The Biden administration’s foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, needs a strategic rethink, as well as an injection of new ideas. This Washington Examiner series, Middle East Mirage, will investigate how the administration has fallen short on Iran engagement, the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the push for a two-state solution, and sorely needed reform in the United Nations, particularly UNRWA. Part Three will look at the administration’s approach to the two-state solution.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken was ready with a blunt response when asked if Hamas could have “a role in governing Gaza” after Israel’s military operations cease.
“The short answer … is: No,” Blinken told reporters in Tel Aviv.
That dismissive statement stands as one of the few remaining points of agreement between U.S. and Israeli officials. The high civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip have fueled a thinly veiled dispute between the Biden administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and international calls for both a halt to the fighting and progress toward both an independent Palestinian state, alongside Israel, reflect a desire for a “two-state solution” that seems shared by everyone — except, that is, the belligerents.
“Everyone except for Hamas and except for Netanyahu,” as Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, observed to the Washington Examiner.
Hamas officials have pledged to perpetrate atrocities of the sort that ignited the war on Oct. 7 “again and again” until the state of Israel is destroyed. Netanyahu preempted Blinken’s appearance before the press with a statement renewing his pledge to pursue “absolute victory” over Hamas and rejected even the idea that the Palestinian Authority could function as an alternative source of governance.
“Anyone who thinks that bringing Palestinian Authority officials into the Gaza Strip will defeat Hamas is wrong,” Netanyahu told reporters. “There is no substitute for absolute victory.”
Blinken, for his part, remonstrated with Netanyahu by emphasizing in public that the Oct. 7 terrorist attack does not give the Israelis “a license to dehumanize” Palestinian civilians.
“The overwhelming majority of people in Gaza had nothing to do with the attacks of Oct. 7, and the families in Gaza whose survival depends on deliveries of aid from Israel are just like our families,” he said. “They’re mothers and fathers, sons and daughters — want to earn a decent living, send their kids to school, have a normal life. That’s who they are; that’s what they want. And we cannot, we must not, lose sight of that.”
Hamas proposed a 135-day truce that “would see militants exchange remaining Israeli hostages they captured on Oct. 7 for Palestinian prisoners,” according to Reuters. “The reconstruction of Gaza would begin, Israeli forces would withdraw completely, and bodies and remains would be exchanged.” Netanyahu rejected that proposal as “delusional.” Blinken acknowledged that Hamas floated “some clear nonstarters” but held out hope for continued talks.
Smith acknowledged the need for military operations against Hamas but suggested that Israel could achieve the objectives he deems necessary with a lighter touch.
“Well, there is a military component to it, [but] there is not just a military component to it,” he said. “It doesn’t need to be the full-on assault that’s currently going on. But, look, Hamas isn’t going away. I mean, they’re a terrorist organization, and you’re gonna have to be mindful of their organization and target them to try and weaken them. That doesn’t mean you have to have a full-scale war going on. So that’s to be worked out. … I don’t have the answer.”
The carnage has set the Middle East on tenterhooks, sparking a surge in attacks by Iranian proxy forces on U.S. positions around the region, including a late January strike that killed three U.S. Army Reserve soldiers in Jordan. The crisis also has thrown a wrench into the trilateral negotiations to broker the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
MIDDLE EAST MIRAGE: US’S MUDDLED IRAN STRATEGY UNDER THE MICROSCOPE AS CONFLICT LOOMS
“The Kingdom has communicated its firm position to the U.S. administration that there will be no diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognized on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, and that the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip stops and all Israeli occupation forces withdraw from the Gaza Strip,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday, per an Al Arabiya translation.
Those demands are, at best, exceedingly difficult to reconcile with each other.
“A Palestinian state is a goal, but who would govern it? Today, who would govern it?” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who sits on the Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees, told the Washington Examiner. “I think they want normalization. I think it makes sense for them. But it can’t be conditioned on something like that, just as I imagine it can’t be conditioned on Saudi Arabia becoming a full-blown democratic republic.”
Saudi Arabia’s posture is at least in part a diplomatic gesture to the Biden administration, according to some conservative foreign policy analysts,
“I think it’s the position [Saudi Arabia is] taking today,” Hudson Institute senior fellow Michael Doran, who oversaw the Arab-Israeli portfolio at the White House National Security Council under George W. Bush, told the Washington Examiner. “If there was a Trump administration and Trump said, ‘The hell with the two-state solution,’ would they would they fight with the Trump administration over it? I doubt it.”
Still, Smith suggested that Israel needs “to find some group [of Palestinians and] to start working with them” in order to begin to lay the groundwork for a future deal.
“The Israeli government [needs to say] ‘These are the Palestinians we’re going to work with.’ … At least show that you’re willing to work with them,” Smith said. “And then not even [say] ‘there must be a state now.’ … The real problem is: Sure, you can find some of those Palestinians, but are they going to be sufficient in number, strength, and capability to meaningfully push Hamas out? And that is a significant problem. But you got to start.”
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan’s department also urged “the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council … to expedite the recognition of the Palestinian state.” That demand reflects a request that Palestinian Authority officials made of Riyadh in the context of normalization talks before the Oct. 7 attack, Foundation for Defense of Democracies research fellow Hussain Abdul-Hussain told the Washington Examiner.
The exhortation dovetails British Foreign Secretary David Cameron’s public discussion of such a diplomatic maneuver, as well as recent reports that Blinken’s team is mulling the possibility of recognizing a Palestinian state.
“As we’re defining the path forward, including the pathway to a Palestinian state, there are a number of policy options that people may propose as part of that process,” Blinken said. “But our focus today is on all of the diplomacy needed to bring it about, including, again, getting ideas, getting proposals from all concerned, and putting those together in a credible and clear plan.”
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There’s little value in recognizing a Palestinian state in the absence of a network of Palestinians who can govern the entity, according to Smith.
“You got to build it, not recognize it,” the Democratic lawmaker said. “People are obsessively focused on, ‘Do you support a state or don’t you?’ OK. That’s kind of ultimately necessary, but what’s necessary, upfront, is to begin to build the components that make that possible.”
