On July 21, 2006, nine days into Israel’s 34-day war on Lebanon that left 1,200 people dead, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared that “an immediate ceasefire without political conditions is meaningless.”
In response to a reporter’s question at a press briefing, the secretary of state said she had “no interest in pursuing diplomacy aimed at returning Lebanon and Israel to the status quo ante.”
In addition to maneuvering to delay a ceasefire, the United States has also accelerated the delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel to aid in the mass slaughter.
Just two and a half years later, Rice was back to protest a too-hasty ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, where, in 22 days between December 2008 and January 2009, Israel massacred some 1,400 Palestinians.
In this case, Rice claimed that the United States was “working toward a ceasefire that would not allow for a return to the status quo ante where Hamas could continue to launch rockets from Gaza,” with Hamas’s largely ineffective rockets clearly being a bigger problem than the massacre of 1,400 people.
Fifteen years later, Israel has committed a full-blown genocide in the Gaza Strip, which is arguably a more effective way to eradicate the “status quo ante” – at least if by “status quo ante” one means the Gaza Strip and its inhabitants. With the official Palestinian death toll now exceeding 40,000, and predictions that the actual death toll could actually be much higher, an immediate ceasefire is the only non-genocidal option.
And while US President Joe Biden has repeatedly stressed the urgency of such a ceasefire, it is a bit tricky to stop a war when you have just approved an additional $20 billion in arms transfers to the party that has officially killed nearly 17,000 Palestinian children since October.
Indeed, the current qualifications of the United States to mediate a ceasefire in Gaza are rather dubious, given that the country could easily be considered a de facto belligerent in the conflict. On Sunday, the New York Times reported that, like Israel, the United States has “invested vast resources in trying to track down” Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, and has not only “provided ground-penetrating radar” to Israel but has also tasked American spy agencies “with intercepting Mr. Sinwar’s communications.”
The Times quotes White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan on additional U.S. contributions to the obsessive search for Sinwar: “We’ve had people in Israel sitting in the same room with the Israelis working on this problem. And we obviously have a lot of experience in hunting high-value targets.”
But again, simultaneously “hunting down” the head of the very organization with which one claims to be negotiating a ceasefire does not really speak to one’s credibility as a mediator.
According to the Times article, U.S. officials believe that killing or capturing Sinwar would give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a way to claim a significant military victory and potentially make him more willing to end military operations in Gaza” — a compelling argument, no doubt, for an extrajudicial assassination.
In any case, Netanyahu is not really interested in “ending” anything, regardless of Sinwar’s fate. The Israeli prime minister believes that Israel reserves the right to resume fighting against Hamas, regardless of any ceasefire agreement, which is counterproductive to the goal pursued.
On Tuesday, The Times of Israel reported that while US officials continue to insist on “progress” in the ceasefire negotiations, Israeli news channel Channel 12 has learned that the “thorny issues” have been put aside for now: “The network said the US mediators hope to first reach agreements on other issues, such as Israel’s ability to veto the release of some Palestinian security prisoners and the exile of others.”
The “thorny” issues include whether Israel should be allowed to continue occupying the entire length of the Gaza-Egypt border after the war. That issue would be “left to the very end of the negotiations, according to the (Channel 12) report, which quoted officials as saying they do not believe Hamas leader Sinwar will move on the Gaza-Egypt border unless he feels that (the Israeli military) is closing in on him,” the Times of Israel reported.
According to the diplomatic hallucinations of White House national security spokesman John Kirby, delaying tactics aimed at allowing the perpetual occupation of what remains of the Gaza Strip are apparently a sign of “constructive” talks.
Meanwhile, the genocide continues apace, as the Israeli military continues to terrorize and starve the civilian population. Access to water and humanitarian aid is now restricted in the central Gaza city of Deir el-Balah, where the United Nations has been forced to suspend operations once again in order to comply with Israel’s pathological evacuation orders.
Certainly, Israel’s habit of ordering Palestinians to evacuate an area and then bombing them when they comply is hardly “constructive.”
The New York Times published an article on American assistance in the “hunt” for Sinwar, quoting a senior Israeli official who called the support of American intelligence “invaluable.” But if the United States continues to buy Israel time to destroy the status quo ante in Gaza, while pretending to be decent and moral, the world itself will pay the price.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.