Contents:

Biden keeps spotlighting Middle East diplomatic efforts in strategic communications and political messaging

Brian Katulis
Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy

Brian Katulis

  • The Biden administration continues to pursue a cease-fire and hostage release deal as part of a first step in its wider plan for the Middle East.

  • Hamas, meanwhile, continues to engage in negotiations with Israel over a cease-fire despite devastating military strikes targeting its leaders and members.

Speaking at the conclusion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit last week, US President Joe Biden once again pointed to Washington’s diplomatic efforts on the Middle East as evidence of the important work his administration continues to do. After summarizing what the NATO gathering of heads of state and government accomplished this year and reiterating that “America cannot retreat from the world,” Biden highlighted three other areas: the economy, immigration, and Middle East policy.

On the Middle East, Biden stressed that, “for months, the United States has been working to secure a cease-fire in Gaza, to bring the hostages home, to create a path for peace and stability in the Middle East.” The president underscored the “detailed plan” he’d laid out in writing, which was subsequently endorsed by the United Nations Security Council and the G7. “Both Israel and Hamas” have agreed on the framework, he added, and US negotiators are now working out the details. “These are difficult, complex issues. There are still gaps to close, but we’re making progress, the trend is positive, and I’m determined to get this deal done and bring an end to this war, which should end now,” Biden said.

Given the mixed signals about the prospects for the success of the talks, it is somewhat curious that Biden continues to spotlight these Middle East diplomatic efforts at a time when he faces questions about the efficacy of his re-election campaign. In fact, it was the second time he has done so this month in a major media outlet. Biden’s prioritization of the Middle East in his political messaging and strategic communications is a sign of how important he thinks it is to see progress on this front, no matter how slim the prospects are.

The events of this weekend gave rise to new questions about whether the indirect talks between Israel and Hamas conducted by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States would continue. Israel carried out military strikes in Khan Younis and the designated safe zone of al-Mawasi, an attack reportedly targeting senior Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif. Some voices in Hamas indicated that the negotiations had been called off as a result of these strikes, and Egyptian officials hinted at a pause over the weekend as they criticized Israel for what they called a lack of genuine intent in reaching an agreement.

But other Hamas figures indicated that the negotiations over a cease-fire and hostage release are still continuing. The fact that Hamas continues to engage in these negotiations is an indication of the pressures it is feeling from Israel’s military campaign, and time will tell if these quiet diplomatic efforts will produce results.

With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu coming to Washington, DC, next week, expectations are growing for some sense of progress toward ending this prolonged and costly conflict.

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Deadly Israeli attack on Gaza “safe zone” derails fragile cease-fire talks

Khaled Elgindy
Senior Fellow, Director of Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs

Khaled Elgindy

  • The July 13 Israeli strike on the al-Mawasi camp in southern Gaza, targeting two top Hamas commanders, killed dozens and hurt hundreds of civilians in what Israel had declared a “safe zone.”

  • The United Nations’ human rights office has condemned the attack as a possible war crime; and Hamas has reportedly notified Qatari and Egyptian mediators that the group would suspend negotiations over a proposed cease-fire-hostage deal due to Israel’s continued large-scale operations that massacre unarmed civilians.

Saturday’s deadly Israeli air strikes on the al-Mawasi camp, which killed at least 92 people and injured another 300, most of them civilians, appear to have derailed fragile cease-fire talks, which had been set to resume this week. Israeli officials said the attack on al-Mawasi, an Israeli-designated “safe zone” in the southern Gaza Strip, was aimed at assassinating two senior Hamas commanders, Mohammed Deif, head of the al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, and Rafa’a Salameh, the commander of the local Khan Younis Brigade. Israeli officials accuse Deif of being the mastermind behind the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Despite claims by the Israeli military that they had acted on “precise intelligence,” it is still unclear whether Deif or Salama were killed in the attack.

Meanwhile, Hamas officials rejected Israeli claims that the senior militants were targets, instead accusing Israel of “justifying” ongoing attacks on Palestinian civilians. Hamas has not confirmed whether Deif was at the camp, insisting instead that he is alive and working. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conceded that it was “not absolutely certain” that the operation had succeeded in killing the men but maintained the attack was still beneficial: “Just the attempt to assassinate Hamas commanders delivers a message to the world, a message that Hamas’s days are numbered,” declared Netanyahu.

The al-Mawasi area has been bombed repeatedly by Israeli fighter jets and drones since being declared a “safe zone” in the early weeks of the war on Gaza. Eyewitness accounts describe horrific scenes of carnage. “All the tents were knocked down, body parts, bodies everywhere, elderly women thrown on the floor, young children in pieces,” recounted one survivor in al-Mawasi. The United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) condemned the attack as a possible war crime, which it said reflected a “pattern of willful violation of the disregard of International Humanitarian Law principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution.”

In the wake of the attacks, Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh reportedly notified Qatari and Egyptian mediators that the group would suspend negotiations over a proposed cease-fire-hostage deal due to Israel’s “continued policy of procrastination and obstruction, and the ongoing massacres against unarmed civilians.” After Hamas recently dropped several key demands, US officials had stated they were “cautiously optimistic” about prospects for a cease-fire. However, Netanyahu has said repeatedly that Israel would press ahead with the war, with or without a cease-fire deal, until all of its objectives had been achieved and Hamas was defeated. It is unclear whether the latest setback will alter the Biden administration’s assessment that only Hamas is blocking progress toward a cease-fire.

Follow: @elgindy_

Netanyahu is failing strategically, but still able to maneuver politically

Eran Etzion
Non-Resident Scholar

Eran Etzion

  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is looking to foil a hostage release-for cease-fire deal at minimum political cost to himself and casting the blame on others, including Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar, Israel’s own negotiating team, the IDF, the Biden administration, the Egyptians, and the Qataris.

  • A large and consistent majority of Israelis mistrust Netanyahu and his motivations and want him out, believing he is prioritizing his political and personal interests over the nation’s as he faces blame for the most devastating defeat in Israel’s history.

After 282 days since Oct. 7, Israel is stumbling around in Gaza, on its northern front, and across five other arenas — Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, and the West Bank. The conflict has become a war of attrition, the longest and hardest in the nation’s history, with seemingly no end in sight. Negotiations on a hostage release deal, pursued by the Biden administration as part of a three-phased plan to end the war on all fronts, are stalled. Netanyahu is using his worn-out playbook of procrastination, double talk, media leaks, and straight out lies, to buy time in power and run out the clock until the November election in the United States. In less than 10 days, he is slated to address a special session of both chambers of Congress in Washington, DC; but in fact, he'll be addressing his electoral base and the wider Israeli public, some 75% of which wants to oust him in a general election.

Netanyahu faces a multi-front war not only vis-à-vis Israel’s external enemies but also at home. A large and consistent majority of Israelis mistrust him and his motivations, believing he is prioritizing his political and personal interests over the nation’s. The leadership of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is, both openly and off the record, calling for a hostage deal and cessation of hostilities immediately. The families and supporters of the 120 remaining kidnappees continue to march in the streets, demanding their release. And intra-coalition quarrels in the Knesset are intensifying, as politicians sense Netanyahu’s blood in the water.

The attempted targeted killing of senior Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif over the weekend could have been leveraged by Netanyahu to accelerate negotiations and close the deal — of course, a different prime minister might have avoided such a high-profile targeting altogether, which resulted in scores of collateral civilian deaths, at this critical juncture in the negotiations — but Netanyahu’s strategy is the exact opposite. He is looking to foil the deal at minimum political cost and is casting the blame on others: be it Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar, Israel’s own negotiating team, the IDF, the Biden administration, the Egyptians, Qataris, there’s no shortage of scapegoats.

Under normal circumstances, a US administration desperately in need of a deal, for strategic and political reasons, would have made it crystal clear to the Israeli prime minister that he was not welcome in DC unless he came with a fully sealed and signed hostage deal. But apparently, with Senate majority leader Chuck Shumer under pressure from his New York constituency and President Joe Biden heavily weakened politically in recent weeks, an empty-handed Netanyahu will be free to arrive on Capitol Hill and hold a meeting at the White House; all this is being allowed to happen as if he holds no responsibility for the most devastating defeat in Israel’s history, a historic low in US-Israeli relations, and a major blow to America’s strategic interests in the region and beyond. As another lucky populist politician might put it — SAD.

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Pakistan government’s actions against Imran Khan and his party could threaten what remains of the country’s democracy

Marvin G. Weinbaum
Director, Afghanistan and Pakistan Studies

Marvin G. Weinbaum

  • Surely with the military’s concurrence, the government of Pakistan intends to ban outright the political party of ousted former Prime Minister Imran Khan and will charge Khan and other party leaders with treason for their alleged instigation of the explosive riots of May 9, 2023.

  • The government and military establishments have decided Khan and his party must at all costs be permanently removed from the political scene and never again allowed to wield legislative power or form a government.

Until just hours ago, a confusing political scene in Pakistan appeared to have gained some clarity. A highly anticipated decision by Pakistan’s Supreme Court on the distribution of National Assembly reserved seats for women and non-Muslims was handed down last Friday. At issue was whether, based on the Feb. 8 national election results, ousted former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party had qualified to share these seats. In a previous ruling by Pakistan’s Election Commission, backed by a lower court, the PTI had been stripped of its valued ballot symbol, and its candidates were forced to run as independents. Those elected found it expedient to affiliate with a minor party, the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), which a lower court found not eligible to share in the reserved seat distribution. With the Supreme Court’s decision, the PTI was restored as an officially recognized political party in the National Assembly, enabling its legislators to rejoin the party and receive 23 previously withheld seats. This brought their total to 114, making it the largest faction in the parliament’s lower house. Together with allied parties, the opposition was now ready to claim 125 seats. The Supreme Court’s action did not, however, deny the governing party coalition — led by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) — its majority in the 336-seat National Assembly. But the government would be left without its previous two-thirds majority, with which it had hoped to ram through its far-reaching legislative program unimpeded.

The majority verdict of the Supreme Court announced by Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa was made by a divided 13-member bench, with Isa among the five justices in dissent. Isa is long thought to have close ties to the military high command, while most of the rest of his fellow justices have over recent months shown an increasingly vigorous independent streak. For a military establishment usually accustomed to getting its way in the country’s courts, the ruling could have a considerable impact. With the Army’s energies focused on its highly touted Azm-e-Istekham (Resolve for Stability) counterterrorism and anti-extremism campaign, there may no longer be the number of parliamentary supporters needed to enact the laws to fully implement the wide-ranging initiative.

The followers of Imran Khan naturally cheered the Supreme Court’s decision and hoped it would be followed by other favorable court decisions that would allow the release of Khan from prison. On Saturday, the PTI gained what seemed another legal victory when an Islamabad court cleared Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, of charges of an illegal marriage and ordered their release from prison. But just as quickly, the government’s National Accountability Bureau came back with new charges of illegal behavior involving state gifts. Additionally, an order was issued by the anti-terrorism court establishing Khan’s role in waging war against the state on charges related to his alleged instigation of the explosive riots of May 9, 2023, which struck at military installations nationwide.

But with all this happening, the government, having lost its strong legislative hand and experiencing too many legal shockwaves, has apparently decided that it has had enough of the PTI and Imran Khan. No doubt with the military’s concurrence, it has been decided that the “PTI and Pakistan cannot co-exist.” According to a government spokesperson, the government has announced that, citing its constitutional authority, it plans to ban the PTI outright. It has also stated its decision to charge Khan and other PTI leaders with treason.

Plainly, the government and military establishments have decided Khan and his party must at all costs be permanently removed from the political scene and never again allowed to wield legislative power or form a government. Gen. Asim Munir, who is likely to have his term as Army chief extended next year by the Shehbaz Sharif-led government, bears deep personal grievances against Khan. The ruling parties, meanwhile, fear that if allowed, an enormously popular Khan will, through his party, stymie the government’s policy agenda and provoke countrywide political instability. What now remains to be seen is how the judiciary and more importantly the public react. No less than the future of Pakistan’s democracy may be at stake.

Research assistant Naad-e-Ali Sulehria contributed to this piece.

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Despite talk, Turkey-Syria normalization still seems a long way off

Charles Lister
Senior Fellow, Director of Syria and Countering Terrorism & Extremism programs

Charles Lister

  • The Turkish government is once again signaling a desire to normalize ties with the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, but for now Damascus appears to be sticking to its long-standing demand for a full Turkish military withdrawal prior to any diplomatic moves.

  • While a half-way scenario may be enough for all actors involved, even that could trigger major instability, as the violent anti-refugee attacks in Turkey and deadly anti-Turkey riots and clashes in northern Syria over the past several weeks have made all too clear.

For several weeks, the Turkish government has publicly signaled its purported desire to begin a process of normalizing ties with the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has now on several occasions invited Assad to a bilateral meeting, and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has followed up, encouraging Damascus to grasp Erdoğan’s “call for peace.” 

This latest chapter of Turkish signaling comes on the heels of significant regional efforts — led primarily by Iraq and secondarily by Iran — to coax Turkey into new regional security alliances and political realities. Those Iraqi initiatives, with the additional backing of the Syria-focused Arab Liaison Committee, appear aimed at building upon the 2023 efforts of regional governments to re-engage Assad and push forward diplomacy aimed at resolving the Syrian crisis’ most detrimental effects: refugees, terrorism, drug smuggling, and economic collapse. 

In recent weeks, several regional media outlets claimed that Syria’s regime had been convinced to soften its condition associated with fully resuming Turkish ties — namely the demand for a full Turkish military withdrawal prior to any diplomatic moves. And yet, seemingly buoyed by Turkey’s repeated signaling as well as by the regional band-wagoning, Assad’s Foreign Ministry declared on Saturday that any re-engagement would have to “be built on clear foundations … foremost of which is the withdrawal of illegally present forces from Syria’s territory.” 

That reassertion of its long-standing position, and the apparent rebuffing of regional impressions, appeared to bring the prospect of genuine normalization back to square one. This was the very same pattern witnessed in early 2023, when President Erdoğan made almost identical public statements about meeting Assad prior to Turkey’s presidential elections in May 2023. Those overtures also fizzled when confronted with Assad’s precondition of a military withdrawal. After voting in Syria’s parliamentary elections on July 15, Assad characteristically muddied the waters again, claiming “we do not have conditions,” that Syria’s “requirements” included a Turkish withdrawal, and that while “friendly countries have started preparations for a meeting … talks should continue at whatever level.”

For Turkey, Syria policy is built upon two national security interests that are widely perceived domestically to be existential: resolving the refugee crisis and countering the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Turkey is host to more than 3.5 million Syrian refugees and its entire political spectrum has now unified behind the desire to see Syrians return home, but normalizing Assad’s regime not only risks disincentivizing returns, it may even trigger new refugee flows into Turkey. Just like Lebanon and Jordan are discovering, Turkey has no way to square that circle. Meanwhile, Damascus has demonstrated little military capacity to neutralize the PKK — present in the form of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) — particularly given the SDF’s partnership with US troops on the ground and the wider international counter-ISIS coalition.

With those obstacles as seemingly insurmountable as ever, a truly comprehensive normalization of Turkey-Syria ties still appears a long way off. In the interest of regional geopolitics, we may still eventually see some symbolic developments, including a meeting of foreign ministers or even presidents, but a genuine return to pre-2011 relations looks set to be blocked by the hard realities created in Syria over the past 13 years. A half-way scenario may be enough for all actors involved, but even that might trigger major instability, both in Turkey and across the border in northern Syria. The past three weeks alone have already witnessed a spate of violent anti-refugee attacks in Turkey and deadly anti-Turkey riots and armed clashes in northern Syria. For Syria’s official opposition, recent developments appear to be genuinely existential. Never before have public expressions of anger and hostility to the Syrian opposition coalition been as prominent and visceral as they are in Aleppo and Idlib today. Unable to speak out in strength against Ankara, the credibility of Syria’s political opposition has been dealt a powerful blow in opposition-held regions.

Follow: @Charles_Lister

Photo: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images

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