Would the Palestinian Authority take on the administration of Gaza once the fighting had stopped, Mr Blinken wanted to know. It “should play a central role in what comes next in Gaza,” briefed a US official, but what was Mr Abbas’s view? With the right support from surrounding Arab states, would he and the Palestinian Authority be prepared to step up?
Yes, they would, came the reply. Subject to the very thing Mr Netanyahu has always tried to avoid – structured talks on a Palestinian state of which Gaza would be “an integral part”.
“We will fully assume our responsibilities within the framework of a comprehensive political solution that includes all of the [occupied] West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip,” Mr Abbas was quoted as telling Mr Blinken by the official Palestinian news agency.
It is quite a turn around for Mr Abbas, 87. After Hamas took control of the Gaza strip in 2007 it killed dozens associated with the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank as it sought to consolidate power. Meanwhile, at home, he has been powerless to prevent Jewish extremists’ constant, often violent, encroachment on Palestinian land.
Now, however, he may be back in the game and it is Mr Netanyahu who finds himself subject to the game of divide and rule. If he fails to engage with the Americans on the future of Gaza, he will lose US support and the support of the realists in his fragile coalition government. If he gives so much as a nanometer, the far-Right extremists he relies on will drop him or worse.
“Now it is Netanyahu who is caught between a rock and a hard place”, says Prof Manuel Trajtenberg, executive director of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. “He would like to keep the coalition but it prevents him from making any move. That is why we have not heard from him on what happens to Gaza after the war.”
US frustrated with Israeli leadership
In recent days the US administration is reported to have become increasingly frustrated with the Israeli leadership. It is partly about the conduct of the war – they would like to see more infantry and fewer airstrikes – but also about its refusal to consider what comes next.
The leak of an Israeli intelligence document last week which ruminated on decanting Gazans en masse into Egypt did not go down well. Ditto heritage minister Amichai Eliyahu’s suggestion this weekend that dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza was an option, or finance minister Bezalel Smotrich’s call on Monday for the creation of “sterile” no-go areas for Palestinians on the West Bank.
“They’re watching a train wreck, and they can’t do anything about it, and the trains are speeding up,” a person familiar with the US administration’s thinking told the Washington Post. “The train wreck is in Gaza, but the explosion is in the region.”
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
