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In graphic terms, diplomacy has been treated rudely in the present crisis
Published : 20 Oct 2023, 11:54 PM
The one man who has been grievously upset about the calamity Palestinians have been facing in Gaza and the West Bank is UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. He has been to Rafah, arguing for aid to be given to the Palestinians, four thousand of whose compatriots have died in Israel’s wanton attacks on Gaza. Even before he made his way to the Middle East, Guterres had been advocating a ceasefire, a position that no one in the West has seen fit to adopt. Washington vetoed a ceasefire move at the UN only a few days ago.
In graphic terms, diplomacy has been treated rudely in the present crisis. President Biden has been quick to fly to Tel Aviv to express solidarity with Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government has been pounding away at homes, office buildings and hospitals in a frenzy unimaginable in these post-modern times. Rishi Sunak, Olaf Scholz, Ursula von der Leyen have all made a dash for Israel, as if the Zionist state was in imminent danger of obliteration by Palestinians, to stand beside Netanyahu and express their indignation, rightly so, at the Hamas missile attacks of 7 October.
But none of these consequential western figures had any word of sympathy for the Palestinians who have died, been maimed and live every minute under the threat of being pounded into dead flesh by Israeli raids. In the name of hunting down Hamas, Israel has been shooting and bombarding to death every Palestinian in its way. None of these powerful individuals who have been to Tel Aviv in recent days has had a single expression of sympathy for Palestine, for its people trapped in Gaza. The defence of nuclear-armed Israel has become their priority and the victims of Israeli firepower be damned!
At a time when western diplomacy had a good chance of retrieving some of the reputation it lost through its blatant support for Ukraine in Kyiv’s war against Russia, it did not occur to Biden and his fellow westerners to take a leaf out of past history. Back in 1973, in light of the Yom Kippur War, the United States and other western powers all made their intentions known of ensuring the defence of Israel. At the same time, however, the Nixon administration kept open the door for a dialogue and Henry Kissinger was duly dispatched to Middle Eastern capitals to work out a settlement. It was the inauguration of a process that would eventually lead to the Oslo agreement of 1993.
Of course Anthony Blinken has been to Arab capitals, but his trip was a far cry from that of Henry Kissinger. Where the suave diplomat in Kissinger weighed all the options with regard to a return to peaceful conditions, Blinken conveyed the impression, every step of the way, that he was speaking for Israel. Indeed, the feeling could not be cast aside that Blinken was acting more like Israel’s foreign minister than as America’s top diplomat. It was a good enough reason why he was not taken seriously by his hosts, apart from those in Tel Aviv. In Riyadh, where he arrived on an evening, he was made to wait till the next morning before Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman would meet him and deliver a tough Saudi statement on the atrocities being committed in Gaza. In Abu Dhabi, proper protocol was missing for Blinken and his team. Their motorcade had to move in normal traffic.
It was all an intention on the part of the Arabs to demonstrate their displeasure with the Americans. The displeasure took on wider dimensions when, prior to Biden’s departure for the Middle East from Washington, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas decided to return from Amman, where he was supposed to meet the US leader, to Ramallah after cancelling the meeting. The Israeli attack on the hospital in Gaza worked as a catalyst for Jordan to announce a cancellation of the summit that had been scheduled between Biden, Egypt’s Abdel Fatah al Sisi, Jordan’s King Abdullah and Mahmoud Abbas. In effect, President Biden and before him his Secretary of State went back home with no results to show for their trips.
Against such a background, it would be proper to ask: How is it that none of these powerful western individuals thought it necessary to visit Ramallah or go to Gaza to witness the plight of the Palestinians trapped in the enclave? And how is it that all of these people cast the norms of diplomacy aside through their unabashed expressions of support for Israel despite the knowledge that Israel’s military machine was busy gunning down Palestinians and flattening infrastructure in Gaza City?
The upshot today is obvious. By coming down firmly on Israel’s side, the West has closed off all avenues to a diplomatic solution to the crisis. Antonio Guterres knows this and so do people around the world. The consequences of this failure are turning out to be disturbing. Missiles have been fired at US bases in Iraq, probably from Yemen. Heightened tension marks the frontier between Israel and Lebanon. Israeli forces have gone into killing Palestinians and arresting others in the West Bank. Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi has issued a stern warning to the Israelis. And all across the globe --- in Asia, Latin America, Europe and the United States --- people in their tens of thousands have poured out on the streets demanding an end to Israeli military action in Gaza.
Political analysts around the world have been making pointed references to what they believe is the apartheid exercised by Israel in the occupied Arab territories. Government figures in the West have faced tough questioning in the media over their policies. In effect, even as Biden and Sunak and others have tripped over one another in assuring Netanyahu of their support for him, on the streets it has been a wholly different proposition altogether.
The West has lost face, for it has had nothing in terms of diplomacy to exercise owing to its rush to speak for Israel in the current crisis. Over Ukraine, the West has already forfeited diplomacy through building up Volodymyr Zelensky as a heroic figure who could slay the Russian dragon.
The present generation of western politicians has placed the world, through its misconceived view of international politics, in a state of grave peril. It has lost the moral authority to have a calming effect on events and incidents as they happen around the world. That is indeed a pity.
(Syed Badrul Ahsan writes on politics and diplomacy) ***
