What is required of the American Administration

On his fifth shuttle visit to the region since the outbreak of the war on the Gaza Strip, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken moves from one capital to another, trying to accomplish an arduous task. 

The reason that it is difficult, is that it requires overcoming the contradictions in the interests of all parties concerned, especially the Palestinian and Israeli parties, and linking three elements together, in a connected and integrated package, that enables the American administration to regain its breathing and its ability to influence, inside and outside the United States. 

These three elements, which have become clear that they are interconnected, are: addressing the continuation of the war and the issue of Israeli detainees, determining a serious path to settle the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and consolidating allied regional cooperation that leads to strengthening the stability of the region.

With the continuation of the war, the escalating rise in its human and material costs in the Gaza Strip, and the human suffering of its people reaching the extreme levels of violation, the American administration is currently suffering from what many influential parties, inside and outside the American arena, consider to be the results of the failure of its haste in adopting its initial position on this war, and its continued adherence with basic elements of it, even after the disastrous results it continues to produce in Gaza became clear. 

When the war broke out, this administration, with President Biden personally at its head, was quick to declare full and unconditional support for Israel, and provided it, and continues to provide it, with all kinds of unlimited assistance and support, military, political, and material, with full diplomatic coverage in international forums. This support expressed, on the one hand, the traditional, established position in support of Israel in the structure of official American policy, and Biden’s personal commitment to Israel and the Zionist movement. On the other hand, it seemed to be appreciated that this support was required to preserve American interests, which continued to face Iranian challenges in the region. In general, the prevailing belief in US administration circles was that this support would gain great support within America, and would enhance the popularity of this administration, which was in dire need of a lever to lift its low status of acceptability among Americans.

What has been overlooked in the American position calculated according to traditional calculations is that the unlimited support for Israel is also unlimited support for Netanyahu, whose tense relationship with Biden has been overlooked since the days of the Obama administration. Instead of the administration being able to control the scene, especially with all the support it provides to Israel, Netanyahu led it to his square, and it began to pant after him, suffering from the conflict between two goals. The first is its acceptance of what the far-right government in Israel was trying to achieve from its war on the Gaza Strip, which is to eliminate the Hamas movement, because for this administration it represents a factor of instability in the region, linked to Iran’s ambitions to become an influential regional power, which jeopardizes American interests. Therefore, the American administration maintained its steadfast stance of rejecting the ceasefire, and obstructed UN resolutions aimed at that. The second is its effort to be able to restrain Netanyahu and his extreme right-wing government from interpreting this support and using it as an implicit approval that allows this government to expand the scope of the war, and to implicate the American administration in a war that it absolutely does not want to get involved in, because it exposes American national interests and the administration’s political goals, to danger.

With difficulty, the US administration tried to reconcile these two goals, especially with the escalation in the number of casualties in Gaza, which led Secretary Blinken to the region on four previous tours, and also brought the Minister of Defense, the National Security Advisor, and the Director of Central Intelligence, on visits to the region. But the task was not easy for two reasons. On the one hand, Netanyahu did not cooperate with the requirements of the American interest and the goals of the Biden administration. Rather, he and the pillars of his extremist coalition continued to try to drag this administration into adopting and justifying the cruelty of the Israeli targeting of the Gaza Strip, and the resulting worsening of the number of casualties among Palestinian civilians, in addition to the accumulation of poor humanitarian conditions in the Strip. On the other hand, Netanyahu did not appreciate the negative, destabilizing effects that the frenzied war machine was waging on Gaza had on the status and stature of the US administration, both externally and internally, as he ignored its continuous demands to legalize its targeting of civilians, in order to reduce the intensity of the embarrassing criticism directed at it.

The American administration fell under the weight of mounting external pressure, demanding that it take an effective stance to curb and stop the war. The continued bombardment of the Gaza Strip, and the sharp deterioration of the humanitarian situation there, has disturbed public opinion in opposition to the continuation of this war at the global level, and hundreds of thousands of demonstrators came out demanding it to stop, in capitals and cities across the world, especially in Western countries allied with America. The governments of these countries, in addition to the Arab and Islamic countries, began to demand that the American administration take actual and effective steps to end the suffering of the people of Gaza and stop the war. As a result of these popular and official positions, the American administration became exposed to a torrent of escalating criticism, which damaged its reputation and endangered American interests, especially in the region. This is what led to the targeting of the American presence in several countries, hindered international navigation in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, and led to American military responses, although they are still localized, but they portend not only the possibility of expanding the scope of the war, but also of dragging the American administration into unwanted involvement. .

Although external pressures on the American administration are important and influential, it can be claimed that America, as a superpower, is accustomed to exerting these pressures on it, to bearing them, and finding ways to deal with them. But what exacerbated the administration's situation was the unexpected pressure exerted on it from within America, which began to shake its position, which the administration believed was an extension of the usual traditional American position towards supporting Israel. This absolute support, which was not expected, according to the prevailing pattern, to be questioned, or criticized, whatever Israel's positions or actions, support is always guaranteed like a "signed blank check." 

This was precisely the mistake of the American administration, which, with its unlimited support for Israel, which has Netanyahu and a coalition of right-wing extremists at the top of its political pyramid, provoked an internal reaction that it had not expected. It relied on the belief that supporting Israel would give it much-needed support from the pro-Israel parties, which have an influence in American domestic politics, as well as in confronting Republicans in the electoral arena. 

But the calculations did not take into account the impact of changes occurring within the political and electoral arenas in the country.

The Biden administration did not take into account in its estimates the importance of three matters that fundamentally affect it, related to the possibility of Biden being re-elected for a second presidential term. 

First, it is possible that the left wing of the Democratic Party, the party traditionally known for its support of Israel, and to which the president belongs, may have a different opinion than the administration’s position on this war. This wing took a position opposing the continuation of this war, and critical of the administration’s position on it. Of course, such a position has an impact on party unity, especially against the Republicans, and specifically in the upcoming presidential elections, in which President Biden faces difficulties in securing his re-election.

Secondly, the administration did not pay attention to the shift taking place in the American electoral map, specifically towards the formation of voter categories and the change in their electoral trends. The young group of voters, especially those who belong to or support the Democratic Party, are no longer guaranteed absolute support for Israel, but rather it has become clear that they treat it according to its positions and actions. Therefore, opinion polls show that this important group of voters does not support Biden and his administration’s position on the war on Gaza, and that they may withhold their electoral votes from him, when he desperately needs them, and losing them may destroy his hopes of winning a second term.

Third, the administration did not pay attention to the important electoral influence of Arab and Muslim Americans, and that their position might lead to Biden losing the upcoming elections. Although the number of Arabs and Muslims as voters is not large, their concentration in swing states electorally between Democrats and Republicans, such as Michigan, Milwaukee, and Arizona, makes them what amounts to being the “preponderant vote” in those states. If Biden loses the support of this important group of voters, which supported him in the previous elections, as a result of his position in support of the war, this may lead to his loss in the upcoming elections. 

So far, the position declared by Arab and Muslim American leaders and activists indicates their intention so far to withhold their electoral support from Biden.

What this means is that the US administration’s position on the war is haunting it electorally, and it only has a narrow window of time, which will extend until early summer, to remedy its situation. Therefore, Minister Blinken comes in this fifth tour to the region, with the burden of not only preventing the war from spreading and expanding into a regional situation in which his administration becomes involved against its will, but also to search for an approach that leads to ending it and to take subsequent steps that have become necessary to modify Biden’s troubling electoral situation.

To achieve this redress, and to appease the regional and international parties, and the US Interior Ministry in particular, it seems inevitable that the administration’s position must be modified in two matters: 

First, effective pressure on Israel to end the war, by reaching an agreement on a long truce that will be accompanied by an exchange of prisoners, and linked to organically, in its successive stages, with a commitment to end military actions. This has become essential for all parties pressuring the administration, both externally and internally, and it is up to them to find the necessary approach to achieve this basic demand, even if it leads to the internal explosion of the Israeli government’s situation. It is not possible for this administration to repair its position, and regain some of its standing and decency, except when it takes a clear decision to confront Netanyahu and his right-wing clique, instead of continuing its attempts to curry favor with him, which is an essential matter that Netanyahu relies on to prolong the life of his expired government.

The second thing that is required is to reach a conviction that settling the Palestinian issue, according to the minimum acceptable to the Palestinian people, is the only way to establish the most important pillar of stability in the region and normalize Israel’s presence in it, and that is by taking the basic practical step required in practice to launch a serious and reliable path to this settlement. 

This practical step is to recognize the State of Palestine as a starting step on this path, and to demarcate its accession as a full member of the United Nations. Then, a time-bound path is followed to materialize the existence of this state and find a just solution to the refugee issue. 

This step has become necessary to restore part of the support lost by electorally important groups for Biden as a result of the administration’s pro-war stance, and to limit external criticism directed at his administration. In exchange for this, Biden will have a “prize” that he can demonstrate in the face of Israel and its American supporters, which is the normalization that Israel seeks in its relations with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which requires heading on an irreversible path to establish a Palestinian state. Israel, even with American help, can no longer take without giving.

If the American administration does these two things, it can regain control of matters in a way that achieves American national interests and its electoral needs. But if it continues to evade and avoid the necessary confrontation with Netanyahu, it may not be there after next November to take care of those interests.