Biden takes advantage of his success in Lebanon to achieve a truce between Israel and Hamas in Gaza that will appeal to the Saudis

The fact that in the end, Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government gave in Lebanon and agreeing to a deal, after more than a year of similar testing in Gaza, has emboldened America’s top foreign policy officials.

Less than two months before the arrival of a new administration chaired by Donald Trump and with a series of appointments that suggest strong support for Likud policies, Biden and his subordinates seek two more deals for those who can go down in history despite their electoral defeat.

The two are linked to each other, like everything that happens in the Middle East. The first, undoubtedly the most ambitious, would be recognition of Israel by Saudi Arabia. This is something that was negotiated for years and collapsed with the war between the Jewish state and Hamas. The Saudi prince has shown throughout this period in private his willingness to keep the negotiations open, although in public, to satisfy his public opinion, he has said the opposite. At least that’s what journalist Bob Woodward says in his latest book, War.

NOW, Mohammed bin Salman he wants assurances that Israel will work toward a future Palestinian state, something Netanyahu and his allies refuse. At least, The war in Gaza should end and Israeli troops should return to their country, paving the way for a consensus government in the band of independent Arab figures capable of taking charge of reconstruction. Relations between Saudi Arabia and Hamas have always been complex, as they generally have been with Iran and its associated militias.

Hamas does not give in to Gaza

So the problem is Gaza. White House sources informed this Wednesday New York Times that President Biden was doing everything possible to obtain a ceasefire similar to that of Lebanon. If Israel accepts Hamas’ condition to withdraw its troops as it withdrew them from its northern neighbor in exchange for the release of the few hostages still alive in the hands of the terrorists, the agreement with Saudi Arabia could be a little more close. an issue that Netanyahu has always viewed very favorably.

That said, not only is time pressed – two months seems very short for all these things to happen – but also wills. From the outset, the Israeli Prime Minister openly declared that the truce in Lebanon was a way to buy time and recalled that if Hezbollah did not respect the agreement, the IDF would invade the south of the country again. Apart, Gaza is not Lebanon and Hamas is not Hezbollah. The terrorist guerrilla now led by Naim Qassem and until his assassination by Hasan Nasrallah, has always shown a greater willingness to negotiate. Hezbollah is more powerful than Hamas, but, ironically, he seems to lack some of his fanaticism.

With or without Yahya Sinwar, who seemed to be the main obstacle to the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, Hamas has shown itself to be inflexible and impervious to any agreement that does not include the release of certain terrorists and immediate withdrawal. Israeli troops to continue them. They don’t care about the assassination of their leaders, they don’t care about the mass destruction of the territory they claim to protect or the deaths of tens of thousands of their countrymen. Their game is all or nothing: Israel’s destruction or death. No middle ground.

Hezbollah, for its part, showed common sense by reaching an agreement which allows it to reconstitute its ranks, largely decimated in recent months, and did not hesitate to break the blood pact with its Sunni companions from the south. . Since October 7, the two pro-Iranian guerrillas had sworn to unite: Hezbollah would not stop its attacks against Israel until Israel stopped attacking Hamas. This alliance has collapsed, it no longer exists and, in Netanyahu’s eyes, Hamas is therefore even weaker.

Musk meets Iranian ambassador

There is another issue that has already been raised and is decisive at the moment: the Israeli government has reason to suspect that the new Trump administration will not oppose it as much as the Biden administration. There will be no demands for humanitarian corridors, no public reprimands, no abstentions in the UN Security Council, no arms embargo lest they be used against the civilian population. assetas during his first mandate, it seems determined to confront Iran with all its might…and Netanyahu is an ideal ally in this sense.

With Hamas weakened to the extreme and Hezbollah still groggy, Iran only has Axis of Resistance forces deployed in Iraq and Syria and with the specific excesses of the Houthis in Yemen in terms of military resources. In Tel Aviv, they wonder if it is not time to pursue them before they develop a nuclear weapon that would make an attack impossible and threaten Israel’s very existence. Trump has already spoken out on the subject during the election campaign, encouraging Netanyahu to ignore Biden and “Destroy the entire Iranian nuclear program. »

The relationship between the United States and Iran will be one of the points of maximum tension during the next legislature and Trump has turned to his great ally, Elon Musk, to test the waters. Musk met on November 11, a few days after the Republican electoral victory, the Iranian ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani. The two men had a meeting that Iranian sources described as “positive”.

The choice of Musk for this task – it must be remembered that the billionaire was already present in Trump’s call to Zelenski- may seem strange, but it responds to the president-elect’s vision of international relations as an extension of commercial relations. He’s looking for people who can make deals, and Musk is an expert at doing so, having sold his technology all over the world. It is understandable that, if things get complicated, things are left in the hands of experts, but it should not be ruled out that Musk ends up remaining in the administration as an external advisor on international issues, in addition to be responsible for minimizing state spending by reducing agencies and associated personnel.