With Netanyahu's continued rejection of the proposal to establish a Palestinian state, it appears that the Biden administration is looking beyond Netanyahu to try to achieve American goals in the region.
On his fourth visit to the Middle East since the outbreak of the Israeli aggression on Gaza in October, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Israel to support Palestinian leaders who want to live in peace alongside Israelis and warned that the daily losses in its war with Hamas in Gaza are too high.
According to officials who spoke to NBC News , Blinken told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that there is ultimately no military solution for Hamas, and that he needs to acknowledge that, otherwise history will repeat itself and violence will continue. But officials said Netanyahu was unaffected.
The American network indicated that the disagreement between Netanyahu and the American administration became clearer after Blinken's recent visit, pointing out that the Secretary of State returned to Washington without fulfilling any demands due to the Israeli leader's intransigence, except for one request, which is that Israel not attack Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Trying to find a way out
According to NBC News , the Biden administration is trying to lay the groundwork with other Israeli and civil society leaders in anticipation of the eventual formation of a post-Netanyahu government. Pointing out that in an attempt to circumvent Netanyahu, Blinken met individually with members of his war cabinet and other Israeli leaders, including opposition leader and former Prime Minister Yair Lapid.
US officials also said that Blinken deliberately began his trip last week to the Middle East by visiting Arab countries, instead of Israel, in order to present a unified Arab proposal to Netanyahu after the war. While two senior administration officials told the American network that Blinken briefed President Joe Biden on his trip to the region after his return to Washington. The United States is now following up with Arab leaders on Blinken's discussions, but senior administration officials acknowledged that Biden's hopes for reshaping the Middle East are now closely linked to establishing a Palestinian state. As a result, a senior administration official acknowledged that the president's "aspirations for lasting regional peace may have to wait for a post-Netanyahu government."
In an interview Tuesday with CNBC at the World Economic Forum, Blinken said that for Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel, “you have to solve the Palestinian issue.” He added: "The Arab countries say: We will not enter into the process of rebuilding Gaza, for example, then it will be destroyed again within a year or five years, and then we will be asked to rebuild it again."
"It won't stay there forever"
Despite Biden's absolute support for the war that Israel has been waging since October 7 in Gaza, he has increasingly expressed concern about how Netanyahu will carry out this war. While tensions between the two leaders are evident in their lack of direct communication in recent weeks. In the first two months of the war, Biden spoke with Netanyahu regularly, but as the administration grew increasingly frustrated with Israel's extensive use of force and deprivation of Gaza of much-needed supplies, their conversations became less frequent, according to administration officials.
With Netanyahu's continued rejection of the proposal to establish a Palestinian state, the Biden administration is looking beyond Netanyahu to try to achieve American goals in the region, according to what three senior Americans told NBC, "Netanyahu will not stay there forever."
For his part, Blinken said during an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland: “Today we have a deep regional opportunity in the Middle East that we did not have in the past. The challenge is to achieve this.” When asked whether Netanyahu was the right prime minister to seize this opportunity, Blinken responded that “these are decisions that Israelis must make,” and added: “We are at a turning point,” according to the Israeli Jerusalem Post .
Growing opposition
On Wednesday, US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters that Senate Democrats are considering imposing conditions on the aid the United States provides to Israel, according to what Reuters reported.
Although the Senate thwarted the passage of the draft resolution, the Council voted by a majority of 72 votes in opposition to 11 votes in support of the project proposed by independent progressive Senator Bernie Sanders . Putting it up for discussion in the Senate is a very important “extraordinary step,” as it shows the growing opposition to the policy. Biden towards Israel among his supporters.
In a letter to his colleagues in the Council, Sanders said: “Whatever your opinion about this terrible war, we cannot hide Since the beginning of the conflict, we have not discussed a single project that touched on the unprecedented destruction, the humanitarian crisis, and the use of American weapons in a military campaign, which has left a lot of Of the dead, wounded and displaced.
The value of military aid provided by Washington to Tel Aviv amounts to $3.8 billion annually. With the start of the aggression on Gaza, the Biden administration asked Congress to approve an amount of $14.3 billion last October, but lawmakers have not approved the amount until now due to internal disputes related to reforming immigration law, which prompted the White House to bypass Congress’ powers through the law. emergency, and sending military aid worth approximately $106 million to Israel at the end of last year.
To reach a diplomatic solution Russia calls on America to stop the aggression against Yemen
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called on the United States to stop the aggression against Yemen, stressing that the continued American and British strikes on the Houthis will not make the Yemeni group ready for dialogue.
Russia on Thursday called on the United States to stop its strikes on the Houthis in Yemen in order to find a diplomatic solution that would put an end to the tension associated with rebel attacks on commercial ships.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Moscow: "The most important thing now is to stop the aggression against Yemen, because the more the Americans and the British bomb, the less willing the Houthis become to dialogue."
On Thursday morning, for the fourth time in less than a week, the United States launched strikes in Yemen on Houthi sites, and said it targeted missiles that were prepared to be launched on maritime shipping lines.
The Middle East region is getting closer and closer to a regional conflagration, in light of these operations, which came a few hours after Washington re-listed the Houthis on its list of “terrorist” entities.
The Houthis claimed a new attack on an American ship in the Red Sea, ahead of the recent American raids that targeted a number of Yemeni governorates.
The US Army announced that it bombed, at dawn on Thursday in Yemen, 14 ammunition missile platforms that the Houthis had prepared to launch on shipping lines in the Red Sea.