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Tuesday October 01, 2024
(WASHINGTON) -- Although President Joe Biden bluntly declared that "we need a cease-fire now" in Lebanon, his administration appeared to subdue its messaging on a push for a temporary truce between Israel and Hezbollah, as U.S. officials on Monday acknowledged Israel intends to scale up operations in Lebanon.
"Military pressure can, at times, enable diplomacy," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said. "Of course, military pressure can also lead to miscalculation. It can lead to unintended consequences, and we're in conversations with Israel about all these factors now."
The shift in tone comes as the administration has acknowledged Israel has communicated plans to conduct what officials described as "limited" ground incursions into Lebanon aimed at taking out Hezbollah infrastructure -- a follow-up to its major aerial attacks over the last several days, including one that killed the militant group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
It also coincides with the State Department's public admission that it has again hit a wall in its efforts to push forward a cease-fire in Gaza because Hamas has refused to engage with Egyptian and Qatari mediators for weeks, leaving the Biden administration unable to pull together what senior U.S. officials advertised as a "final" proposal for a deal.
"We can't get a clear answer from Hamas of what they're willing to entertain and what they're not willing to entertain," Miller said.
Over the course of nearly a year, these two fronts of conflict sparked by Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel have exasperated U.S. diplomats who have sought to prevent war from engulfing the entire Middle East.
"The Biden team is definitely frustrated, but in many ways, it's a frustration born largely out of its own wishful thinking and unwillingness to face some harsh realities in today's Middle East," Brian Katulis, a senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Middle East Institute, told ABC News.
Katulis argued that Iran -- a chief supporter of both Hezbollah and Hamas -- and Israel's right-wing government have been edging toward a regional war, and that the Biden administration "lacks the will and strategic focus to fundamentally shift those dynamics."
"The U.S. is trapped in a reactive, crisis-management mode because it remains unwilling to use the force and leverage needed to produce the diplomatic outcomes it says it wants to achieve," he said. "Darker days are ahead."
Israel sees few benefits to curbing its military campaign in Lebanon, as it has already successfully eliminated several of its top targets and made progress toward restoring security on its northern border.
U.S officials say the Israeli government views a diplomatic alternative -- a 21-day cease-fire backed by the Biden administration, France and several other countries -- as counterproductive to its aim of allowing Israelis that have been displaced by Hezbollah's near-constant stream of rocket fire to return to their homes as quickly as possible.
And while many have been wary about provoking Iran, some Biden administration officials and experts now see Tehran as increasingly unlikely to fully enter the fray.
"Iran's options range from bad to worse against Israel, given its conventional military deficiencies and the blows its regional terror network has endured," Behnam Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told ABC News.
Taleblu added that Tehran now appears likely to change course and take action only if it perceives the threat posed by Israel to be "existential and to the homeland."
But even if the conflict in the Middle East doesn't expand further, White House officials had hoped a negotiated truce between Israel and Hezbollah could resuscitate Gaza peace talks.
Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former State Department official, warned that the administration must worry that continued deadlock will weaken U.S. influence in the Middle East and beyond.
But he said there's still an opportunity to make progress -- if the Biden administration can reign in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"All wars are much easier to start than end, though, and it is not clear whether Netanyahu, his sharply divided cabinet or his ruling coalition have any idea how they might do that," Alterman said. "He will need a broad, U.S.-led coalition to push him, and it needs to start coming together now."
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(NEW YORK) -- A 21-day cease-fire proposal aimed at pausing the conflict in Lebanon has become the latest flashpoint in the strained relationship between the Biden administration and Israel after the country's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, roundly rejected the terms of the proposal on Thursday.
As the prime minister flew to New York ahead of his Friday address to the annual high-level gathering of the United Nations, his office issued a statement saying he "did not even respond" to the proposal put forth by the U.S. and France, and that he had instructed the Israeli military to continue fighting against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah "with full force."
Netanyahu's rejection came just hours after White House officials lauded a joint statement issued by the U.S., the European Union and six other countries endorsing the plan for a 21-day truce, a step heralded as an "important breakthrough."
Washington said Israel had been consulted before the joint statement was released, but struggled to explain the apparent disconnect.
"We wouldn't have worked on that statement the way we did. We wouldn't have issued it when and how we did if it wasn't supported by the conversations that we were having with top Israeli officials yesterday," National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Thursday.
But behind the scenes, several U.S. officials familiar with the negotiations told ABC News they have consistently seen getting Israel to sign off on a truce as an uphill battle.
Israel views a pause as beneficial to Hezbollah because it could allow it to regroup and strike back at Israel following attacks on the militant group's communication system last week widely attributed to Israel, according to the officials.
They say that the Israeli government also views a truce of any length as running counter to its main aim of allowing people displaced from areas near its northern border to return to their homes as soon as possible.
Israel's permanent representative to the U.N., Danny Danon, told reporters on Wednesday that Israel would prefer to end its conflict with Hezbollah via diplomacy, but that "if it fails to return our residents to the homes, then we will use all means at our disposal."
"We are very honest about it," Danon said, adding that he believed the mediators "know exactly what we want."
The latest disconnect between the U.S. and Israel appears poised to add additional strain to what was already expected to be a contentious address to the U.N. by Netanyahu on Friday.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned the body's Security Council on Wednesday that "hell is breaking loose in Lebanon."
The U.N. Refugee Agency added on Thursday that in just 72 hours, more than 90,000 people had been displaced in Lebanon.
Shortly after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Hezbollah -- a U.S.-designated terrorist organization -- began firing rockets across the Lebanese border with Israel. The low-level conflict continued for nearly a year, repeatedly threatening to escalate before Israel stepped up its military campaign earlier this month.
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(NEW YORK) -- As Israel laid the groundwork for a possible ground invasion of Lebanon, the Biden administration on Wednesday was urging diplomacy to resolve the country's long-simmering conflict with Hezbollah -- but growing increasingly resigned to full-blown warfare on a second front in the Middle East, according to multiple U.S. officials.
Two officials told ABC News that the administration has floated at least one draft proposal aimed at temporarily halting the conflict, but at this point Israel has signaled it intends to move forward with battle plans aimed at ending months of tit-for-tat exchanges with Hezbollah across its northern border by decimating the militant group.
"I cannot detail everything we are doing, but I can tell you one thing: we are determined to return our residents in the north safely to their homes," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday, referring to Israelis who have been displaced since Hezbollah began firing rockets shortly after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
One senior U.S. official said that Hezbollah's firing of a ballistic missile targeting the headquarters of Israel's intelligence service Mossad near Tel Aviv only intensified the Israeli government's resolve, even though Israeli forces were able to successfully intercept the missile.
The U.S. also has little leverage over Hezbollah, so it's unclear whether the group would abide by any such agreement to pause the fighting. The administration could potentially rely on partners with direct ties to Hezbollah to contain the group, but all of its efforts to halt its attacks on Israel over the last year have been unsuccessful.
Nevertheless, senior officials say they are still pursuing "concrete options" for de-escalation, and Israel's ambassador to the United Nations said on Tuesday that Israeli leadership remained "open-minded."
Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said on Wednesday that it didn’t appear an Israeli ground incursion into Lebanon was in the offing, potentially allowing time for negotiations make headway.
“Without characterizing Israeli operations and letting them speak to them for themselves, it doesn't look like anything is imminent,” she said.
The Biden administration is also fervently focused on keeping Iran -- a chief military and financial supporter of Hezbollah -- on the sidelines through indirect diplomacy.
"We also have to coordinate and work together to deter destabilizing activities by Iran. I urge all of us to use the leverage that we have to press Iran to stop fueling escalation," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a meeting with Arab leaders at the United Nations on Wednesday.
But Israel's military actions in Lebanon over the course of the last week have put the schism between Israel and the U.S. on full display.
When Israel has struck Hezbollah targets in the past, it has typically given the U.S. advanced notice. However, Biden administration officials say they did not receive any warning before hundreds of communication devices distributed to the groups' members exploded in an attack widely attributed to Israel.
While Israel has messaged its intention to conduct a ground incursion into Lebanon, it has not shared detailed plans with the U.S. -- a dynamic that echoes the early days of the country's military campaign in Gaza.
The lack of transparency has heightened concerns for Americans in the region. The State Department estimates that over 80,000 U.S. citizens live in Lebanon, but it's unclear how many heeded the department's July advisory to leave the country.
In a message to Americans still in Lebanon sent on Wednesday, State Department officials said they would hold a call on the security situation in the country on Friday and urged U.S. nationals to depart "while commercial options still remain available."
ABC News' Martha Raddatz contributed to this report.
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