foreign Ministry also said that “on the basis of its inherent right to legitimate defence, stipulated in… Article 51 of the United Nations Charter… Iran considers itself to be rightfully and duty bound to defend against the foreign acts of aggression.”
On 27 October, Netanyahu boasted that the Israeli attack on Iran “was precise and powerful and achieved its objectives”.
Regardless of the results of the ceasefire talks, and despite the diplomatic efforts of the Biden administration, the region remains a hostage to the war by proxy and the direct military confrontation between Israel and Iran.
The writer is former assistant foreign minister.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 31 October, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
Short link: