Biden is blundering into another Middle East war
Efforts to help Palestinians in Gaza are admirable, but they come with the risk of a US clash with Hamas
It is entirely understandable that, with aid agencies warning daily of the dire predicament facing Palestinian civilians in Gaza, world powers should be looking for novel ways to alleviate their suffering.
One of the key contributing factors to the suffering of Palestinians caught up in the Gaza conflict – or so the aid agencies claim – are the numerous difficulties aid convoys are experiencing in their efforts to provide adequate humanitarian relief.
Whether it is the rigorous checks being applied by the Israel Defence Forces, who control the main supply routes and are rightly concerned about weaponry and other supplies being diverted to Hamas’s terrorist network, or desperate Palestinians looting the convoys the moment they enter Gaza, ensuring an orderly and even distribution of food and medicine to those in need is proving to be enormously challenging.
The issue is further complicated by the politics at play, with aid agencies claiming that Israel is deliberately obstructing deliveries as a form of collective punishment against the Palestinian people. The Israeli government, meanwhile, insists that more than 14,000 trucks of aid have entered Gaza in the five months since the conflict started, more than sufficient to keep endemic hunger at bay.
The dispute, which has recently resulted in claims that Palestinians are dying of starvation – a claim that is bitterly rejected by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu – has now led both the US and the European Union to explore alternative options for guaranteeing Gaza adequate aid supplies.
On Tuesday, a Spanish ship towing a barge loaded with 200 tonnes of food supplies left the Cypriot port of Larnaca, destined for Gaza as part of a European Union initiative to open a sea corridor to Gaza.
In addition, US president Joe Biden has dispatched a humanitarian aid ship to Gaza and said that American forces would build a temporary floating pier to allow vital supplies to be provided to the enclave.
Just how much of an impact these initiatives will have on the aid crisis in the immediate future is questionable. The Pentagon says that it could take around 60 days before the pier at Gaza is operational – by which time the war could well be over.
It is also far from certain that the Israeli military will guarantee safe passage for aid ships sailing from
Cyprus, even if they claim to be operating under the EU’S aegis.
The last time a similar shipping operation was attempted, in 2010 – when the so-called Gaza Freedom Flotilla, a group of six merchant ships organised by the Free Gaza Movement, sought to deliver aid – it ended with several of the flotilla passengers being killed when the ships were stormed by Israeli forces.
The Israeli authorities insist that they support the current initiatives to establish sea corridors. Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant has even suggested that they could help expedite Israel’s ultimate goal of destroying Hamas, declaring “the process is designed to bring aid directly to the residents and thus continue the collapse of Hamas’s rule in Gaza”.
There is, though, another way of viewing the initiative, one where, instead of alleviating the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, it leads to a major escalation in hostilities.
One of the West’s key objectives since Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists launched their murderous assault on Israel on October 7 has been to confine hostilities to the immediate environs of the Gaza Strip. This policy has been undermined by attempts by other Iranian-backed groups, such as the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, to expand the scope of the conflict.
The mere presence of US forces in such close proximity to Hamas’s Islamist fiefdom may encourage these groups to launch direct attacks, thereby obliging Washington to engage militarily in the Gaza conflict.
Another important consideration is that much of the data being provided by humanitarian groups to support the contention Gaza faces widespread famine is being provided by Hamas itself, whose primary goal is to discredit both Israel and its allies.
Meanwhile, the UN’S own credibility to act as an honest broker on Gazan aid issues has been shot to pieces by the allegation that several Palestinian members of UNRWA, its pre-eminent aid organisation in the territory, actively participated in the October 7 massacre.
While their motives may be admirable, therefore, the US and EU need to be careful that, while seeking to alleviate the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, they are not walking into a deadly trap set by Hamas and its Iranian backers.
Tehran has already demonstrated its desire to escalate the Gaza war into a regional conflict by encouraging the Houthi attacks against merchant shipping in the Red Sea, most of which relies on Iranian-made missiles and drones. There is nothing Iran would desire more than to see the US and its allies drawn into another messy Middle East conflict, irrespective of the disastrous impact such an outcome might have on the plight of ordinary Palestinians.