By Matt Spetalnick and Humeyra Pamuk
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Biden administration will make a final push for elusive deals to end the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, but Donald Trump’s election may leave Washington without enough leverage to bend Israel and other regional players to its will before he becomes president.
Senior U.S. officials who have spent months crisscrossing the Middle East for peace negotiations are now likely to face counterparts reluctant to take big steps, preferring instead to wait for Trump’s inauguration in January, according to sources familiar with the matter and independent analysts.
Trump has promised to bring peace to the Middle East but has not said how. If his first term is any indication, however, he is likely to pursue a strongly pro-Israel approach, going even beyond the staunch support given by President Joe Biden to Washington’s top regional ally.
Ahead of a second Trump presidency, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Thursday: “We will continue to pursue an end to the war in Gaza, an end to the war in Lebanon, the surge of humanitarian assistance, and that is our duty to pursue those policies right up until noon on Jan. 20.”
But with Biden now a lame duck, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a close Trump ally, and Arab leaders will likely do little to accommodate the Democratic president and may take their cues from his Republican successor, whose erratic first-term foreign policy kept the region on edge.
“They’ve got substantially less leverage,” said Brian Finucane, senior adviser to the International Crisis Group’s U.S. program. “People may still answer their phone calls, but everyone is looking forward to a new administration, one that will have different policies and priorities.”
HEDGING THEIR BETS
Since Trump’s victory in Tuesday’s election against Vice President Kamala Harris, Arab and Israeli officials have already begun hedging their bets.
Egyptian mediators who have been working with U.S. and Qatari counterparts on Gaza ceasefire proposals are waiting to see how Trump’s plans take shape for the Palestinian enclave, Egyptian security sources said.
As the world watched the U.S. election on Tuesday, Netanyahu – who left little doubt of his preference for Trump and hailed his win as “historic” – sacked his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, depriving the Biden administration of one of its favored Israeli partners.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which has been fighting Israel for more than a year in Gaza following the militants’ attack on southern Israel, and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, locked in a parallel conflict with Israeli forces, both appeared to be looking past Biden to the incoming Trump administration.
Reprisal strikes between Israel and Iran have raised fears of a broader regional war.
Hamas urged Trump to “learn from Biden’s mistakes,” and Hezbollah said it did not hold out much hope for a shift in U.S. policy away from support for Israel.
Palestinian Authority officials say, however, they expect to be working with Biden aides right up to when Trump takes office.
Washington sought to kick start the Gaza ceasefire talks after Israel killed Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar in mid-October, but the effort went nowhere. In Lebanon, U.S. officials have said they have made progress but a final deal has yet to be reached.
When asked about the view that the Biden administration’s leverage had eroded post-election, a White House National Security Council spokesperson said: “I’m not going to speculate on hypotheticals.”
WAITING FOR TRUMP
Netanyahu and his allies celebrated the election of Trump, a staunch but sometimes unpredictable ally of Israel, hoping that the Republican president who in his first term delivered major wins for the Israeli leader would support Israel unconditionally.
Trump has strongly backed Netanyahu’s goal of destroying Hamas but has called for Israel to finish the job quickly.
In his victory speech, Trump said: “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.” But he did not elaborate.
Biden’s support for Israel has divided his Democratic Party and cost Harris the votes of many Arab Americans and liberals.
The Democratic president has firmly supported Israel while pressuring Netanyahu to do more to protect civilians and allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza.
But Biden has been unable to end the war, with some critics saying he should have done more to restrict billions of dollars of military aid the U.S. sends every year to Israel.
Laura Blumenfeld, a Middle East analyst at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies in Washington, predicted that ahead of Trump’s inauguration, Netanyahu would make a limited effort to meet Biden’s demands on Gaza aid but would also be mindful of what he needs to do to placate Trump.
“From Election Day to inauguration day, Israel’s posture toward the U.S. will be dictated by two things: what Netanyahu needs, what Netanyahu fears,” she said. “Netanyahu also fears the erratic wrath of the next American president.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in an Oct. 13 letter demanded Israel take specific measures to improve aid for Gaza or face potential consequences in U.S. military support.
Blumenfeld said that during this interim, Netanyahu would make a minimal effort to comply with that demand, “just enough to avoid critical weapon restrictions.”
Some analysts believe Trump may give Netanyahu a freer hand to act against Iran and its proxies.
“Netanyahu knows that Trump will give him carte blanche to carry out his plans, so he is just biding his time,” said Brett Bruen, a former foreign policy adviser in the Obama administration.
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Matt Spetalnick; Additional reporting by James Mackenzie in Jerusalem and Ahmed Mohamed Hassan in Cairo; Editing by Don Durfee and Cynthia Osterman)
