“Netanyahu has confirmed to me that Israel accepts the proposal. It is now up to Hamas to do the same.” With this statement, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is shifting the responsibility of achieving a ceasefire in Gaza to Hamas and entrusting the difficult task of persuading the Islamist group to Qatar and Egypt.
The United States, which has emerged as the leader of the negotiation process, combines its role as mediator with that of Israel’s main source of arms. Moreover, several experts, including former negotiators in the conflict, both from the US and Israel, question its strategy and legitimacy as an intermediary, saying that it first seeks a consensus with Israel and then tries to sell it to the Palestinians.
On August 15, the new round of negotiations in Doha began. “Perhaps the last chance” to reach an agreement, warned Blinken, sending a message of urgency. Only two days earlier, his Department had approved the sale to Israel of a huge arms package worth 20 billion dollars – practically equal to Spain’s military spending in all of 2023. The new sale includes 50 F-15 fighter jets, 30 medium-range missiles, 33,000 rounds of ammunition for tanks and 50,000 mortars.
Based on my experience in Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, the US and Israel create a consensus and then try to sell it to the Palestinians. That may explain the US government’s optimism to close the deal and Hamas’s reluctance.
Aaron David Miller
— Former US negotiator
The package will take years to reach Israel, but since the war in Gaza began, the US has sent its partner tens of thousands of bombs, including 14,000 explosives weighing more than 900 kilos each, and four tankers with jet fuel. Between 2019 and 2023, only the US and Germany supplied 99% of the weapons Israel imported, with 69% and 30% respectively.
Daniel Levy, former Israeli negotiator during the mandates of Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin in various peace processes, and current president of the think tank US/Middle East Project, explains to elDiario.es that “the prospects of these negotiations achieving even the beginning of the implementation of a ceasefire agreement are very limited.” Levy maintains that Washington’s objective is to “buy time” to delay a possible regional escalation led by Iran.
“The US is not prepared to slow down or use its power to pressure Israel, in particular over a ceasefire in Gaza, but also not to prevent further regional provocations,” says Levy. “The US’ chosen method of de-escalation is a combination of generating noise and expectations about a possible ceasefire to buy time, while increasing its threats vis-à-vis the Iranian axis, including additional military deployments in the region. This comes against the backdrop of the US interest in Israel regaining some of its lost deterrence capability and mastery of escalation. Therefore, part of the US approach is the continued provision of massive military assistance.”
Following the approval of the $20 billion arms sale, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency said: “The United States is committed to Israel’s security, and it is vital to its national interest to help Israel develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability.”
For his part, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant thanked his faithful ally for his assistance: “As we fight to defend Israel on seven different fronts, the message [de EEUU] “Our commitment and support for Israel’s security is clear.” “This is a critical initiative to increasing Israel’s strength and maintaining its qualitative military advantage in the region,” he added.
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court requested an arrest warrant last May for Gallant and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, on possible war crimes charges.
“That the US continues to act as Israel’s advocate is debilitating. That it has lost all credibility as a mediator is problematic. That it has conspired to be so ineffective as a mediator is devastating,” Levy said.
“Dead Cat Diplomacy”
“Based on my experience in Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, the US and Israel create a consensus and then try to sell it to the Palestinians. That may explain the US government’s optimism to close the deal and Hamas’s reluctance,” Aaron David Miller, a former US negotiator and adviser to several Democratic and Republican secretaries of state on the Middle East peace process, wrote on the social network X.
Hamas has not even participated in the new round of negotiations because it accuses Israel of imposing new conditions on the proposal presented by Joe Biden in May and accepted in theory by the parties in early July. The newspaper The New York Times The US has confirmed these new demands, including the continuation of Israeli forces on the Gaza border with Egypt and less flexibility in allowing displaced people to return to their homes in the north. The initial proposal called for a complete withdrawal.
A deal not only threatens to topple his government, but could also destroy Netanyahu’s most important shield and what has enabled his political reconstruction, which is the continuation of an endless war. This is the context in which Netanyahu’s constantly shifting demands and positions must be understood.
Daniel Levy
— Former Israeli peace negotiator
Hours after agreeing to Blinken’s proposal, Netanyahu said he had “convinced” the secretary of state that troops should remain in areas of Gaza considered “strategic military and political assets.” He also “greatly appreciated the understanding that the United States has shown toward Israel’s vital security interests as part of the joint efforts to free the hostages.”
Hamas, for its part, rejected the US proposal, denouncing it as “a coup against what the parties agreed on July 2” as well as “an American response and acquiescence to the new conditions” of Netanyahu “and his criminal plans for the Gaza Strip.” Israel, on the other hand, accuses the Islamist movement of “not wanting to move forward” and blames the blockade on its new leader, Yahya Sinwar, considered the mastermind of the October 7 attacks against Jewish communities and part of the hardline wing of Hamas.
The details of the “bridge proposal” accepted by Israel have not been published and, pressed by journalists, Blinken assured that the US “does not accept any long-term occupation of Gaza.” “Specifically, the agreement clearly states the timetable and locations from which the Israeli army will withdraw,” he said at the end of his trip to the Middle East.
“Although the US is clearly irritated with the Netanyahu government, they are accommodating Israel’s demands and trying to sell them to Hamas,” Jørgen Jensehaugen, a researcher at the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO) specialising in conflict and negotiations, told elDiario.es.
“Although Blinken and [el presidente Joe] “Biden sometimes criticizes Netanyahu, simultaneously giving Israel huge arms packages and protecting it in the Security Council. This double message is interpreted by Netanyahu as a clear indication that the US will not apply real pressure,” he added.
Levy believes that Netanyahu does not want a peace deal: “A deal not only threatens to topple his government, but could also destroy Netanyahu’s most important shield and what has allowed him to rebuild his politics, which is the continuation of an endless war.” “This is the context in which we must understand Netanyahu’s constant shifting of demands and positions, often hardening them, to ensure that he always has an escape route to a real ceasefire,” he adds.
“For months now, misconceptions and wishful thinking have suggested that Netanyahu would not be able to sustain his increasingly transparent torpedoing of negotiations and the abandonment of the hostages. Likewise, such analysis has implied that Hamas’s considerations can be ignored as if the group had no constituency, interests, or outcomes that also needed to be met, most notably a real sustainable ceasefire,” Levy says. “In part, this serves to distract from American complicity.”
The other two mediators, Qatar and Egypt, last week supported the “bridge proposal” to overcome the differences between the parties that still existed with respect to the previous agreement, but this week, after meeting with Blinken and after Israel’s approval, they have not commented in their official statements on Hamas’s refusal to accept the proposal.
“The Americans are offering promises, not guarantees. Hamas will not accept this because in practice it means that it will release civilian hostages in exchange for a six-week pause in fighting without guarantees of a permanent ceasefire,” an Egyptian official told the AP. The source also noted that the proposal does not clearly state that Israel will withdraw from two strategic corridors in the Strip. “It is not acceptable to us or to Hamas,” he said.
For Aaron David Miller, these negotiations have traces of “dead cat diplomacy.” “The goal is not so much to reach an agreement, but to blame the other party for the impasse, and both Netanyahu and Sinwar are playing at that.” Former US Secretary of State James Baker coined the concept of “dead cat diplomacy” precisely in the context of the negotiations between Arabs and Israelis, when he tried to convince both sides to attend the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference. It consists of using the power of the mediator to publicly blame one of the parties for the fact that the process is not moving forward because of its intransigence, metaphorically leaving a dead cat on its doorstep so that everyone knows who the killer is. “Some days it seemed like this was the only leverage I had,” Baker later confessed.
Levy explains that there are three major problems in this negotiation scenario: “Netanyahu’s calculations are different [a los de EEUU]the unwillingness of the US to exert real pressure that would impact Netanyahu’s calculations and the scant attention being paid to Hamas’s considerations, such as why it would now be willing to accept an even muddier set of provisions, particularly regarding the duration of the ceasefire.”
Levy points to another factor that helps explain the US insistence on reaching an agreement despite the differences between the parties. “Without being too cynical, one cannot ignore the timing of the Democratic convention in Chicago: the stakes in the election could not be higher, and part of this drive is to help the US to reach an agreement.” [diplomático]is to arrive at convention week with Democratic leaders in a position to point out the intense efforts underway, ideally on a note of optimism.”
Source: www.eldiario.es
