To understand what is happening now in the Middle East, it may be helpful to remember the dead cat.
That was Secretary of State James A. Baker III’s favorite metaphor as he traveled through the region in 1991 trying to negotiate a complicated deal. With each recalcitrant player, Baker threatened to “leave the dead cat” at his door; in other words, to make sure they were the ones to blame if everything fell apart.
The question, three decades later, is whether current actors are at that stage of the US-brokered effort to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza. Much of what the world is seeing right now is aimed, at least in part, at gaining an advantage at the negotiating table, outmaneuvering other actors, and deflecting responsibility if consensus is not reached, letting the brutal war of seven months continue.
Hamas released hostage videos, presumably to remind the world what is at stake in the talks and raise the temperature on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who is already under enormous public pressure to secure his release. In recent days, Netanyahu organized airstrikes and sent tanks into Rafah in a saber movement to make clear that he is serious about invading the southern Gaza city. President Biden froze a shipment of American bombs to show that he is equally serious about curbing Israel’s weapons supply if it attacks.
“Much of this is performative between Israel and Hamas, taking a page out of Baker’s dead cat diplomacy,” said Aaron David Miller, who was part of Baker’s team at the time. “Part of the motivation is not so much to reach an agreement as to blame the other if the agreement fails. The only party that is really in a hurry is Biden.”
“And of course, he is worried about Palestinian deaths if Bibi wins in Rafah,” Miller added, using Netanyahu’s nickname. “But he also knows that any negotiation” at that time will be “virtually impossible.”
Prospects for a deal appeared increasingly distant Thursday as William J. Burns, the CIA director who has been Biden’s chief negotiator, left Cairo without a deal. Delegations from Israel and Hamas also departed, although mid-level officials from the United States and their intermediary colleagues, Egypt and Qatar, remained in Cairo to continue discussions in the hope of salvaging the process.
In theory, the main interlocutors were taking a break to see what Israel does with what it calls a “limited” operation in Rafah. Reports from Cairo indicated that tempers were frayed as various sides accused each other of bad faith, although US officials insist a deal is still possible.
This is the historic challenge for any negotiation in a region known for opaque intrigue, as Baker, Henry A. Kissinger and generations of other American negotiators have learned so painfully. Much of what happens in daylight has to do with postures. Much of what really matters happens in shadows within shadows.
Uncovering hidden motivations and real red lines can elude even veterans of the region. All players at the table have to take into account the internal politics of their country. None of them fully trust the others. A new counteroffer can be a genuine effort to break a stalemate or a clever way to put adversaries on the defensive.
The central question each party asks about the others is who really wants a deal and at what cost? Or is it all just a farce to reclaim public roads?
“Much of what we’re seeing is aimed, in part, at trying to gain an advantage in negotiations, but the sum total has been to delay a deal rather than get one done,” said Michael Koplow, Israel’s policy director. Policy. Forum.
The essence of a proposal on the table would demand a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages. Israel would also release hundreds of Palestinians in its prisons, allow people to return to the northern part of Gaza and facilitate an expansive increase in humanitarian aid.
The first phase of the agreement is where all parties seem closest to an agreement. In that initial stage, Israel would suspend hostilities for 42 days and Hamas would hand over 33 women, elderly men and sick and wounded hostages it took during its October 7 terrorist attack, although some of them would be the remains of those who died. . A second phase would extend the ceasefire for another 42 days and result in the release of more Palestinian hostages and prisoners.
The most vexing dispute centers on whether the deal would eventually lead to a permanent end to the war, something Hamas insists on and Israel has refused to guarantee. American negotiators have called for negotiating a “sustainable calm” after the ceasefire begins, without defining that precisely.
However, Netanyahu’s actions in Rafah in recent days have complicated the dynamic. He has said that he would invade Rafah “with or without a deal,” a promise that Hamas, unsurprisingly, considered a deal breaker. He also ordered limited strikes on Rafah in response to Hamas rocket attacks that killed four Israeli soldiers.
Biden has long opposed an attack on Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians have taken refuge, because he has seen no war plan that would not lead to numerous civilian casualties. After months of warning Netanyahu against an operation in Rafah, Biden finally took action after US officials detected Israeli moves they considered a prelude to an invasion. By suspending the delivery of 3,500 bombs, Biden signaled that he will not provide more offensive weapons that would enable an attack on Rafah.
“Biden believes that preventing an operation in Rafah will force Israel to negotiate more concretely, and Netanyahu believes that a new military operation will pressure Hamas to reduce its demands,” Koplow said. “But Netanyahu’s insistence that an operation in Rafah will be carried out no matter what kind of temporary ceasefire Israel accepts removes any incentive for Hamas to negotiate.”
Furthermore, he added, “Biden’s pressure to prevent any kind of operation in Rafah also eliminates any incentive for Hamas since” Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas military leader believed to be hiding in the Gaza tunnels, “can reasonably assume that “You will soon obtain a de facto and free ceasefire as long as you continue to resist.”
Koplow noted that Hamas has made demands that it was implausible to expect Israel to accept, such as insisting that Palestinian prisoners released in the first phase come forward before all Israeli hostages have been freed and insisting that Israel have no veto over who It is released. . “Therefore, they are perhaps more than any other party here which makes a successful negotiation impossible,” he said.
But the dynamic has changed significantly in recent weeks. Biden originally said he was against an attack on Rafah unless and until Israel could show him a plan that minimized civilian casualties. After multiple inquiries about Israeli war plans, Biden has effectively said that such a plan is not possible and that he opposes any major operation in Rafah.
“The flashing yellow light has turned bright red,” said John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security in the United States, who previously served as national security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney. “If this holds up, it will be a big change.”
As a result, Hannah said, the interests of the United States and Israel, which were fairly aligned at the start of the war after the Hamas terrorist attack, have diverged sharply, transforming the negotiations.
While Netanyahu has said that Israel’s mission is to destroy Hamas, the White House now views this as an impossible goal and that Israel has already done lasting damage to ensure that Hamas is not the threat it once was. Additionally, Biden is eager to negotiate a broader deal that would transform the region by linking the United States more closely to Saudi Arabia, extending diplomatic recognition to Israel for the first time, something impossible to imagine while the Gaza war continues. .
“The president wants this war to end now, even if he has to pay the price of allowing Hamas and its much-degraded leadership to survive for the moment,” Hannah said. “He believes that he has much more important issues to resolve in terms of his re-election and his regional agenda. In that sense, Israel and the United States’ conceptions of a ceasefire and a hostage agreement are no longer aligned, but rather at odds.”
Netanyahu said Thursday that he was willing to continue the war even without Biden. “If we need to be alone, we will be alone,” he said. But he’s said it before, including when he welcomed American weapons. Does he mean that now or is that the public position he must take before negotiators return to the table? Is he really willing to alienate Israel’s closest and most important ally or is he using Biden’s position as a way to explain to his public why he backed down?
These, of course, are not the only questions. Is Biden, who insists his support for Israel is “ironclad,” really willing to cut off more offensive weapons at the price of heated domestic criticism from Republicans and some pro-Israel Democrats who accuse him of abandoning Israel?
As for Hamas, are its leaders willing to make concessions to prevent a devastating attack on Rafah? Or do they think such an operation could benefit the group by further isolating Israel from the rest of the world?
At the rate things are going, someone may soon find the cat on the front step. And many could pay the price.