Aaron David Miller and Daniel Kurtzer write that the Biden administration must do everything it can to defuse the latest crisis to erupt between Israelis and Palestinians. This will require a multipronged diplomatic effort that is based on a clear division of labor — the US speaking to Israel, and America’s Arab and European partners negotiating with Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
Needless to say, the intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict was not the top of the list. And yet the Middle East has a notorious habit of surprising the unprepared and unwary. It is doubtful whether the current crisis in Jerusalem — which has now grown into a larger battle between Israel and Hamas — will impel the Biden administration to launch a full-throated effort to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But, at a minimum, it should compel the administration to do everything it can to defuse this dimension of the crisis. The administration reportedly is planning to send a mid-level diplomat to the region to talk to the parties, and that’s a decent start. But past flareups suggest that having a significant and concerted diplomatic effort to mediate between the two parties is critically important — meaning that a higher-level diplomatic intervention by the Biden administration will soon be necessary. We are now well beyond the hortatory stage. What is required is a multipronged diplomatic effort that is based on a clear division of labor — the US speaking to Israel, and America’s Arab and European partners negotiating with Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority (Fatah) in the West Bank. Of course, there must be close cooperation, coordination and communication among and between all parties involved. Egypt played a critical role in ending the seven-week war in 2014 by negotiating a series of ceasefires that helped to gradually tamp down the violence between Israelis and Palestinians.
