Since the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah, Lebanon remains the focus of regional and global media. The Israeli military’s sweep across Gaza progresses as it renews its ultimatum for evacuation from the north. All the while, the invading Israeli soldiers in Lebanon don’t hold fire when UNFIL peacekeepers as well as the Lebanese Red Cross volunteers are in the way.
In the face of denunciations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declares UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres persona non-grata while demanding the removal of the blue helmets. “Your refusal to withdraw UNIFIL forces makes them hostages of Hezbollah. This also endangers them as well as the lives of our soldiers.”
President Joe Biden might be cursing Israeli Premier Netanyahu nowadays but stands firmly behind his campaign in Gaza and Lebanon while keeping the weapons supply line saturated. As the US vice president, he stated in 2014, “It is not only a moral commitment; it is a longstanding strategic commitment.” In 2022, he said, “If there was no Israel, we’d have to inventone.”
Reaffirming the Pentagon’s ‘ironclad support’ for Israel’s right to guard itself, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “urged coordinating efforts to pivot from military operations to a diplomatic pathway as soon as feasible.” The same official stated in March that 25,000 women and children had been killed in Gaza. Convinced that Netanyahu ceasing hostilities is a fool’s errand, the White House is raising its concerns timidly. While the US vetoed every UNSC resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire for over a year now, it has approved over 120 foreign military sales since the Hamas attack on October 7 last year. The subsidized and swift sale of sophisticated weapons for Israel is besides $3.8 billion in annual assistance. Yet, Tel Aviv has not respected a single red line drawn by Biden, the invasion of Rafah being the prime example. In Lebanon, Israel’s excessive bombing of densely populated areas in pursuit of Hezbollah operatives defies all conventions of war.
As it stands, the stratagem to foreclose prospects of a two-state solution is afoot. The campaign in northern Gaza is being condemned as an impending genocide within a genocide. With who’s who of extremists at the helm, Tel Aviv has left little doubt about the fate of the West Bank where settler militias, often referred to as the ‘murky arm of the state,’ call the shots in concert with the military. The Israeli security architecture in the West Bank is changing to suit the whims not only of Netanyahu but also of Interior Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Netanyahu coalition’s pronounced “goal is to create a Jewish state from the river to the sea, extending limited if necessary but preferably no political rights to non-Jewish subjects, even those who hold Israeli citizenship.” Ben-Gvir’s Jewish power is reviving Rabbi Kahane’s Kach movement, listed as a terrorist organization, which accords no space for Palestinians. In his 2017 policy paper, Smotrich advocated settling the ‘Palestinian question’ by force.
As the far-right coalition government throttles to a one-state solution, ‘Mr Security’ is opposed by Israeli politicians and former commanders like Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, Benny Gantz and even the sitting defense minister Yoav Gallant. Netanyahu and his coalition partners predominate, nonetheless.
A year into the renewed conflict, the West is belatedly showing token resistance by sanctioning a few Israeli individuals and barring the sale of select munitions. At the height of a cliffhanger election contest, the Democratic party is not risking campaign funds, votes in swing states and bashing from media by publicly condemning Israel’s excessive use of force and carpet-bombing of civilian settlements. Muslims and Arab voters are in a quandary.
Israel’s exceptionalism leaves the US rhetoric of a rules-based order devoid of credibility. Tel Aviv’s unhinged encroachment not only dispossesses Palestinians but also harms the US reputation and strategic interests. Already, the United States is not seeking renewal of its term at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), mainly due to its Israel policy. If Trump is re-elected, he could abandon the seat like in 2018 over the council’s criticism of Israel.
When President John F Kennedy called it a special relationship in 1962 – a label exclusive for Great Britain – Israel neither had nuclear weapons nor peace with its two of three neighbours. Six decades later, the pathology of the ‘special relationship’ is festering with religious extremists trailing maximalist gains. Washington’s path-dependent policy erodes its leverage in the Middle East to the benefit of its rivals China and an extent Russia.
Though the Harris team has not committed to sanctioning Israel for the mass murder of civilians, her presidency could be reminiscent of the Obama era in which Netanyahu became more belligerent and US pressures were anything but fruitful. When the US abstained from voting on a UNSC resolution about fresh West Bank settlements, the Israeli PM vented his anger publicly. Will President Kamala Harris even go this far in criticizing Israel? The well-known prosecutor may not take the dragon head-on so early in her presidency except bearing a strained relationship with her Israeli counterpart.
As much as Israel’s impunity weighs on the US as a strategic drag, Washington’s foot-dragging in condemning the excessive uses of force, starvation and killing of civilians and disregard for the UN-mandated peacekeepers hints at its assent to the Zionist mindset: “Arabs have many countries, we have only one. Palestinians can choose where to migrate to.”
If enough is not enough, then a dirty, bloody regional war can consume more than the US might be capable to protect and sustain.
