US not sure of Netanyahu’s word on ending Israel-Gaza conflict

As US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel on October 22 for his 11th visit, numerous problems cropped up in the Democratic Party. Perhaps his visit was needed to showcase something tangible to the US electorate by way of Gaza ceasefire and hostages’ release before the November 5 Presidential election.

First, a poll on October 22 by ‘The Arab News/YouGov’ revealed 45 per cent Arab-Americans favour Donald Trump, with only 43 per cent supporting Kamala Harris as President. As many as 39 per cent respondents felt that Trump would end this war, while 33 per cent said that Harris could stop it. By that time the civilian death toll, according to the UN report of October 8, had exceeded 42,000, with another 12,000 people crushed under the debris.

Second, US President Joe Biden’s hopes of a ceasefire after Yahya Sinwar’s killing on October 17 were dashed after a Hezbollah drone attack hit Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in Caesarea on the 19th. In response, Israel bombed five apartment blocks on October 21 in Beirut, near the city’s main public hospital, Rafik Hariri, killing 18 people, including four children. The bombing coincided with the unsuccessful visit of US Special envoy Amos Hochstein to Lebanon to bring peace.

The UN on October 21 said that more than 8 lakh persons had been internally displaced in Lebanon. While 4.2 lakh fled to Syria, 17,000 persons escaped to Iraq. Meanwhile, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said the next day that Israel’s bombing of Gaza had created 42 million tonnes of rubble, creating serious health risks.

Third, Blinken was not able to get a promise from Netanyahu that Israel would not continue to occupy Northern Gaza even after the conclusion of the war. Although Netanyahu has been assuring Blinken privately, the Israeli PM would not say that openly, as the Times of Israel reported on October 22.

On October 21, hundreds of Jewish Right-wing ‘settlement-supporting Israelis’ organised a show of strength near the Gaza border to demand settlements in Gaza. This was by Nahala (heritage), a pro-settlement organisation, while coalition partners like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich rejected protests from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum that they were sacrificing the lives of hostages for their own political goals.

Fourth, the leak by a Telegram channel called Middle East Spectator of two highly classified US documents meant for the ‘Five Eyes’ group, on Israel’s top secret battle plans against Iran. The channel claimed that the documents were shared by its ‘source’ in the American intelligence community. The channel also added that it had no connection with the source who, according to it, was ‘a whistleblower in the US State Department’.

Axios, a news website located in Arlington, Virginia, confirmed that Middle East Spectator was Iran-affiliated, with its X account profile located in Iran. This has raised grave concerns among the US intelligence community on Iranian penetration into American intelligence.

However, some intelligence experts did not discount the possibility of Israel leaking the documents to deceive Iran. A few others felt that the Biden administration may itself have orchestrated the leak to delay the Israeli attack, as Washington DC is not confident now of Netanyahu postponing the Iran war, at least until after the US Presidential election.

The Harry Truman Library documents reveal that President Truman modified America’s Israel-Palestinian policy in 1945 to favour his party in the US elections. Truman went against his predecessor’s consensus with Britain on keeping the multi-religious character of Palestine and the Jewish presence there, which in 1917 was only 18,000 Jews (3 per cent) out of its 6 lakh population.

The Balfour Declaration in 1917 that spoke of the ‘establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people’ had said that ‘nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine’.

The Arabs protested when, by 1922, Jewish migration had gone up to 83,790. Winston Churchill, the then Colonial Secretary, responded by assuring them that there was no intention of turning Palestine into a Jewish state. However, by 1939, Jewish numbers had reached 4.45 lakh, which was one-third of Palestine’s population.

The same stand was taken by US President FD Roosevelt on April 5, 1945, while writing to King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia, assuring him that no action would be taken in Palestine by America ‘which might prove hostile to the Arab people’.

Truman, according to American journalist James Reston, quoted by the Truman Library, was influenced by local political considerations to ask British Prime Minister Clement Attlee to permit a huge migration of one lakh Jews to Palestine on August 31, 1945. Two Democrat politicians vying for the Governorship and Senator’s position in New York state, had influenced the President to alter his policy on Israel. Ernest Bevin, then British Foreign Secretary, lamented that the ‘Palestine issue has become the subject of local elections in the United States.’

However, Truman also participated in the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry to find a solution to Palestine. The Committee in its ‘Report to the United States Government and His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom’ (April 20, 1946) inter alia said: ‘Jew will not dominate Arab nor will Arab dominate Jew; that Palestine shall be neither a Jewish state nor an Arab state; that the form of government ultimately to be established, shall, under international guarantees, fully protect and preserve the interests in the Holy Land of Christendom and of the Moslem and Jewish faiths’.

On April 2, 1947, Britain moved the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on the future of Palestine. The UNGA appointed a special committee of 11 members, including India, to recommend a solution. On September 1, 1947, the Committee recommended two options: the majority plan to partition Palestine into the Arab and Jewish areas with Jerusalem under international control, while the minority plan, proposed by India and others, was to have a federated state of Palestine, comprising two autonomous states.

While the Arabs preferred the minority plan, Jews chose the majority plan of partition. Truman tilted the scale in their favour to pass UN Resolution No: 181 on November 29, 1947, when he overruled the US State Department, which had preferred the minority plan.

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