Joe Biden is making the most of the cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon that he helped to broker. “It reminds us that peace is possible,” he declared in the White House Rose Garden, where US presidents habitually preen rather than prune. Yet Biden’s flowery self-congratulation jars at this fragile moment. It sounds like cruel mockery to the beleaguered people of Gaza.
With the truce holding for a second day – despite some apparent breaches – Lebanon has been spared more death and wanton destruction, for now. Many people are celebrating and heading home to the south despite Israeli warnings. But Biden’s belief that the accord will hasten a Gaza ceasefire, spike the guns of Iran and its proxies, and open the way to the wider regional settlement he has long sought finds scant justification in fact.
It’s a fact, for example, that Benjamin Netanyahu has not suddenly turned dovish peacemaker. Having unjustifiably ordered a large-scale ground invasion in Lebanon last month, preceded by aerial bombing and sabotage attacks in Beirut, Israel’s hawkish prime minister is quitting while he’s ahead. Operation Northern Arrows is being presented to the public as a success, unlike the 2006 war. Hezbollah’s military power has undoubtedly been seriously degraded.
Yet the reasons why Netanyahu has refused for more than a year to accept a similar ceasefire in Gaza are intrinsically unchanged. The war there suits him politically and personally. Unlike in Lebanon, he continues to seek “total victory”. Concessions to Hamas, such as releasing Palestinian prisoners, would sink his hard-right coalition. The war keeps at bay an official investigation into the security failures surrounding the 7 October 2023 Hamas atrocities – and likewise, court proceedings against Netanyahu for alleged bribery and corruption.
Whatever Biden may hope to achieve in the dog days of his presidency, Netanyahu has no incentive to end Gaza’s agony before his ideological ally, Donald Trump, swaggers into office on 20 January. Only then will he maybe act – and that’s a big maybe. The Lebanon ceasefire means cohorts of Israel’s overstretched army, once rested and rearmed, may concentrate in even greater force in Gaza. It brings closer the forced depopulation and de facto annexation of northern areas of the territory urged by Israel’s far-right extremists.
Biden’s sudden Rose Garden conversion into an advocate for Palestinian rights – “the people of Gaza have been through hell,” he said – leaves an especially bad taste. As more than 44,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly civilians, died and innumerable others – young and old – were injured and traumatised, Biden refused to fully condemn Netanyahu’s illegal actions, impose credible sanctions or cancel weapons deliveries to curb Israeli excesses.
It’s also a sobering fact that, under this agreement, Netanyahu can restart the war any time he chooses. Israeli troops have 60 days to withdraw. That timeline may stretch out. If Israel decides Hezbollah’s forces are not staying put behind Lebanon’s Litani River demarcation line, 18 miles north of the Israel-Lebanon boundary, or are rearming, then boom! The whole horror show resumes. If Netanyahu decides, arbitrarily, that a touch more war would be politically useful, he can have it, thanks to a flimsy deal that may be blown away in a moment.
Almost forgotten, again, and not least by Netanyahu, are the 100 or so unaccounted-for Israeli hostages taken on 7 October. Hamas may be weakened by Hezbollah’s defeat. But there are no imminent or credible signs that the terrorist group, though more badly mauled than even its Lebanese ally, is minded to surrender its remaining “bargaining chips”. It is sticking to its demand for a full withdrawal by Israel.
In point of fact, as Biden noted, there is presently no bargaining at all. He has reportedly made a ceasefire and hostage release deal that leaves Hamas “without power” in Gaza a top priority for the remainder of his term. He hopes that Egypt, Qatar and Turkey will help him out. He has failed in this repeatedly. The chances of success now are slim to nonexistent.
Biden’s long-nurtured dream of a wider Middle East settlement looks as remote as ever. The plan revolves around the normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, on the model of the Abraham accords negotiated by Trump. This, it is thought, would help marginalise Iran while binding the Saudis more closely to the west (and keeping China at bay). Yet the fundamental snag facing this scheme is that it depends on substantive progress towards a two-state solution – in short, a sovereign Palestinian state.
Since 7 October, attitudes on both sides of the Arab-Israeli divide have hardened. The Saudis absolutely insist on Palestinian self-determination. Netanyahu and his far-right crew absolutely insist on thwarting it by any means. This will not change simply because the guns have fallen silent in Lebanon, nor because Biden, at last knockings, wants to bequeath a peace president’s legacy.
Not least because of business interests in the Gulf, Trump is also expected to pursue Saudi normalisation. But he lacks skill and focus. He will want an easy win, or he will lose interest. Like Netanyahu, he demonstrates open contempt for Palestinian rights. As a result, any more ambitious peacemaking effort looks bound to fail.
Another fact: if the Americans cannot bring about a lasting, comprehensive Middle East peace, no one can. In the coming vacuum, Hezbollah, battered but unbowed, will surreptitiously begin to rearm, assisted as in the past by Iran. Its nose bloodied badly by Israel, the Tehran regime, too, will look for ways to reassert its regional standing and boost proxies such as Yemen’s Houthis before the next bout.
One ever-more probable Iranian option, with growing, illicit support from Russia, is to move to develop, rather than just talk about developing, nuclear weapons – especially after its offer this month of a new nuclear pact was rebuffed by the west.
It’s too much to hope that Trump will deal sensibly or even sanely with the reality of an Iranian bomb or all the other super-complex Middle East challenges. His capricious incapacity will exacerbate the chronic instability and paralysis that besets a region; a place where fleeting, fragile ceasefires merely mask the true terror of war without end.
Simon Tisdall is the Observer’s foreign affairs commentator
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