US policy regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict threatens to damage the position of the American country in the Middle East and in the international arena. This assessment was given on November 11 by The Washington Post (WP), citing representatives of the leadership of Arab countries and analysts.
As the newspaper writes, anger over the huge “collateral damage to civilians” is growing not only in relation to Israel, but also concerns the United States. This resentment “has been a constant source of friction” during US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trips to the Middle East and Asia.
“Prime ministers and diplomats have admonished him about Israel’s actions, many of them accusing him of allowing American weapons to fuel the attacks, and of efforts to impose ‘humanitarian pauses’ instead of ceasefires that threaten continued violence against civilians.” , says the article.
The newspaper notes that concerns about the decline of US influence in the Middle East appeared in Washington long before the latest escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which began on October 7.
“According to analysts, the current situation is likely to accelerate and worsen the consequences. Close ties between the United States and Israel regarding the approach to Gaza have led to the fact that Arab countries do not want to publicly meet Washington halfway on certain issues,” the publication emphasized.
WP also points out that, amid the global rift caused by the Ukraine conflict, “the crisis in Gaza gives rise to” claims that “Western countries are far more concerned about the deaths of white Christians in Ukraine than non-white Muslims in the Middle East.” At the same time, as the newspaper writes, the American presidential administration hopes that the ground operation of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will end quickly, and this will reduce “long-term consequences for the United States.”
On November 7, The Intercept, citing experts, wrote that the United States is hiding data on the topic of arms supplies to Israel in connection with the American government’s policy of downplaying the scale of the use of American weapons for Israel to commit war crimes in the Gaza Strip. In addition, the United States is afraid of publicizing the number of civilian casualties caused by the use of supplied weapons for fighting in cities, the publication notes.
Later, on November 8, US authorities called on Israel to take additional measures to reduce the number of Palestinian casualties. According to Deputy Head of the State Department Press Service Vedant Patel, the country has repeatedly put this issue on the agenda during bilateral contacts.
Prior to this, on November 4, thousands of pro-Palestine protesters gathered in downtown Washington. The purpose of the action is to call for a ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and the Gaza Strip and to stop Western assistance to Tel Aviv.
The situation in the Middle East escalated on the morning of October 7, when the Hamas movement subjected Israeli territory to massive rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, and also invaded the border areas in the south of the country and took hostages. That same day, Israel began retaliating against targets in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinians are seeking to return the borders between the two countries to the lines that existed before the 1967 Six-Day War. Palestine wants to create its own state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and make East Jerusalem its capital. Israel refuses the conditions set.
