The US is more hands-off than usual in the Middle East. It fears making things worse
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is taking a more hands-off approach than usual during a week of dramatic events. escalation between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, with senior US officials refraining from full-scale crisis diplomacy for fear of making the situation worse.
The public reluctance follows the militant group’s explosions beepers and walkie-talkies and a Israeli airstrike on target a senior Hezbollah operative in Beirut who threatens to unleash an all-out war between Israel and its enemies in the Middle East and end the already failed ceasefire negotiations in the Hamas conflict in Gaza.
The escalation occurred while two Biden administration officials stopped in the region this week to call for calm. It reinforces the impression that the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is paying less and less attention to the mediation attempts of its main ally, despite its dependence on the US for weapons and military support.
“The United States now looks like a deer in the headlights,” said Brian Katulis, senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Middle East Institute think tank in Washington. “In terms of words, deeds and action … it’s not driving events, it’s responding to events.”
There has been no publicly acknowledged contact between the US and Netanyahu since senior White House official Amos Hochstein visited Israel on Monday to warn of escalation. first wave of device explosions —which Israel, which did not admit responsibility, was blamed for— struck the next day.
And the Gaza ceasefire negotiations were at such a delicate point that Foreign Minister Antony Blinken only visited Egypt during a trip to the region this week, because a trip to Israel in support of a deal could lead to Netanyahu saying something that undermines the U.S.-led mediation, U.S. officials said.
Asked on Friday whether the US still has hope for a deal in Gaza — which the administration calls crucial to calming the regional conflict — President Joe Biden said it does and that his team is pushing for it.
“If I ever say it’s not realistic, we might as well leave,” Biden told reporters. “A lot of things don’t seem realistic until we get them done. We’ve got to keep at it.”
In the meantime, the White House and State Department have declined to comment publicly on the Hezbollah devices explode At least 37 people were killed and thousands more wounded on Tuesday and Wednesday, including civilians, in what analysts say was a highly sophisticated Israeli intelligence operation.
They also declined to assess an airstrike Friday in a densely populated part of Beirut — the deadliest attack on the Lebanese capital in years — that killed a Hezbollah commander. The Israeli military said 15 other officers were also killed. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Saturday that the attack killed at least 31 people, including seven women and three children.
Netanyahu and Hamas have followed previous rounds of direct US diplomatic overtures with fiery rhetoric or surprise attacks that the US sees as an obstacle to a ceasefire.
Blinken appeared to loop the pager explosions while the latest example of that.
Whenever mediators appear to be making progress on a deal with Gaza, there is often “an incident, something that complicates the process, that threatens to slow it down, to stop it, to derail it,” Blinken said in Egypt, responding to reporters’ questions about the beeper attacks.
There could still be high-level contact with Netanyahu when he travels to New York next week for the U.N. General Assembly, where world leaders are gathering, said U.S. officials with knowledge of the discussions who spoke anonymously to discuss the administration’s strategy. But the officials also acknowledge that the situation has become so precarious that taking a public stand, either strongly supporting or criticizing Israel, would likely do more harm than good.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller deflected a question about whether the Biden administration’s months-long visits to the Middle East without an armistice agreement to show for it For them it was making Blinken and other officials “furniture” in the regional capitals.
“So far, we’ve managed to keep it from becoming an all-out regional war,” Miller said, crediting U.S. reporting — sometimes through intermediaries — to Iran, its militia allies in the region and Israel.
The Biden administration pointed out that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has been in touch this week with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant. However, Gallant’s task is is said to be in danger.
Critics accuse the administration of pushing a Gaza deal that has repeatedly failed to convince warring parties and has been overtaken by the growing conflict. The administration could take a more diplomatic approach, including working harder to mobilize Middle Eastern countries to intensify pressure on Israel, Iran and their proxies to stop fighting, said Katulis, an analyst at the Middle East Institute.
US officials deny claims that they have given up on a ceasefire in Gaza or preventing an all-out war in Lebanon.
“We would be the first to acknowledge … that we are no closer to achieving that objective than we were a week or so ago,” national security spokesman John Kirby said Friday.
“But nobody is giving up,” Kirby said, reiterating that the U.S. was working with fellow mediators Qatar and Egypt to craft a final Gaza proposal to present to Israel and Hamas. “We’re going to keep pushing. We’re going to keep trying.”
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Associated Press editor Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.