THE US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has toured the Middle East no fewer than four times since the Israel-Hamas conflict began in October. Yet it is hard to see what beneficial effect all his travelling is having.
His current trip takes place amid fears that the fighting could spread to become a regional war involving Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran. Critics have noted that each of Mr Blinken’s previous visits have coincided with substantial Israeli military actions against Palestinians. He arrived in Israel this time as the Netanyahu government escalated its military action into Lebanon, with the assassination of a top Hamas official in Beirut and border clashes with Hezbollah.
Mr Blinken has not had much success, either, in the past over Washington’s requests that Israel switch military tactics, so that fewer innocent Palestinian women and children are killed by its pulverising air-strikes on Gaza.
He arrived in Israel this week dangling the promise that key Arab states in the region have, in his talks with them, agreed to begin planning for the reconstruction and governance of Gaza once Israel’s war against Hamas has ended. But this is dependent on Israel’s agreeing to chart a political path to a viable Palestinian state, which Arab leaders see as a pre-condition of long-term peace, security, and stability for the region.
Yet, while some Israeli leaders have talked of shifting military tactics to use fewer air strikes and ground troops, the reality on the ground is unchanged, and the increase in military activity on the northern border suggests more conflict, not less.
Mr Blinken has been trying to persuade Arab leaders to pressure Hamas to compromise. He asked Turkey to choke off Hamas’s sources of financing, which includes million-dollar investments that flow through Istanbul. But Turkey’s leaders see Hamas as legitimately elected liberators fighting for their land. Mr Blinken appears to have had a dusty response from top politicians in Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.
Why, Arab leaders feel, should they pressurise Hamas, when Washington is unprepared to do the same with Israel? Of the 1139 people killed by Hamas in the 7 October terrorist attacks on Israel, some 695 were civilians and 36 were children. Of the 22,000 Palestinians killed in Israel’s counter-onslaught, more than 9000 had been children, the Revd Munther Isaac said in his Christmas sermon at the Lutheran Church in Bethlehem. The Gaza Strip is now “uninhabitable”, the UN humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, has said.
The weapons that wrought this devastation were fired by Israelis, but they were supplied by the United States. The US committed more than $3.3 billion in foreign assistance to Israel in 2022, the most recent year for which data exist — and 99.7 per cent of it went to the Israeli military. Washington has shipped 10,000 tonnes of weapons and ammunition to Israel since the beginning of this war. Mr Blinken himself last week bypassed Congress to approve the export of millions of dollars’ worth of artillery shells to Israel.
It is a fond hope for Washington to expect Arab nations to pressurise the Palestinians, when it studiously refuses to exercise the leverage that it possesses to insist that Israel shift its military tactics against Hamas. If Washington is serious about talking peace, it should cease exporting war.