The US Secretary of State will visit Jerusalem and Ramallah on Monday and Tuesday to stress the need for “urgent action to de-escalate”.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken begins a lightning tour of the Middle East from Egypt today amid a flare-up in Israeli-Palestinian violence, with the faint hope of using US influence to try to ease tensions.
After Cairo, Blinken will visit Jerusalem and Ramallah on Monday and Tuesday.
The visit has been planned for some time, but comes as the security situation has suddenly worsened just days after Friday’s deadly Palestinian attack on an East Jerusalem synagogue that killed seven people.
The Israeli army struck the Gaza Strip on the same day in response to rockets fired from Palestinian territory, while on Saturday, a 13-year-old Palestinian attacked with a knife and injured 2 people in the Old City of Jerusalem.
These events followed an Israeli raid on Thursday in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, the deadliest in years, which claimed the lives of 9 Palestinians.
In the face of this resurgence of violence, Blinken is expected to stress to Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas the need “to take urgent steps to de-escalate,” US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said on Friday. .
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is also likely to dominate the meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, as Cairo has historically played a mediating role with the Palestinians.
But the US secretary of state’s room for maneuver appears limited, beyond repeated calls for calm, as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appears to be at an impasse.
Experts polled by AFP do not expect significant developments in Washington’s ability to influence the course of events, although the US is expected to reiterate its support for the two-state solution, one Israeli and one Palestinian.
“I think the best they could secure is to stabilize the situation in order to avoid a repeat of May 2021,” said Aaron David Miller, a former US negotiator and expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, referring to the war in Gauze.
Ghaith Al Omari, an expert at the Washington Institute, opined that “this visit does not signal any change in the American position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” but, as he predicted, “the conversation (with Mahmoud Abbas) will not be pleasant.”
Blinken’s visit to Israel reflects Washington’s desire to quickly reconnect with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has returned to power and now leads the most right-wing government in Israel’s history.
Its relations with Democratic US President Joe Biden’s administration have been visibly strained, notably over Iran’s nuclear program, but the fact that any revival of the 2015 deal is now in limbo is expected to facilitate dialogue.
This visit follows that of White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who assured the Israeli prime minister of US support.
“I have never seen so many high-level visits under any administration,” noted Aaron David Miller.
“It’s unprecedented,” he added, citing possible preparations for a visit by Netanyahu to the White House as early as February.
A sort of “flood” of visits to the region was also cited by another expert, David Makowski of the Washington Institute, who said CIA Director William Byrne recently visited the region.
During his visit, Blinken will insist on the importance of “maintaining the historical status quo” in East Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.
The visit in early January to this holy place by the far-right Israeli politician and new Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir had caused a wave of international criticism.
The Abraham Accords, the process of normalizing relations between Israel and Arab countries, are also expected to be on the agenda of the talks, with Netanyahu harboring hopes that Saudi Arabia will join them.
In Cairo, Blinken is expected today to discuss with the Egyptian authorities, in addition to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a series of regional issues, including Libya and Sudan.
Washington maintains cordial relations with Egypt — a major recipient of US military aid — but is often at a loss when it comes to the issue of human rights.
The US secretary of state is also expected to meet civil society actors and human rights defenders in Cairo, said senior US State Department official Barbara Leaf.
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