Even as long-stalled talks to try to secure the release of the hostages and reach a ceasefire in Gaza resume in the coming days, there is little expectation of a breakthrough before the US presidential election in less than two weeks, officials told CNN.
The reality of the election’s impact was also underscored this week when former President Donald Trump revealed he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu multiple times in recent days.
Top negotiators from the United States, Israel and Qatar are slated to meet in Doha on Sunday to discuss efforts to reach an agreement – the first high-level gathering in more than two months – as US officials have argued for renewed momentum following Israel’s killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
However, privately, some US officials acknowledge that Netanyahu – intimately familiar with and tracking the ins and outs of the presidential election in the US and the potential implications on US foreign policy – is waiting to make any serious decisions about the future of the Gaza conflict until he knows who his next counterpart in Washington, DC, will be.
In the days after Sinwar’s death, Biden advisers expressed cautious optimism that ceasefire discussions could resume – with Secretary of State Antony Blinken embarking on his eleventh trip to the region, including a two-and-a-half-hour meeting with Netanyahu.
But during that time, Netanyahu was soliciting input from Trump, the Republican nominee. Trump claimed during a rally in Georgia that Netanyahu had called him at least twice in recent days.
“Bibi called me yesterday, called me the day before,” Trump boasted. “We’re going to take care of Israel, and they know that.”
Some US officials point to that viewpoint as the root of Netanyahu’s inclination to wait to learn the election results before making any significant decision about the Gaza conflict – the prime minister believes there could soon be an American leader in Washington who is far more sympathetic to his aims than President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris.
“There’s no check on Bibi,” a Democrat close to the White House told CNN. “He knows he has two to three weeks to do whatever he wants.”
Locked in a close race with Harris, Trump has appeared eager to publicly stoke Netanyahu’s ego and tout the two men’s relationship. Trump’s allies also privately played up the Netanyahu-Trump phone calls as demonstrating that Netanyahu is seriously eyeing the possibility of a Trump victory. A Trump adviser argued that “these phone calls demonstrate that the international community sees Trump as the solution instead of Biden.”
“And if Netanyahu didn’t think Trump would win, he wouldn’t call him,” they said.
Trump has also been having conversations with allies about who might join his Middle East negotiating team if he wins the election, sources familiar with the conversations said.
Biden demurred when asked whether he thinks Netanyahu, by ramping up myriad military campaigns while his administration urges de-escalation, is trying to sway an election in which the ongoing war has hurt Democrats’ favorability with certain constituencies including Arab American voters in key swing states like Michigan.
“No administration has helped Israel more than I have. None. None. None. And I think Bibi should remember that,” Biden said from the White House briefing room. “And whether he’s trying to influence the election, I don’t know, but I’m not counting on that.”
There is a school of thought within the Biden administration that Netanyahu would be more open to ending the war if Harris were to win, because he believes the vice president appears willing to follow through on threats that the US has made on withholding support for Israel if it doesn’t change course in Gaza on the humanitarian front.
There is broad consensus, though, that any immediate decisions are unlikely. Israeli officials have also told people who have been in touch with them about how to stabilize Gaza that there will be no decisions taken on the future of Gaza until after the US election, according to a source familiar with the conversations.
Still, the Biden administration is publicly signaling it hopes to advance efforts to bring the hostages home and to end a war that is threatening to tarnish Biden’s foreign policy legacy.
“One of the things we’re doing is looking at whether there are different options that we can pursue to get us to a conclusion, to get us to a result,” Blinken said Thursday.
That will be part of the conversation between the negotiators, including CIA Director Bill Burns and Mossad chief David Barnea, when they meet in the Qatari capital on Sunday.
Blinken throughout his trip to the Middle East urged Israel to seize the “pivotal moment” following killing of Sinwar, who the US argued was the main impediment to an agreement. Netanyahu, however, also created obstacles to an agreement, CNN has widely reported.
“The fact that (Sinwar) is no longer with us perhaps creates an opening for actually moving forward and concluding an agreement,” the top US diplomat said in Qatar Thursday, noting that it remains unclear if Hamas is prepared to engage.
Despite the high-level vacancies atop Hamas and a decentralized structure within Gaza, the Biden administration believes that the group’s senior personnel in Doha – Khalil al-Hayya, Khaled Mashal, and Mousa Abu Marzook – represent a leadership structure that could engage if they desired.
“External and internal, they are capable of making decisions,” said one source familiar with deliberations.
Both Qatar and Egypt have reengaged with the group, which has not publicly named a new leader.
Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said Thursday that “the opportunities abound if both parties have the will to end the war.”
