On a moment of hope - Mark Landler in NYT:
‘But more ambitious efforts, like American-led negotiations for a cease-fire with Hamas in Gaza, have failed to produce a breakthrough. And the United States has yet to propose, much less carry out, a comprehensive plan that would pull the Middle East back from a calamitous regionwide war.
Nor does it appear to have much influence on the Israeli leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has ramped up the conflict with Hezbollah and Iran, and continued the military campaign in Gaza, despite having killed the Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar.’
(…)
‘“Core to the assumption of the Israelis is that in a wider war, the United States will be doing the fighting,” Mr. Nasr said. “The United States is sleepwalking into another long-term conflict in the Middle East.”’
(…)
‘“For sure, there’s a moment of hope here,” said Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former American ambassador to Israel and Egypt. “If you’re Israel and you have seriously weakened three of your most important enemies, you might say to yourself, ‘This is an opportunity to move the notch closer to regional stability and peace.’” Yet what separates the current conflict from previous ones, Mr. Kurtzer said, is both the brutal nature of the Hamas attack on Israel, which left its population traumatized in a way that previous wars did not, and the uncertain leadership in several key countries, not just the United States.’
(…)
‘As for Israel, Mr. Netanyahu still faces the prospect of prosecution over corruption cases, and he governs in a coalition with far-right ministers, some of whom view the Gaza conflict as a pretext to drive out the Palestinian population.’
Read the article here.
Maybe not sleepwalking, maybe the US knows what it’s doing.
War has been an excuse for ethnic cleansing before.
Clinging to power, in order to avoid prison has a certain amount of perverse side effects.