{"id":16856,"date":"2023-11-08T18:08:41","date_gmt":"2023-11-08T18:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/?p=16856"},"modified":"2023-11-09T11:52:45","modified_gmt":"2023-11-09T11:52:45","slug":"american-leadership-could-end-the-crisis-in-gaza-will-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/featured\/2023\/11\/08\/american-leadership-could-end-the-crisis-in-gaza-will-it\/","title":{"rendered":"American Leadership Could End the Crisis in Gaza. Will It?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken toured the Middle East and Turkey this week, concluding his trip with a statement to the press<\/a> on November 6. The purpose of his trip was to \u201cto prevent the conflict from spreading through other parts of the region,\u201d to “grow and expand NATO\u201d in the general area and to \u201cexpand humanitarian assistance\u201d to Gaza. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the common denominators that I\u2019ve heard throughout this trip is the imperative of American engagement, American leadership,\u201d said Blinken in his statement <\/a>to the press. \u201cEvery country I talk to is looking for us to play a leading role with our diplomacy to try to make progress on all of these different aspects of the crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the American role in the conflict is not quite as clear as perhaps it should be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Blinken says, \u201cWe\u2019ve engaged the Israelis on steps that they can take to minimize civilian casualties. [And] we\u2019re working\u2026 very aggressively on getting more humanitarian assistance into Gaza,\u201d it\u2019s unclear how that meshes with the possibility of sending more bombs to Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a letter obtained by the New York Times<\/a>, the State Department cleared a sale of $320 million in precision bombs for Israel on October 31. This is in addition to the recent House vote on Israel funding on November 2, when the House passed $14.3 billion in aid for Israel<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the bombing of Gaza that has created the need for humanitarian aid. Israel has allowed little food and water into the enclave and 1.4 million people are homeless, sleeping in hospitals that are targeted by bombs or in the rubble. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The State Department reiterated that a decades-old plan, the two-state solution, <\/a>might be the \u201csole viable path for durable security and durable peace for Israelis and Palestinians,\u201d says spokesperson Vendant Patel<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a two-state solution would mean going back to 1967 borders, which Israel has already shown it has no intention of doing. This was demonstrated by PM Benjamin Netanyahu in the map he showed during his UNGA speech in September that showed Palestinian territory under Israeli control. With the almost-complete destruction of Gaza, formerly home to some 2 million people, there isn\u2019t even a tenable area for the Palestinians to have their own state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The situation recalls that of the Iraq War, which saw a country devastated and over a million innocents killed and others detained, only to discover later that Saddam Hussein was not, in fact, developing \u201cweapons of mass destruction.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was in Israel\u2019s foremost interest that the United States take the lead in the war against Iraq,\u201d say authors Richard T. Hull, Randall E. Osborne and Paul Kriese in Global Community: Global Security<\/a>. The book also quotes Washington Post journalist J. Kayer in August 2002, \u201cIsrael is urging United States\u2019 officials not to delay a military strike against Iraq\u2019s Saddam Hussein.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

American engagement in Gaza could indeed change the most pressing humanitarian aspects of the conflict. That\u2019s if American officials press harder for a ceasefire instead of sending precision bombs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only a turnaround in policy would put America back into the leadership position it lost over time by fighting Israel\u2019s wars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IP Correspondent <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The American role in the conflict is not quite as clear as perhaps it should be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2964,"featured_media":16858,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,14093,14464,14454,14080],"tags":[14515,14508,14495],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16856"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2964"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16856"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16889,"href":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16856\/revisions\/16889"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}