What can the US do as Israeli-Palestinian violence spikes?

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February 1, 2023

Stephen Collinson, Caitlin Hu and Shelby Rose

'We'll circle back'

Netanyahu speaking with CNN's Jake Tapper on Tuesday.

No one talks about "the Middle East peace process" any more.

True, there was a lot more process than peace in the latter years of the US-led drive to forge an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. American presidents from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama hosted summits and secretaries of state mounted endless diplomatic shuttles in a quest for a two-state solution. But entrenched realities and radicalized politics in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, the wider Middle East and in the United States have dashed hopes of eventual peace.

And while it is easy to mock process with no result, the futile talk was better than the situation that many observers now fear might erupt: a new Israeli-Palestinian confrontation and even a third intifada.

There's no mistaking Washington's alarm. Secretary of State Antony Blinken's visit to Israel this week is the third such mission by a senior US official, following trips by CIA Chief William Burns and national security adviser Jake Sullivan in January.

But other than trying to prevent an explosion, it's not clear what the US can do as violence spikes. An Israeli raid in Jenin killed nine people – the worst Palestinian death toll in the West Bank in a year. Then seven people died in an attack on a synagogue in Jerusalem, in what police described as among the worst terror attacks in recent years. There is a horrible sense that extreme political forces are pushing all sides towards more bloodshed.

Israel's most right-wing government in years under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu includes cabinet ministers who oppose the notion of a Palestinian state, lived in settlements in the West Bank that are considered illegal under international law, or who advocate an even harder line against Palestinian unrest.

Palestinian leadership is meanwhile splintered between the Palestinian Authority with nominal control over the West Bank and Hamas which runs Gaza. Amid repeated rumors of ill health, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas isn't the force he was and there are new questions about his writ in some West Bank cities.

Years of busted hopes among Palestinians over a longed-for state, improving living conditions and fury over ever-expanding Israeli settlements further weakened the PA long before Abbas last week cut vital security coordination with Israeli forces.

Regionally, the Palestinians suffered as their plight has become less important to Arab powers who once put the Israeli-Palestinian question at the center of diplomacy. Nations like the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco have signed diplomatic agreements with Israel and even ties between the Jewish state and Saudi Arabia have warmed over a common enemy: Iran.

US patience has also waned. The Biden administration is uncomfortable with the far-right shift in Israeli politics and President Joe Biden has had a checkered relationship with Netanyahu -- who infuriated Democrats with repeated interventions in US politics and with his outspoken support for Donald Trump. The former president's administration meanwhile severed any remaining sense that the strongly pro-Israel US is an honest broker in the conflict, after moving the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and making clear he was transforming American foreign policy to court right-wing religious evangelical voters.

With the US embroiled in supporting Ukraine's bid to repel the Russian invasion and girding for a potential new conflict with China, there's only so much bandwidth in Washington for what looks like an insoluble problem.

Blinken struck the normal US notes during his trip, underscoring support for a two-state solution that Netanyahu opposes in any form that would be acceptable to the Palestinians.

"Palestinians and Israelis alike are experiencing growing insecurity, growing fear in their homes and communities and places of worship. We believe it is important to take steps to deescalate," Blinken said.

No one could disagree with that. But it's hard to see how it makes any difference.

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'A new concept of peace'

In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on Tuesday, Netanyahu said people get "hung up" on peace negotiations with the Palestinians, and that he opted for a different approach that could go "around" such difficult talks.

Asked by Tapper about the Biden administration's concerns that settlements in the occupied West Bank could exacerbate tensions, Netanyahu pointed to the Trump-era Abraham Accords that normalized relations between Israel and several Arab countries. "I went around them (Palestinians), I went directly to the Arab states and forged with a new concept of peace," he said.

"When effectively the Arab-Israeli conflict (comes) to an end, I think we'll circle back to the Palestinians and get a workable peace with the Palestinians," he also said.

From bad to worse

Consequences of the estrangement between the Kremlin and the White House -- currently worse than at many points of the Cold War -- spell danger beyond Ukraine.

The US State Department on Tuesday accused Moscow of violating the terms of the New START nuclear arms control agreement and refusing inspections of its nuclear facilities. "Russia's refusal to facilitate inspection activities prevents the United States from exercising important rights under the treaty and threatens the viability of US-Russian nuclear arms control," a spokesperson said in statement. Under the treaty -- the only agreement left regulating US and Russian nuclear arsenals -- Washington and Moscow are allowed to conduct inspections of each other's weapons sites, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, inspections have been halted since 2020.

New START limited the number of deployed intercontinental-range nuclear weapons by the US and Russia. It was last extended in early 2021 for five years, and will need renegotiating soon, a daunting prospect in current circumstances.

Even at the darkest moments of the Soviet standoff with the West in the 20th century, each side had a reasonable expectation that the other accepted the responsibilities that come with being a nuclear power. Decades of arms control talks between Moscow and successive US administrations that succeeded in tempering a nuclear arms race are proof of that. But one of the most chilling aspects of the Ukraine war has been Russian President Vladimir Putin's willingness to allude to the nuclear threat as a strategic ploy. The collapse of the remaining nuclear safeguards on the world's two most powerful arsenals would make the world an even more dangerous place.

Thanks for reading.

On Wednesday, a funeral for Tyre Nichols will be held in Memphis with US Vice President Kamala Harris expected to attend. French President Emmanuel Macron meets with European Council President Charles Michel in Paris.