Gaza diplomacy at make-or-break moment for Biden
President Joe Biden desperately needs Israel and Hamas to agree to a cease-fire, a first step toward resolving a conflict that has shaken the region and harmed his chances of reelection.
Under a fresh proposal for a six-week fighting pause, Israeli hostages would return home, an assault on Rafah would be put on hold and aid could flood into Gaza to relieve human suffering. That could accelerate talks on a long-desired normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia and deflate anti-Israel protests on college campuses that carry political risk for Biden.
If negotiations collapse, Biden could face an increasingly grim scenario. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would likely move ahead with a Rafah invasion, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis. It would also complicate progress toward Saudi-Israeli ties – killing a top foreign-policy goal – and demonstrators could escalate their tactics and disrupt Biden’s renomination at this summer’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Asked Tuesday what would happen if there is no deal, White House spokesman John Kirby said, “there just has to be.”
Israel has fought a nearly seven-month war in Gaza after Hamas, which is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., invaded the country and killed 1,200 people and abducted 240. Authorities in Hamas-run Gaza say more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war.
The war has become one of the biggest drags on Biden’s bid for a second term. The president’s handling of the conflict has come under attack from both sides of the political spectrum and polls show voters have lost confidence in his approach.
The war was Biden’s worst-rated issue in a new CNN poll, with 71% of respondents saying they disapprove of how he’s handling it. That includes more than eight in 10 adults under the age of 35 – a group Biden needs in order to defeat Republican Donald Trump in November.
This week could mark a turning point for the conflict – and for Biden. The sides are the closest they have been to a deal since a week-long pause in November, with negotiators in Cairo weighing the Israeli offer. The White
House is moving with urgency to ensure an agreement is reached. Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israel would invade Rafah with or without a deal.
Biden has spoken by phone since Sunday with Netanyahu, as well as the leaders of Egypt and Qatar, who are helping mediate talks. Secretary of
State Antony Blinken, appearing in Riyadh, urged Hamas to accept the agreement.
The administration signed a letter with 17 other countries pressing Hamas to immediately release hostages. The U.S. and its allies have also warned the International
Criminal Court about issuing arrest warrants for Israeli officials that could jeopardize negotiations, according to people familiar with the matter.
If talks fall through, “you’d have to hang a kind of closed-for-theseason sign” on U.S. efforts “to change the picture in Gaza and to do it reasonably soon for any number of reasons: for policy reasons, for moral reasons and, of course, for political reasons,” Aaron David Miller, a former State Department ArabIsraeli negotiator, said Monday on Bloomberg Television’s Balance of Power.