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Since taking office two years ago, Antony Blinken has tackled some of the most complex challenges facing a modern U.S. secretary of state, including cleaning up the diplomatic chaos that followed the hasty withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and building an anti-Russian coalition in Ukraine.
But Blinken is now on an overseas mission that may be what one analyst called “mission impossible”: to help arm Israel ahead of an expected attack on Gaza while urging restraint and convincing Gulf allies to limit This will inevitably provoke an angry reaction from Islamists.
“In some ways, it does seem like an ‘impossible mission,'” said David Makovsky, a Middle East expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The overlapping and potentially conflicting goals of his mission were on full display during Blinken’s first stop in Tel Aviv on Thursday, where he strongly backed Israel’s right to defend itself even as he warned the country’s prime minister to act in accordance with Israeli law. Laws of War. “How Israel does this matters,” he said at a news conference, standing next to Benjamin Netanyahu. “That’s why it’s so important to take every possible precaution to avoid harming civilians.”
The success of the effort has been called into question, with rights groups criticizing Netanyahu’s decision to cut off food, water and electricity supplies to the densely populated Gaza Strip, a move Amnesty International called an “illegal blockade”. Gaza’s only power plant shut down on Wednesday after running out of fuel.
The United States is also trying to persuade Israel and Egypt to provide civilians with a humanitarian corridor out of Gaza through Egypt, which analysts say could help offset negative perceptions of Israel as its campaign continues. But so far, these efforts have met with resistance.
As difficult as Blinken’s task is in Israel, it may get even tougher on Friday when he begins a visit to America’s Arab allies, including Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.
The ground has been laid for those countries by Blinken’s boss, President Joe Biden, who has been on the phone with Arab leaders for days and working with regional allies in hopes of preventing the conflict from spreading across borders.
But this is nearly impossible for Arab allies, including Saudi Arabia. For months, Saudi Arabia has insisted that it has not given up on the Palestinian cause, even as it grows closer to Israel to counter common enemy Iran.
Historically, Saudi Arabia is one of the Palestinian Authority’s most important financial backers, but it has no ties to Hamas, which it considers a faction aligned with Iran. It also hosts millions of Muslim pilgrims each year at Islam’s holiest sites of Mecca and Medina, and is deeply concerned about the outbreak of wider conflict.
Saturday’s attack in southern Israel comes after the Biden administration showed limited staying power in backing Netanyahu’s military response to Palestinian attacks. During Israel’s last conflict with Hamas in 2021, the president and other senior U.S. officials urged Netanyahu to end the conflict in less than a week.
But U.S. officials say the circumstances of this Hamas attack are different and that the White House is preparing to support Israel in a long war that would deliver a decisive blow to the terror group, rather than what Israeli officials have been known to do in recent years. Like “mowing the grass.”
William Wexler, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center, said Arab leaders will show more patience with Israel’s response to Hamas because of the heinous nature of its atrocities. But he warned that it would be difficult for Gulf allies to accept U.S. pleas for restraint as the war continues.
“Over time, as photos and videos of innocent people suffering become available, this will lessen,” Wexler said.
U.S. officials are particularly worried about Iran trying to exploit the conflict, either by unleashing Shia militant groups such as Lebanese Hezbollah to bolster Israel’s second front or by using its proxies to attack Gulf Arabs.
Biden has sought to appease Iran’s Arab enemies by sending two aircraft carrier groups to the region, saying they were intended to send a clear message to the Iranians: “Be careful.”
So far, Tehran has shown signs of restraint. U.S. officials said there was no indication Iran was directly involved in Saturday’s Hamas attack and that Hezbollah has not yet formally entered the conflict. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman held a rare phone call with Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi on Thursday.
While Blinken was in Israel, his Iranian counterpart, Foreign Affairs Minister Hussein Amirabdullahian, warned in Beirut that Israeli attacks on Palestinians would be responded to by “other axis powers”, adding Said the “Zionist entity” would be responsible.
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