Presidential election debates have become a must-see event in the election cycle in the United States. The first such debate was held in 1960 between Democrat John F Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon. The latter was vice-president at the time, and he faced a young senator who happened to be a Catholic.
The candidate of the Democratic Party became the first Catholic president of the United States.
This year, the first presidential election debate took place in Atlanta, Georgia, on 27 June between President Joe Biden and former Republican president Donald Trump. It was followed by 50 million Americans and by hundreds of millions around the world.
It took place in the context of a world in crisis, or, I would say, in turmoil. There are wars raging in Gaza and Ukraine, in addition to rising tensions between the two Koreas and an uncertain situation in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. As a result, it was to be expected that the debate, hosted by the US network CNN, would be followed closely around the world, with people searching for clues on how the next occupant of the Oval Office will deal with these wars and crises.
Given the poor performance by Biden in the debate, people around the world cannot be certain how the US under its next president, whoever he may be, will deal with a world in turmoil and one in which international peace and security are on shaky ground. This is also true of the war that Israel unleashed on Gaza nine months ago, with there being still no sign that it will end soon.
Observers believe that the chances of Trump returning to the White House in January 2025 have become greater since the debate. Of course, it is too early to predict how US voters will cast their votes in November, but if the elections were held today the chances are that Trump would carry the day.
This would suit the political interests of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has done his best over the last four months to use the elections in the US to advance his objectives by pitting the Democrats and the Republicans against each other when it comes to who supports Israel more, particularly after the events of last October.
Given his long experience and knowledge of how US politics function, Netanyahu has tried to steer the campaigns of both presidential candidates to align completely with his positions vis-à-vis the Gaza war and Israeli positions concerning future solutions for the Palestinian question.
In doing so, he has made no secret of his preference for Trump and the Republicans in general. The Republican leadership has returned the favour by extending an invitation to Netanyahu to address a joint session of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The exercise aims to show unlimited US support for Israel and push the administration not to adopt positions that would run counter to Israeli interests as defined by Netanyahu and his extreme-right coalition government.
A case in point was the recent pause that the Biden administration decided to implement concerning the shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel and the coordinated objections of the Republicans and the Israeli prime minister to it.
Until November Netanyahu will keep playing the Democrats and the Republicans in the US off against each other in the hope that Trump will win the election. This is why I believe that he will also play for time and avoid making commitments on a permanent ceasefire in Gaza while pushing for the release of the hostages.
This is a waiting game that will clash with the diplomatic efforts made by Egypt, Qatar, and the US administration to begin the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2735 adopted on 10 June that incorporates the partial roadmap that Biden outlined on 31 May to reach a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the release of the hostages to be followed by the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu’s reasoning is that a second term for Trump will give him a blank cheque to do whatever he sees fit in the interests of Israel in the Middle East and in redefining the conditions for solving the Palestinian question. Neither he nor the ruling coalition in Israel will accept the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 2735 relating to the two-state solution or the geographical contiguity of Gaza and the West Bank.
In South Lebanon, Israel could be tempted to reckon with the Lebanese Shia group Hizbullah militarily if US diplomatic efforts to avert the outbreak of hostilities between the two fail. There has been ongoing military escalation between Israel and Hizbullah over the last two months, with Israeli Minister of Defence Yaov Gallant threatening to return Lebanon to the “Stone Age” and Iran responding that if Israel launches an all-out attack on Hizbullah a war of “obliteration” will break out targeting the country.
Let us hope that these bellicose statements are no more than an exercise in sabre-rattling. It is possible that Israel and Iran, based on their different calculations, will prefer to wait and see who will be the next US president and chart their regional strategies accordingly.
The Atlanta debate could thus help either to usher in a period of calm in the Middle East or lead to miscalculations on the part of the protagonists in Gaza, South Lebanon, and Iran that could set the Middle East on fire.
The writer is former assistant foreign minister.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 4 July, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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