Anshel Pfeffer

Joe Biden is running out of time in the Middle East

issue 06 April 2024

Jerusalem

The idea of a Saudi-Israel rapprochement would have been unthinkable not so long ago, and yet, shortly before the 7 October attacks, it was on the cards. The Emirates and Bahrain had recognised Israel’s sovereignty. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) was positioning Saudi Arabia to do the same. Now Joe Biden – who on Tuesday said he was ‘outraged’ at a convoy strike that killed seven people – is desperately trying to see if he can get things moving again.

Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, is in Saudi Arabia this week meeting with MBS in a last-ditch attempt to save Biden’s grand design for Middle East peace. He’s unlikely to succeed, but the manner of the failure could determine how the next stages of the war between Israel and Iran and its regional proxies play out.

The President wants to show his own restive Democratic party that he’s trying to end the war

The contours of the Biden administration’s plans are well-known. Israel agrees a timetable for a ceasefire in Gaza and allows a ‘revitalised’ Palestinian Authority to assume control of the devastated strip. Israel also commits to serious negotiations about a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank. The Saudi kingdom ‘normalises’ its unofficial relationship with Israel, and signs a strategic co-operation agreement with the US, giving it unprecedented access to American arms and even a civilian nuclear programme.

For Biden this would be the crowning foreign-policy achievement not just of his presidency, but of his long public career: ending the war in Gaza, solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and creating an American-friendly security partnership in the Middle East, led by its two main allies, Israel and the Saudis, to counter Iran. But there are too many obstacles to realising his vision.

Israel’s objective of destroying Hamas’s military capabilities in Gaza is still far from realised six months on.

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Written by
Anshel Pfeffer

Anshel Pfeffer is the Israel correspondent for the Economist, a correspondent for British and Israeli newspapers and the author of Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu.

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