![]() ![]() ![]() How bad the situation in the West Bank becomes may be tied to the degree to which Netanyahu can exercise influence over coalition partners he desperately needs to pass legislation that will postpone, if not nullify, his ongoing trial. If you believe the rhetoric of its extremist ministers-and there’s no reason not to-this coalition is determined to alter Israel’s democratic system, transform society along Jewish exclusivist lines, sow tensions with Israel’s Arab citizens, and erect a gravestone over the buried hope of a Palestinian state by permanently lashing the majority of the West Bank and Jerusalem to Israel. With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s return to office, the Biden administration now confronts the most extreme right-wing government in Israel’s history, one likely to cause a serious rise in-if not an explosion of-tensions over the Palestinian issue and Iran’s nuclear program. And the implications of that are not particularly uplifting. ![]() With five states-Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and Libya-in various stages of dysfunction, the Arab world will remain a source of instability, with the exception being wealthy Persian Gulf states (Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) that are acting with greater independence from Washington while insisting on US support.īut it’s really the two non-Arab powers, Iran and Israel-one, the United States’ foremost regional adversary, the other its closest regional friend-that may set the agenda for the next two years. Yet Biden may soon have his hands full with smaller yet determined regional powers eager to advance their own interests and unwilling to play by US rules. The administration’s top foreign-policy priorities remain Russia’s war against Ukraine and a rising China. For most of his first two years in office, US President Joe Biden has been extremely fortunate to have avoided sustained entanglement with the Middle East, a place where more often than not, US foreign-policy ideas-good and bad-have gone to die.īiden may have a harder time avoiding the Middle East in 2023 and beyond, though. ![]()
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