Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken begins his seventh diplomatic mission to the Middle East on Monday since the war between Israel and Hamas began more than six months ago. He has a lot of work ahead of him.
The war has dragged on since the deadly Hamas attack in October. 7 attacks on Israel with little end in sight: more than 34,000 Palestinians have died, hundreds of thousands more are displaced and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is worsening.
The conflict has fueled massive protests around the world that have spread to American college campuses. US support for Israel, particularly arms transfers, has come under particular criticism, something the administration is well aware poses potential problems for President Joe Biden in an election year.
Just before Blinken’s visit, which includes just over a day in Saudi Arabia before stops in Jordan and Israel on Tuesday and Wednesday, Biden spoke by phone Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Blinken’s trip comes amid renewed concerns about the spread of the Middle East conflict and with the once-promising prospects for a rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia effectively on hold, as Israel refuses to consider one of the main conditions of the Saudis for the normalization of relations: the creation of a Palestinian State. .
Below are the main issues Blinken will address:
The Biden administration has been working closely with Egypt and Qatar for months to negotiate an agreement between Israel and Hamas for the release of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the October 1 attack. 7 attacks that launched the war in exchange for a temporary but extendable ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners imprisoned in Israel. Those negotiations, although ongoing, have not yet borne fruit.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration has been warning Israel against a major military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians have fled to escape fighting further north. Israel has not yet launched such an offensive, but Netanyahu has repeatedly said it will take place, claiming it is the only way to end Hamas.
Both topics were discussed during the phone call between Biden and Netanyahu on Sunday, according to the White House and US officials.
Blinken will also raise those issues in talks with Arab and European foreign ministers gathered in Riyadh for a World Economic Forum meeting. He will also discuss not allowing the conflict between Israel and Hamas to engulf the region, which will be the focus of a separate meeting he will have in Riyadh with his Gulf Cooperation Council counterparts.
The danger of a conflagration was underscored this month when an alleged Israeli attack on an Iranian consular building in Syria sparked an unprecedented direct response with missiles and drones by Iran against Israel. An apparent retaliatory Israeli attack on Iran followed.
Although the tit-for-tat cycle appears to be over for now, there remain deep concerns that Iran or its proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria or Yemen could act in such a way as to provoke a greater response from Israel or that Israel could take action. action for which Iran feels it must retaliate.
The Biden administration has also been pressing Israel to further expand the scope and scale of humanitarian aid convoys bringing food, medicine and water to the territory.
In Jordan and Israel, Blinken will focus heavily on such aid, meeting with several aid organizations as well as officials from both countries to underscore the urgent need for more assistance. In Israel, those discussions will be accompanied by talks about Israel’s military plans, a State Department official said.
The flicker is expected to emphasize the importance of dramatically increasing the flow of aid and sustaining the increase.
While deliveries have increased, they are still not at the levels needed to prevent what the UN says is an imminent famine in Gaza. The United States is also building a dock near Gaza City through which aid sent from Cyprus can be sent for distribution to Palestinian civilians.
U.S. and Cyprus officials say the dock is expected to be completed soon, but there are still major concerns about the safety of the facility and the aid workers who will bring supplies from the port to communities.
Dozens of aid workers have died since the conflict began, and a deadly Israeli attack on a World Central Kitchen aid convoy in Gaza this month only highlighted the dangers and difficulties of protecting them. Israel has said the attack was a mistake and has sanctioned the officials involved.
World Central Kitchen says it will resume operations in Gaza on Monday after a four-week suspension.
In Saudi Arabia, a State Department official said Blinken would focus primarily on plans for a post-conflict Gaza in separate meetings with Arab and European foreign ministers.
The United States has been working with a group of five Arab nations (the so-called “Quint” of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates) on planning the reconstruction and governance of the territory once the war ends. . After initial reluctance in the early stages of the war to commit to participating in such planning, in January the Arabs agreed to do so, although many of their specific contributions to the effort have not yet been fully determined and will probably not be fixed at this time. meeting, the official said.
Later, Blinken and those same Arab ministers, along with several from Europe, will meet together to go over their ideas and tell the Europeans that they have a role (both financial and with specific expertise) to play in Gaza’s post-conflict future, according to the official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to preview Blinken’s discussions.
He will hold separate meetings with Saudi officials, expected to include the country’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, about the US-Saudi part of a proposal for the normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel and how that may eventually merge with the broader plan for Gaza. Before the Hamas attack in October. 7 attacks in Israel, US officials believed they were close to reaching an agreement.
After the war began, those relations became tied to Israel’s acceptance of an independent Palestinian state.
Netanyahu and his far-right government have refused to consider it, but that has not stopped Blinken or other officials from repeating their argument that the future of Gaza, Palestinians in general, Israel’s long-term security and regional stability They depend on only one.
Blinken will talk to the Saudis and other Arabs about how to achieve “lasting peace and security in the region, including through a path to an independent Palestinian state with security guarantees for Israel,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said. .