News Analysis: Yearlong Gaza conflict exposes Washington’s duplicity in Middle East

by Mahmoud Fouly, Abdel-Maguid Kamal
CAIRO, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) — The yearlong Israel-Hamas conflict in the Gaza Strip has uncovered Washington’s duplicity in the Middle East, as it has been professing to call for peace on the one hand and offering unwavering political and military support to Israel on the other, political experts have said.
The conflict in Gaza, sparked by a Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which left about 1,200 people dead and around 250 taken hostage, has now entered its second year.
In response, ongoing Israeli military operations in Gaza have caused 42,065 deaths and 97,886 injuries, according to the figures released by Gaza-based health authorities on Thursday.
Since Oct. 8, 2023, Hezbollah and the Israeli army have been exchanging fire across the Lebanese-Israeli border. Starting Sept. 23, Israel has intensified airstrikes across Lebanon in a dangerous escalation with Hezbollah, and has launched a “limited” ground military operation in the region.
Recent reports from Lebanon showed that Israeli attacks have killed over 2,000 people and displaced 1 million across the country.
Since the onset of the Gaza conflict, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has visited the Middle East 10 times, with the latest in September, as Washington claims it wants to mediate an agreement between Israel and Hamas to end the war and exchange detainees and prisoners.
However, in the eyes of Barakat Al-Farra, former Palestinian ambassador to Egypt, “Blinken has supported Israel since day one of the war.”
“He even attended a meeting of the Israeli war cabinet,” Al-Farra told Xinhua.
“His tours failed to end the war because the United States believes that Israel is defending itself, and everything Israel does has U.S. approval,” Al-Farra said.
Over the past year, the self-touted “Mideast mediator” only managed to secure a temporary, week-long humanitarian truce that ended in November last year, following which Israel immediately resumed bombing Gaza. Subsequent mediation efforts have not yielded ideal results.
In mid-August, the United States, Egypt, and Qatar concluded two days of discussions in Doha, presenting a new Gaza ceasefire proposal.
The mediators characterized the discussions as constructive and said they were conducted in a positive environment. However, Hamas, which did not participate directly in the Doha negotiations, accused Israel of adding new conditions to a previously supported proposal and expressed skepticism about the negotiations’ outcome.
“The initiative failed because the U.S. president did not pressure Israel to implement it,” said Al-Farra.
“The U.S. mediation is biased toward Israel, and Washington is neither an honest nor neutral mediator.” he said, adding that without U.S. support, Israel would not have acted as it has in Gaza and now in Lebanon.
A recent article by The Times of Israel online news website, citing a recent report by Brown University, showed that U.S. military aid to Israel since the onset of the Gaza war has reached at least 17.9 billion U.S. dollars, the largest in a year.
The massive U.S. military support for Israel is “the biggest evidence that Washington is not fit to mediate in stopping the war,” Al-Farra said.
“U.S. mediation is not earnest, especially since Washington adopts the Israeli point of view and therefore does not pressure Israel,” Egyptian political analyst Mokhtar Ghobashy told Xinhua.
“I believe that Washington bears great responsibility for the failure of the mediation efforts, as it lacks the political will to make it successful,” Ghobashy said, holding Washington “absolutely responsible” for “Israeli aggression in Gaza and Lebanon.” ■