For the last three months, the Biden administration has had one top priority in the Middle East: end the war in Gaza. President Biden’s May 31 address, during which he outlined a three-stage process whereby a temporary six-week ceasefire and hostage exchange would eventually led to a permanent end to the fighting and Gaza’s reconstruction, remains official US policy. CIA director Bill Burns, a former senior negotiator himself courtesy of his decades-long experience in the State Department, has spent the last ten months flying to Cairo, Doha, Jerusalem and Rome to close the remaining gaps between Israel and Hamas. It’s hard and thankless work.
The entire diplomatic effort, which was already slowing down over Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s last-minute demands, is now likely stymied for the foreseeable future. Israel’s assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s political bureau and a man who has been a member of the terrorist group since its inception in 1987, was not only an intelligence coup for Netanyahu’s struggling government but also a potential roadblock to getting a ceasefire and hostage accord done. This, in addition to Israel’s strike against senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur in southern Beirut about twelve hours earlier, has added further complications for Washington as it tries to salvage diplomacy and prevent even further escalation from enveloping the Middle East.
American officials are putting on a brave face. Secretary of state Antony Blinken was his usual sunny self, projecting a glass-half-full mentality that is borderline delusional given the circumstances. After highlighting the “vital” importance of establishing peace in the region, he went on to reiterate the same administration talking points we’ve been hearing for months now. “One of the things that we’ve been focused on is trying to make sure that the conflict that emerged in Gaza doesn’t spread, doesn’t go to other places, doesn’t escalate, and we’re going to continue to do that as well,” Blinken insisted.
That’s all well and good. But anybody with brain cells will tell you that the war in Gaza escalated to other places months ago.
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