Benjamin Netanyahu needs to listen to his staunchest allies

Editorial: With his brief visit, Joe Biden exceeded expectations in demonstrating how committed his country remains to its closest friend in the Middle East. Israel’s prime minister should now heed his advice about the prosecution of war and the provision of aid

Israel’s prime minister is a veteran politician, and he and Joe Biden know each other well (Reuters)

Although a last-minute cancellation would have carried its own risks, it is difficult to see how US president Joe Biden’s visit to Jerusalem will bring a swift return to the uneasy peace that prevailed before the murders in the kibbutzim. That is not his fault.

The horrific explosion at a Gaza City hospital has completely overshadowed his bold attempt to avert catastrophe through personal initiative. The sheer scale and circumstances of the blast have appalled the world afresh, and rightly so. As Mr Biden settled in for a photo op with his Israeli counterpart, a solemn-faced Benjamin Netanyahu, emergency workers were still collecting body parts from the scene.

This was never going to be a propitious backdrop for shuttle diplomacy, and it is extremely unusual for any US president to go about such a mission without careful spadework and the expectation of success. It is still more unusual, indeed unique, for a president to visit a war zone.

Success, though, seems elusive, and inevitably so. The tragedy is compounded by the fact that there is as yet no clear idea of who was responsible for the hospital attack. Mr Biden’s scheduled visits to the West Bank, Jordan and Egypt have all been cancelled on the grounds that the slaughter was due to an Israeli airstrike; the president himself expressed that view in his brief media appearance.

Yet it seems at least possible that it was, in fact, the accidental work of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a group similar to Hamas. Thus, the governments of Palestine, Jordan and Egypt may have snubbed Mr Biden under a misapprehension about who was responsible. It is the sort of thing that happens in the run-up to wars.

What should happen now is that an urgent, independent, UN-sponsored investigation should be undertaken to determine what happened. It won’t be, however, because the tensions are too high, and the various parties involved would choose to believe any report that emerged only if it served their own interests. The mystery will persist, overladen by conspiracy theories, and create its own momentum for revenge.

Mr Biden, fond of a folksy turn of phrase, could also have been more careful in what he said and how he said it. “The other team” is how he chose to describe the terrorists of Hamas, as if they were a baseball side.

What is more grievous is that Mr Biden seems to back the Israelis’ account of events solely on the basis of the briefing they provided to his own “team”. It seemed hasty, as if no consideration was to be given to alternative accounts. The Israelis may be proved right – but a decent interval should surely have been given to allow for a thorough evaluation of the facts and the evidence by the US. That Mr Biden’s remark was slightly less embarrassing than Donald Trump calling Islamist terrorists “smart” is scant comfort.

The intervention of an American president is rarely a complete waste of time, and Mr Biden will have done some good on his mission, aside from delaying Israel’s ground attack on Gaza. Mr Biden and Mr Netanyahu are both veteran politicians, and know one another well. That helps. Mr Biden will have demonstrated once again how committed the US remains to its closest ally in the region, and how their “special relationship” remains strong.

The message to Tehran and its Hezbollah proxies in Lebanon and the West Bank is equally clear – don’t try anything, or else consider what two aircraft-carrier groups could do in return. The US president has a sincere determination to minimise the unfolding humanitarian disaster, and to secure some delivery of aid and accommodations for refugees trapped in Gaza. He’ll also have done what he can for the hostages under the control of Hamas – another area in which the US and Israeli forces can work together.

Mr Biden, on the other hand, is capable of plain speaking, and he will have demanded that Mr Netanyahu make any invasion as short as possible, and that he provide a clear plan of action for the aftermath and a pivot to peace. There will be no Israeli occupation of Gaza – not that even Mr Netanyahu is keen on the idea.

Though Britain lacks America’s superpower status, Rishi Sunak, who will follow Mr Biden in making his own show of solidarity in Jerusalem, can also exercise some influence, and offer the same wise counsel as the US president. It is crucial that all Western leaders are consistent in their support for Israel, and for the conventions of international law, proportionality and humanitarianism.

As the last colonial power in Palestine and the sponsor of the Balfour Declaration, which favoured a homeland for the Jewish people, the British government, though no longer an imperial one, has an obligation to work for justice and peace in the region. Mr Sunak, like President Biden, Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz and other visitors, is no doubt committed to those causes and, in the longer term, to the peace process and the two-state solution. Mr Netanyahu needs to listen to his nation’s staunchest allies.