American foreign policy kinetics in Israeli- Palestinian conflict
THE worrisome potential for World War III, are catalysed by extant major global conflicts, involving nuclear armed superpowers and their proxies. America, NATO and Western allies ‘ Allies’ on one- hand, versus, Russia, Iran, North Korea and other states, de facto ‘ Axis of Resistance’, on another.
Substantiation for this proposition is partly established by the extant Russo- Ukrainian war which commenced on February 24, 2022. The New York Times asserts thatthe war has already claimed approximately 500,000 lives on both sides; pitted two nuclear superpowers, America and Russia on opposing sides of the conflict.
The Allies support Ukraine, and are heavily involved in the prosecution of the war which, has displaced nearly 3.7 million persons ( UNHCR). The Allies have provided over $ 75 billion in military assistance to Ukraine. Plus, the extant, and horrific, Israeli- Palestinian war, and its wider international ramifications, further reinforces the assertion of a realistic potential for World War III, absent determined political will and effective diplomacy. The latter dynamics and America’s foreign policy response is the focus of this analysis.
The epicentre of the ruinous conflict between Israelis and Palestinians rests on competing claims to land. Palestinians seek a sovereign state including Gaza, Israeli- occupied West Bank and annexed East- Jerusalem; territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle- East six- day war against Egypt, Jordan and Syria! Israel determines all Jerusalem and the West Bank as its immutable capital, and ancestral Jewish homelands, from historical times.
It has proceeded to build settlements there housing thousands of Jewish settlers which are illegal under international law. Because they violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits indiscriminate attacks, all attacks on the civilian population, and civilian objects. This irreconcilable reality for all sides underpins decades of cascading wars in the region, which has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, and displaced millions.
Take October 7, 2023: Palestinian Hamas fighters attacked Israel, killing approximately 1,200 people and seizing 240 hostages ( over100 were released pursuant to Qatari- led mediation). The Israeli military counter- offensive has been devastating, killing over 25,000 Palestinians, entailing widespread destruction of Gaza; ditto, the inability of locals to access life- saving food and medical supplies, according to Palestinian agencies. The actions of Palestinian Hamas fighters and the Israeli forces against innocent civilians, have been consistently denounced by the UN. On December 8, 2023, a UN Security Council resolution vote was invoked, exceptionally, by the Secretary- General, via Article 99 of its Charter given “existing threats to the maintenance of international peace and security”; because “civilians throughout Gaza face grave danger… nowhere is safe in Gaza”; and sought an immediate ceasefire on humanitarian grounds. However, this was vetoed by America, Israel’s pivotal MiddleEastern ally, on the grounds that it was unbalanced in so far as it did not sufficiently address atrocities committed by Palestinian Hamas fighters on October 7, 2023.
Amidst those extreme volatilities, the Israeli forces’ destruction of Gaza, its alleged disproportionate use of force against ordinary
Palestinians, the war has already assumed concerning transnational dimensions. South Africa has commenced proceedings against Israel for genocide before the International Court of Justice.
Houthi rebels in Yemen, in their stated solidarity with the Palestinian people, have begun attacking vessels, deemed to belong to proIsraeli nationsand/ or heading to Israeli ports, crossing the strategically significant Red Sea global maritime route. On November 19, 2023, the rebels hijacked a commercial vessel and have since launched several drone/ missile attacks on others. On January 16, 2024, the Houthi rebels attacked a Malta- registered- Greekvessel, The- Zografa.
The economic aftershocks of these attacks have global ramifications because vessels, to and from Asia, China, and the Indo- Pacific region, are traversing the longer route via the Cape- of- GoodHope, instead of the Red Sea, to get supplies across to Europe and beyond; imposing additional delays, risks and insurance costs on vital supply chains, which imperils global economic stability.
In 2023, the Egyptian Suez Canal authority recorded a 30 per cent deficit in its $ 9.4 billion revenue through the Red Sea. Thus, acting pursuant to UNSC- Resolution 2722 ( 2024) of January 10, 2024, the U. S.- UK launched coordinated attacks against Houthi rebels on January 11 and 22, 2024, aimed at enforcing freedom of navigation on international waters. Nevertheless, the attacks and the intentionality persist: the nexus is the Israeli- Palestinian war!
Inflaming an already dangerous mix, Israeli forces have repeatedly launched cross- border attacks in Lebanon and Syria, targeting Hamas, Hezbollah, Iranian Revolutionary Guards. On January 20, 2024, Israeli forces killed at least five commanders of Iran’s elite Al- Quds forces according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Concurrently, American forces stationed in Iraq’s Ain- al- Asad airbase were attacked by rockets launched from within that country with casualties. Indeed, American forces have come under sustained attacks in Iraq and Syria since the commencement of the Israeli- Palestinian Hamas war, presumably because of the U. S. support for Israel. Further, Iranian forces attacked Pakistan’s Baluchistan province on January 16, 2024 claiming it “targeted Iranian terrorists on the soil of Pakistan.” 48 hours later, Pakistani forces struck Iran claiming to have killed militants.
These kinetics elicit five seminal points. One, to the extent of the aforementioned countries launching transnational attacks on sovereign states, in violation of clear and unambiguous UN Security Council resolutions authorising the use of military force, the rules of international law are openly violated without any consequences whatsoever.
Two, it demonstrably reinforces the majesty of superior military power in geopolitics and international law.
Three, it establishes a dangerous precedent that if country A, can launch cross- border attacks on country B, then any other country with the capacity, and a subjectively defined rationale, can do likewise.
Four, it exposes enfeebled UN governance mechanisms, when countries prosecute extraterritorial military campaigns in advance of vaunted national interests, as exemplified by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, America’s assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, in January 2020, Israeli attacks in Lebanon and Syria, and the recent tit- for- tat Iranian and Pakistani attacks.
Finally, it risks drawing America directly into conflict with Iran and the Axis of Resistance, with ominous implications for global peace. What then is the realpolitik of America’s foreign policy, especially in a presidential election year, against the unnerving backdrop of the Israeli Prime Minister, Bibi Netanyahu’s recently declared opposition to a sovereign Palestine state; upon which several former U. S. presidents, and world leaders, have invested costly diplomatic leverage over several decades?
Notwithstanding political chasms, American foreign policy is, essentially, anchored on the singularity of a strategic goal: the defence of her national interests. The plural is used in the latter characterisation. Because, it is wideranging, traversing defacto global leadership, robustly defending allies, confronting enemies and threats, economic, military, national security, pre- emptive reserve, technological domination, and in purist ideological terms: defending freedom.
This proposition is reflected to a greater or lesser degree within, inter alia, the 1823 Monroe doctrine; 1947 Truman doctrine; the 2015 Obama foreign policy doctrine, Donald Trump’s ‘ MAGA’, and 2021 Joe Biden’s foreign policy doctrine.
The latter emphasises America’s ‘ position of trusted leadership’, which simply means America’s pre- eminence within the global military and economic spheres. The Administration defines it as “laying a new foundation of American strength so that the country is best positioned to shape the new era in a way that protects its interests and advances the common good.”
Examined more closely, America, under Biden, has invested precious diplomatic leverage building alliances with the Arab world, advancing the cause of an independent Palestinian state, concurrently with its key ally Israel. However, the extant fallout of the extant Israeli destruction of Gaza, authoritative reports of its disproportionate attacks on Palestinian civilians, hospitals, schools, humanitarian services et al, puts to the strictest test Biden’s foreign policy goals as one which “advances the common good.”
Whilst American support for Israel is iron- cast, objective analysis questions the credence of a foreign policy which, is seemingly screened off the suffering of thousands of innocent and vulnerable civilians in the conflict. How, it is argued, can this ever be justified? How is it balanced? What, if any, robust diplomatic leverage does America wield on Israel, if its leader, Bibi Netanyahu, can summarily upend decades of diplomatic efforts by dismissing aspirations for a Palestinian state?
What are the demonstrable political dividends of American investments in peace efforts in the region? Yet again, the question has been posed in various quarters as to the transparent robustness of American foreign policy in Ukraine against Russia, and the absence of the same robustness in the plight of innocent Palestinians in Gaza: why the double standards?
Indeed, these variables have already surfaced fissures amongst America’s allies in the region notably Saudi Arabia. That country’s Foreign Minister, Prince Faisal- bin- Farhan, stated on January 21, 2024 that his country will not normalise relations with Israel absent a credible trajectory towards a sovereign Palestine; which again, imperils the spirit of the Abraham Accords between America and its Arab allies. America’s European allies also reinforce the primacy of Palestinian statehood as a sine qua non for Middle- Eastpeace.
The critical issue then is how American foreign policy in the Israeli- Palestinian crisis adaptively balances the competing aspirations of supporting its pivotal Israeli ally on the one hand; whilst ensuring that its overarching foreign objective of defending its national interests, and ‘ advancing the common good’ is meaningful, nuanced, effective and inspires confidence amongst ordinary Palestinians, Arabian allies; that the country is indeed, an honest broker in the quest for sustainable peace.
Squaring that circle is no cakewalk! A combination of courageous political will, smarter politics, demonstrably honest diplomacy and real politik will be required in the pursuit of enduring peace in the region. Absent that, the portends for escalation with the Axis of Resistance in the region and further afield, risks WW III; given the tensions between Russia and Ukraine, are desperately ominous. Henry Kissinger ( 19232023) was therefore right: “the art of good foreign policy is to understand and to take into consideration the values of a society, to realise them at the outer limit of the possible.”
Ojumu is the Principal Partner at Balliol Myers LP, a firm of legal practitioners and strategy consultants in Lagos, Nigeria, and the author of The Dynamic Intersections of Economics, Foreign Relations, Jurisprudence and National Development.