Biden out of the picture in Middle East

Even in the readout issued by the White House on US President Joe Biden's telephone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, the latter's indifference to the plight of the Palestinians is evident.

After the outgoing US leader made his points about the immediate need for a ceasefire and a surge in humanitarian aid to the enclave, Netanyahu simply "thanked the President for his lifelong support of Israel and for the extraordinary support from the United States for Israel's security and national defense".

That thank-you note can be taken as not only a Dear John message, but also an indirect rebuff of Biden's enough-is-enough call.

To sell his points, Biden urged Netanyahu to recognize "the fundamentally changed regional circumstances following the ceasefire deal in Lebanon, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, and the weakening of Iran's power in the region" in a bid to comfort Tel Aviv that these "achievements", as Washington obviously thinks, suffice for its closest ally in the Middle East to stop fighting.

That, to a certain extent, serves to provide some clues on the exchange of interests between Washington and Tel Aviv in the Middle East crisis ostensibly initiated by Hamas' attack on Israel on Oct 7, 2023.

Hamas' attack was undoubtedly a tragedy for Israel and the region. But it provided the opportunity for Netanyahu and Biden to escape some of the domestic pressure they were under.

That explains why the two could so easily reach a tacit understanding to scratch each other's back after the Hamas' attack on Israel, with Israel doing the dirty work as the US' hatchet man to advance their common agenda targeting Iran.

But the Netanyahu government going off the US script in seeking to annex the Palestinian enclave has irked the Biden administration.

So since Biden thinks the US-Israel mission has largely been accomplished, he doesn't see any gain in the latter stubbornly pressing ahead with its own Gaza plan, which has no marginal benefits at all but instead become a negative property to their alliance.

Netanyahu on the other hand believes the US has made a comparatively small input in realizing its objectives with regard to Iran, which should be attributed to Israel's successful military operations. So the US is obliged to support its Gaza campaign, even if the US doesn't benefit from it directly.

So while the readout said the two leaders discussed the ongoing negotiations in Doha for a ceasefire and hostage release deal based on the May 27, 2024, arrangement described by the US last year and endorsed unanimously by the UN Security Council, the zeal for a deal is only on the US side.

Even if the director of Israel's Mossad foreign intelligence agency, David Barnea, and Biden's top Middle East adviser, Brett McGurk, are both in the Qatari capital of Doha, a sign many believe indicates a breakthrough is on the cards, a real deal remains tantalizingly elusive.

Biden's national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, also told CNN's "State of the Union", that he would not predict whether a deal can be reached by Jan 20, the day of the inauguration. "We are very, very close," he said. "Yet being very close still means we're far, because until you actually get across the finish line, we're not there."

Fundamentally, neither Israel nor Hamas has made meaningful concessions on core issues as the former's aim of eliminating the latter remains unchanged, while Hamas insists on Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, which Tel Aviv refuses to do.

The Biden administration should be well aware that the Netanyahu Cabinet will now effectively ignore it, as it has already been assured that it can count on the next US administration supporting its land grab.