Officials say that the U.S. raised concerns about Israel’s plan of action in Gaza
U.S. President Biden’s War on Ukraine and Israel: A Global Viewpoint on the Middle East and the Emergence of the Global South
For 20 months, the Biden administration has tried to stake out moral high ground against Russia, condemning its brutal war on Ukraine for killing civilians.
The argument resonated in much of the West, but less so in other parts of the world, which viewed the war as more of a great-power conflict and declined to participate in sanctions or otherwise isolate Russia.
The Biden administration’s continued support for Israel risks making it harder to win the hearts and minds of the public.
Speaking from the Oval Office on Thursday, President Biden tied American support for Ukraine and Israel together, describing both nations as democracies fighting enemies determined to “completely annihilate” them. The group that controls Gaza and denies Israel its right to exist, Hamas, staged a terrorist attack that killed 1,400 people in southern Israel, while Russia invaded and seeks to annex Ukraine.
But Israel’s counterattack on Gaza, its threats to mount a ground invasion and America’s tight embrace of its most important Mideast ally, regardless, have prompted cries of hypocrisy.
The accusations in the conflict are not new. The dynamics of both crises have gone beyond Washington’s desire to get global support for isolating and punishing Russia for invading its neighbor.
The fight for influence in the Global South, made up of the developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, has been gaining steam with the emergence of the Middle East region.
“The war in the Middle East will drive a growing wedge between the West and countries like Brazil or Indonesia, key swing states of the Global South,” said Clifford Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group, a New York-based risk assessment organization. It will make international cooperation on Ukraine harder, like sanctions enforcement on Russia.
Urban Warfare in Israel and the United States: U.S. Security Assistance to Israel and Iraq in the Campaign to End the Islamic State in Gaza
Israel lacks military objectives in Gaza and the Israel Defense Forces are not yet ready to launch a ground invasion, which frustrates the Biden administration, according to senior administration officials.
In phone conversations with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has stressed the need for careful consideration of how Israeli forces might conduct a ground invasion of Gaza, where Hamas maintains intricate tunnel networks under densely populated areas.
Biden administration officials insisted that the United States had not told Israel what to do and still supported the ground invasion. The Pentagon has sent a three-star Marine to assist Israelis with their fight against urban warfare.
Mr. Austin has told Mr. Gallant about the campaign to get rid of the Islamic State fighters in Iraq. At the time, Mr. Austin was the head of United States Central Command, and American troops were backing their Kurdish and Iraqi counterparts in the fight.
“The first thing that everyone should know, and I think everyone does know, is that urban combat is extremely difficult,” Mr. Austin told ABC News’s “This Week” on Sunday.
He said that he had “encouraged” Mr. Gallant to “conduct their operations in accordance with the law of war.” American officials are worried that a ground invasion in Gaza could result in a lot of civilian deaths.
He was on the phone again with Mr. Gallant on Monday, Pentagon officials said, emphasizing “the importance of civilian protection.” In an emailed statement, Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said that the two men also discussed American security assistance to Israel.
American officials said that Israel must decide whether, for instance, to try to take out Hamas by using surgical airstrikes combined with targeted raids by special operations troops — as American warplanes and Iraqi and Kurdish troops did in Mosul — or to roll into Gaza with tanks and infantry, as American Marines and soldiers, along with Iraqi and British forces, did in Falluja in 2004.
But a ground operation could be much riskier than using both tactics, as the U.S. said. Many people in the Pentagon think that the clearing of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Mosul and Raqqa is a better model for urban warfare.
Defense in the Battle Space: The Associated Press, Michael Knights and the War on the Gaza Strip, and a Reply to Sen. Reed
Mr. Austin stated that they need to do what’s necessary to protect the civilians in the battle space.
Both Raqqa and Mosul resulted in significant civilian casualties. The number of people killed in the effort to rid the city of Islamic State fighters can be many, but The Associated Press believes between 9000 and 11,000 people died. Michael Knights is a fellow with The Washington Institute.
“Hamas has had 15 years to prepare a dense ‘defense in depth’ that integrates subterranean, ground-level and aboveground fortifications, communication tunnels, emplacements and fighting positions,” Mr. Knights wrote in an analysis earlier this month, “as well as potential minefields, improvised explosive devices, explosively formed penetrator anti-armor mines and buildings rigged as explosive booby traps.”
Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat who heads the Armed Services Committee, called on Israel on Monday to delay a ground invasion of Gaza to buy time for hostage negotiations, allow more humanitarian aid to reach Palestinian civilians and give Israeli commanders more opportunity to fine-tune their urban-combat planning.
Mr. Reed, who was on the trip with other senators, said that intelligence gathered from the trip would help in urban combat. “A little extra time might be helpful. There are so many factors. Rushing into this probably is not the best approach.”
