The American Wall Street Journal published a lengthy report talking about CIA Director William Burns, saying that he faces an uphill battle in secret negotiations aimed at making Israel and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) agree to a ceasefire in Gaza.
He reviewed the report written for the newspaper by Warren B. Strobel and Samar Saeed, the many missions that Burns undertook in Afghanistan, Ukraine, elsewhere, and finally Gaza, and aspects of his personality that specialized in intelligence activities and mediation to resolve crises.
It stated that the multiple rounds of negotiations and nearly 12 trips made by the American official to the Middle East and Europe did not result in a permanent ceasefire, amid doubts that neither Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar nor Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu really wanted a ceasefire.
Months later, the report says, Burns and his fellow mediators are still trying.
Yesterday, Friday, US President Joe Biden announced what he said was a new three-stage ceasefire proposal by Israel that would lead to a permanent cessation of the conflict. “It is time to end this war,” he said.
High-risk diplomacy
The newspaper’s report commented that for William Burns (68 years old), this Gaza mission may be the most difficult mission in his career, which lasted 4 decades of high-risk diplomacy and back-channel work. Burns himself recently likened the effort to “pushing a very large rock up a steep hill,” the newspaper said.
Even the logistics of negotiations are cumbersome. Neither Israel nor Washington deals directly with Hamas, and Qatar shares each ceasefire proposal with the movement’s political wing, which is then passed on to Sinwar, who is believed to be hiding in Hamas’s maze of tunnels under the Gaza Strip, and responses sometimes take days.
Current and former officials in the United States and the Middle East said the risks go beyond death and human suffering in Gaza and Israel.
Avner Golov, former director of Israel’s National Security Council and vice president of Mind Israel, a security-focused nonprofit based in Tel Aviv, said Burns’ work on a ceasefire and the release of detainees in Gaza is key to unlocking other U.S. diplomatic efforts in the region. .
High level conversations
Over the course of his career as a senior diplomat and head of an intelligence agency, William Burns held difficult conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin before the start of the war in Ukraine, secret nuclear negotiations with Iran, and discussions about “terrorism” and weapons of mass destruction with the late Libyan Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who wore… A night encounter in the desert is what Burns later described as “yellow pajamas with dead African dictators on them.”
Aaron David Miller, a long-time friend who worked with Burns at the State Department, said that his friend participated, under President Joe Biden, in the three major security crises – Afghanistan, Ukraine and now Gaza – but added that the Gaza talks, at least for now, are “an impossible mission.” “.
The CIA director has publicly acknowledged the privacy of his intense role in the Gaza talks. His day job, after all, is running a multibillion-dollar intelligence agency charged with tracking China, Russia, “terrorism” and much else.
Diplomatic intelligence channel
His participation was strengthened last October when Qatar, Egypt, Israel and the United States agreed to form a secret cell to negotiate the release of those detained by Hamas after the Al-Aqsa flood attack on Israel.
It quickly became an “intelligence diplomacy” channel. Burns’ counterparts in the talks are David Barnea, head of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel, and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani.
The group, sometimes called the Quartet, achieved a victory late last November, when it reached a week-long ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that witnessed the release of more than 100 prisoners held by the movement in Gaza and 240 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons.
That ceasefire evaporated with renewed fighting. A six-month effort to revive and expand this agreement faltered largely because of Hamas’s demand for guarantees to end the Israeli military attack on Gaza, and because of Israel’s insistence on a phased ceasefire.
He doesn’t scream or threaten
As a mediator in Gaza, William Burns combines the roles of presidential envoy, arbiter and therapist, according to participants in the Gaza talks and US officials who worked closely with him.
Those who have seen him at work say the CIA chief “never shouts or threatens.”
“That’s not his style,” a former senior CIA official said. “He can have difficult conversations but leave people with their dignity.”
In late January, Burns, Barnea, Kamel, and the Qatari Prime Minister met in Paris in a new attempt to revive the talks when another small crisis broke out.
At the time, Netanyahu publicly described Qatar’s role as mediator as “problematic” because it allowed Hamas’s political leadership to reside in Doha. Qatar called the comments “irresponsible and destructive,” and Burns should have tempered matters, people familiar with the talks said.
Arab Burns
Burns has decades of experience in the history of the Middle East, the region’s periods of turmoil and its active figures, dating back to his first posting in 1983 as a junior officer at the US Embassy in Jordan. His Qatari and Egyptian counterparts sometimes call him “Burns of Arabia,” and he is known to use parts of his humble Arabic in negotiations.
In the Gaza talks, the American official enjoys the confidence of both Arabs and Israelis, officials say.
Burns travels without fanfare, and the CIA does not officially confirm his travels. When landing in foreign capitals, he is accompanied by 3 assistants and security details. He often meets with members of the local CIA station.
Intervene more forcefully
Last March, William Burns and the American negotiating team began to intervene more forcefully with the compromise ceasefire proposals drawn up by the United States, as those familiar with the talks said. They said that there are at least 5 such American proposals.
In early April, following an errant Israeli missile strike that killed 7 aid workers in the World Central Kitchen, Israel came under intense pressure from the White House.
Shortly after, a new ceasefire plan was presented in Cairo that included “flexibility” from Israel on key points, Burns said on April 19. Hamas refused again, and Burns described that rejection as causing “deep disappointment.”
Then, early last May, while Burns was moving between the capitals of the Middle East for about a week, it appeared as if Hamas and Israel had finally reached an agreement, after Israel made concessions in which it agreed to a period of “sustainable calm,” instead of… A mysterious “humanitarian pause,” allowing the Palestinians to return to northern Gaza.
Travel to prevent talks from collapsing
Hamas then backed down and renewed its demand for a permanent cessation of the Israeli military attack, according to mediators. On May 5, the movement’s missiles struck the triple border crossing between Gaza, Egypt, and Israel in Kerem Shalom, killing Israeli soldiers. Burns traveled to Qatar to try to prevent the talks from collapsing.
Arab negotiators raced to present a modified proposal that included Hamas’ demands. On May 6, the movement announced that it had accepted what was essentially its own proposal, surprising Israel and the Americans. Israel rejected Hamas’ proposal and the talks collapsed again.
Burns says he’ll keep going. He said in Dallas, Texas, in mid-April, “I cannot honestly say that I am certain that we will succeed, but failure will not be due to lack of trying, and I know that the alternatives are worse.”