Tel Aviv
The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Israel's Tel Aviv on Friday (Nov 3) in what is his second trip to West Asia this week, days after his much-criticised shuttle diplomacy in the region failed to yield geopolitical results aimed towards a purported de-escalation of Israel-Hamas war and access to humanitarian aid into Gaza Strip.
Blinken is expected to push the Israeli government for "humanitarian pauses" in its assault on Gaza amid Biden administration's purported efforts for the release of Hamas-held hostages.
While attack by the Hamas terrorists led to the brutal killings of more than 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, the retaliatory action by Israel has killed more than 8,500 people, two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.
Antony Blinken's second West Asia visit in less than three weeks
Blinken's second wartime visit to West Asia is aimed at seeking "urgent mechanisms" to reduce regional tensions over the Israel-Hamas war.
"Secretary Blinken will travel to Israel on Friday for meetings with members of the Israeli government, and then will make other stops in the region," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.
Antony Blinken's previous visit to the region concluded on October 15, in what came to be known as "shuttle diplomacy" for the sheer number of trips and meetings the US Secretary of State had with the leaders of a host of countries, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt.
The US diplomat made over a dozen stops in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and back in Israel.
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Blinken's visits were targeted towards an immediate de-escalation of violence in the region as well as a humanitarian corridor via Egypt's Rafah crossing to ensure the access of humanitarian aid into Gaza Strip. They also aimed at laying the groundwork for a leaders' summit in Jordan where the US President Joe Biden was supposed to meet Jordan's King Abdullah II, Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Blinken's shuttle diplomacy failed to claim even partial success.
While the war between Israel and Hamas continues to rage, leading to multiple crises in the blockaded Palestinian region, the humanitarian aid inside Gaza via Egypt's Rafah crossing went over two weeks after the conflict first began in the region.
But the biggest diplomatic setback for the Biden administration came when US President Joe Biden's West Asia visit was forced to be cut down to only Israel. The development occurred after Jordan unilaterally called off a four-way summit between Joe Biden and the leaders of Amman, Cairo and Ramallah—the de-facto administrative capital of Palestine Authority.
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Jordan called off the summit immediately after Israel was blamed for an attack on an hospital in Gaza but Tel Aviv denied any role and blamed a 'misfired' rocket by Islamic Jehad for the hundreds of casualties in the incident.
The death toll at the hospital was also described as "exaggerated" by the Western intelligence agencies. However, the four-way leaders' summit was called off despite Biden administration's deployment of its Secretary of State Antony Blinken for diplomatic engagements in the region in the immediate days following the beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas.
The development was described as a sign of Washington's waning political capital in the region.
"The Jordanian government’s cancellation of President Biden’s trip serves as a glaring indicator of the United States’ waning political capital in the Middle East," Raed Jarrar, Advocacy Director at Washington-based Democracy For The Arab World Now (DAWN) non-profit, had told WION.
Also read | Spotlight on Washington's waning political capital after Gaza hospital blast sinks Biden's Jordan summit
The White House said later that Biden had spoken on Tuesday (Oct 31) with Jordan's King Abdullah, where Blinken visited multiple times during his first leg to West Asia visit.
Biden and King Abdullah II "discussed urgent mechanisms to stem violence, calm rhetoric, and reduce regional tensions," a White House statement said.
It added that the two leaders "agreed that it is critical to ensure that Palestinians are not forcibly displaced outside of Gaza" and that Biden had "confirmed unwavering US support for Jordan and His Majesty's leadership."
Blinken's second leg of wartime West Asia visit: What is new this time?
The ongoing Israeli campaign in Gaza Strip purportedly aims to dismantle Hamas, which controls the blockaded region since 2007, after ousting the relatively moderate Fatah, a Palestinian nationalist and social democratic political party and the largest faction of the confederated multi-party Palestine Liberation Organization.
Hamas ousted the Palestinian Authority from Gaza in 2007 following bloody fighting, a year after winning the elections in Palestinian legislative elections.
While the Gaza Strip is controlled by Hamas (designated a terrorist group by the US and the UK), the Palestinian region of West Bank is partly controlled by Palestine Authority which has effectively been deemed as a legitimate stakeholder in Palestinian political process.
Blinken has called upon a potentially "revitalised" Palestinian Authority to retake the control of Gaza if Israel succeeds in its goal of toppling Hamas. But for that, regional partners — including Qatar which hosts a number of Hamas leaders designated as terrorists by the West — must come on-board.
"At some point, what would make the most sense would be for an effective and revitalised Palestinian Authority to have governance and ultimately security responsibility for Gaza," Blinken told a Senate hearing on October 31.
"Whether you can get there in one step is a big question that we have to look at. And if you can’t, then there are other temporary arrangements that may involve a number of other countries in the region," Blinken said. "It may involve international agencies that would help provide for both security and governance."
(With inputs from agencies)