Israeli Merkava Mk 4 main battle tank. By Corona Borealis @ Adobe Stock
After Donald Trump negotiated peace between a number of Muslim nations and Israel via the Abraham Accords, the weak Biden administration has overseen the complete collapse of the Middle East peace process and is now desperately attempting to prevent a full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah. Michael R. Gordon reports in The Wall Street Journal:
A Biden administration push to curtail worsening border clashes between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon is running into major headwinds because of the difficulty the U.S. faces in arranging a cease-fire in Gaza, U.S. officials say.
The connections between the two fronts underscore the diplomatic conundrum facing the White House as it seeks to prevent a full-scale war that could draw in Iran and broaden the fighting well beyond Gaza.
The White House insists that de-escalation along Israel’s northern frontier can’t be conditional on an elusive cease-fire in Gaza and is mounting a major diplomatic effort to defuse tensions in the north after weeks of unsuccessful pressure on Hamas to agree to a halt in the fighting in the south.
But Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist group and an ally of Hamas, has intensified rocket and drone attacks in northern Israel in recent weeks, putting more pressure on the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has vowed to end the threat and return some 70,000 citizens who have had to be evacuated.
Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general, warned Israel in a televised address from Beirut earlier this month that “no place in the country is safe from our rockets.”
“The logic of Nasrallah…is that it is all tied to Gaza, and until there is a cease-fire in Gaza the firing at Israel won’t stop,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters on Wednesday. “We frankly, completely reject this logic.”
Efforts by the U.S. special envoy Amos Hochstein to fashion an agreement that would include a pullback from the border by Hezbollah have so far fallen short.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met twice with Hochstein about Lebanon while he was in Washington this week for top-level meetings with White House, State Department and Pentagon officials.
“Israel wants to find a solution that will change the security situation in the north. We don’t want war, but we are preparing for every scenario,” Gallant told reporters Tuesday night. “We won’t accept Hezbollah troops and military formations on the border with Israel. We won’t accept threats to our northern communities.”
Hochstein held talks with Netanyahu in a visit to the Middle East last week that included a stop in Lebanon to meet senior officials.
Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged tit-for-tat fire since Oct. 7, when the Iran-aligned militia backed attacks by Hamas that sparked a war in Gaza. While both Hezbollah and Israel have been reluctant to turn hostilities into a bigger conflict, both are signaling they might escalate the fighting.
Earlier this month, Hezbollah published a video from what it said was a reconnaissance drone that had flown over the Israeli port in Haifa. Another Hezbollah drone was shot down by Israeli forces over the lower Galilee.
Read more here.
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