U.S. President Joe Biden has spent nearly a year pledging his determination to prevent a war in Gaza from engulfing the entire Middle East. He reiterated that resolve on Tuesday in his final speech to the United Nations as president, when he addressed the fighting between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
“A diplomatic solution is still possible. In fact, it remains the only way to achieve lasting security,” Biden said.
“A total war is in no one’s interest,” he added.
But the Israeli-Lebanese crisis is now teetering on the edge.
Biden’s pleas for restraint from the U.N. podium, just as he called on Israel and Hamas to finally reach a ceasefire and hostage release deal, were heard in the halls but not in the region.
Israel launched hundreds of airstrikes into Lebanon on Monday, the country’s deadliest day since a bloody sectarian civil war ended more than three decades ago. According to Lebanese health officials, Israeli bombings killed more than 500 people.
Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group that dominates the country, was hit hard last week by an Israeli pager bombing attack that fired hundreds of rockets into northern Israel, destroying homes and setting streets ablaze.
The United States is once again trying to restrain Israel, a key regional ally it is arming, and urging its rivals not to escalate the situation while pursuing a diplomatic outcome that neither side itself has the ability or willingness to agree on.
Israel says it is moving to disarm Lebanese militiamen so Israeli residents can return to their homes in the north. Hezbollah says it has been attacking Israel for the past 11 months in an effort to deter and weaken Israeli attacks on Palestinians in Gaza. U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein has been pursuing months of shuttle diplomacy to build on already established U.N. security resolutions on Israel and Hezbollah, but to no avail.
Instead, in another split-screen moment as Biden urged calm from the UN podium, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted a video on X and vowed: “We will continue to fight Hezbollah.” From his living room There’s a missile inside, a rocket in his garage – he won’t have a home.
The White House supports Israel’s alleged right to fight Hezbollah. But in recent weeks, an often dysfunctional political relationship with Israel’s leadership has become apparent again, amid serious government concerns that the pager bomb attacks and subsequent Israeli airstrikes could lead to all-out war.
Despite last week’s crisis, there was no announced call between Biden and Netanyahu. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently visited the region for the tenth time since the Oct. 7 attacks but did not visit Israel for the first time. Critics inside and outside the government have repeatedly accused the White House of failing to influence Netanyahu by failing to limit U.S. arms supplies. The government categorically rejects this and says it is committed to defending Israel.
President Biden has always believed that the key to resolving the border crisis between Israel and Lebanon, which has involved 11 months of cross-border fighting and the displacement of tens of thousands of people on both sides, lies in reaching a Gaza ceasefire agreement. But the process has stalled badly, with little sign that both sides are willing to achieve this goal. Blinken recently blamed a lack of “political will” on Israel and Hamas.
The White House denies that its ongoing diplomatic efforts are destined to fail — and President Joe Biden has given up hope of a breakthrough with four months left in his term.
“No, he’s definitely not giving up,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said of Biden’s attempts to reach a deal to end the Gaza war.
“We encountered difficulties and setbacks. We are gaining [Israeli] The Prime Minister crossed the line. We have had challenges getting Hamas leader Sinwar to cross the line. But we are determined to persevere,” Mr Sullivan told CNN.
“The president will be meeting with other leaders in New York this week to try to reach a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza and, critically, try to avoid an all-out war in the Middle East.”
Behind the scenes in New York, a flurry of diplomatic activity was underway. The United States is presenting potential plans to its allies to resolve the crisis between Israel and Hezbollah, a senior State Department official said.
“We have some concrete ideas that we will be discussing with allies and partners this week to try to figure out a way forward to address this issue,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.
Asked what the “concrete ideas” were, the official declined to say, instead noting that while the United States does not speak directly to Hezbollah, some of its allies gathered in New York do and that these partners ” There may be a clearer understanding of Hezbollah”. Hezbollah is thinking so we can stress test our ideas. “
But the official also reiterated U.S. opposition to any Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon. Israeli officials reportedly believe that intensifying the conflict with Hezbollah could force them to reach a diplomatic agreement to stabilize the situation on both sides of the Israeli-Lebanese border, which they deny, a strategy they have called “de-escalation with escalation” situation”. .
“At least in my recent memory, I don’t recall a period of escalation or intensification that resulted in a fundamental de-escalation and resulted in deep stabilization,” the official said.
