Biden tries shuttle diplomacy on brink of war

Russia and China are benefiting from this shift in priorities as Washington’s attention is diverted from Ukraine and Taiwan. In convenient timing, Vladimir Putin has just arrived in Beijing for a conference that will enable both leaders to discuss how to best leverage the situation to their advantage. China says the crux of the matter is the lack of justice for the Palestinian people.

According to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, the president’s trip will “reaffirm US solidarity with Israel and its ironclad commitment to Israel’s security” as well as send a crystal clear message to any actor trying to take advantage of the crisis to attack Israel: “Don’t.“

“The president will make clear, as he has done unequivocally since the Hamas slaughter, that Israel has the right and indeed the duty to defend its people from Hamas and prevent attacks,” he said. “The president will hear from Israel what it needs to defend its people.”

But Blinken also emphasised the need to minimise civilian casualties, citing US-Israeli agreement to “develop a plan” to enable humanitarian aid to reach only civilians “including the possibility of creating areas to keep civilians out of harm’s way”.

Yet, Washington’s ability to achieve that aim, even in part, will be limited by the deliberate brutality of Hamas military tactics as much as by the inevitable brutality of Israel’s promised urban warfare.

The bloodthirsty viciousness of the surprise Hamas attack on October 7 was designed to provoke an overwhelming Israeli response ensuring mass deaths of Palestinians in Gaza and leading to corresponding revulsion in much of the world about Israel’s actions. It wants a broader regional conflagration.

This is guaranteed to destabilise US allies like Egypt and Jordan and destroy recent US-mediated efforts to “normalise” relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, building on the Abraham Accord with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

Hamas knows Israel’s stated goal of eliminating it will be impossible to even attempt without simultaneously eliminating many of the civilians and the schools and hospitals where its forces are strategically co-located.

Savagery to come

The mass exodus of Palestinians fleeing northern Gaza after Israeli warnings can’t offer them anything other than temporary, unreliable respite from the worst of the savagery still to come.

But in Israel, the intensity of outrage about Hamas and the passionate backing for removal of that threat – however realistic – is more constrained by the fate of around 200 Israeli hostages.

The release of a video of a terrified 21-year-old woman who was injured and abducted from the concert in the desert and is asking to go home is part of the emotional blackmail Hamas wants to impose on the Israeli population.

According to Blinken, Biden will continue to co-ordinate closely with Israeli partners to secure the release of the hostages. Whether that can lead to any form of diplomatic compromise or Israel holding back from unleashing its army and 360,000 reservists on Gaza still looks unlikely even if the visit may delay an imminent invasion.

But the costs of that invasion, including to Israel, are terrifyingly high.

Killing or capturing 30,000 well-trained and armed Hamas fighters and its leadership and military infrastructure in their own territory can’t be done quickly if at all. Victory is anything but assured. Nor is there any evident plan about who would govern Gaza afterwards even if Israel’s military campaign did succeed.

Israel maintains it has no desire to reoccupy or rule Gaza and its 2.2 million inhabitants. Biden has already described this option as “a big mistake”. The Palestinian Authority is similarly reluctant – along with any Arab countries. The obvious risk would be another equally militant group eventually forming in the ruins of Gaza.

Israel also runs the immediate risk of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah opening a second full-frontal assault in the north – as opposed to sporadic but regular small arms clashes – when the Israeli Defence Forces are so occupied in Gaza. The Iranian foreign minister has already warned Israel’s siege of Gaza is making a multi-front war “increasingly more probable”.

That’s a challenge to a US political system that is increasingly dysfunctional. But so is Israeli politics under Netanyahu. The internal divisions created by Netanyahu’s determination to neuter the judiciary while encouraging spreading abuses by right-wing settlers in the West Bank have been obscured by the external forces threatening Israel.

Netanyahu’s instinct will be to wage war no matter the costs. Biden will be trying to maintain a fraught balance, urging restraint as well as firm US support. Will that work any better than it has so far?