Tension in the Middle East looms over Biden’s last big U.N. meeting

President Joe Biden traveled Monday to New York in preparation for what is likely to be his last major speech before the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, as he seeks to cement his foreign policy legacy amid the growing threat of war between Israel and Hezbollah. The annual gathering, which brings together world leaders in New York, will mark one of Biden’s final opportunities to lay out his accomplishments on the global stage. But given the ongoing hostilities between Israel and Gaza, allies and experts said sideline discussions about the crisis in the Middle East are likely to overshadow other subjects. “Joe Biden, more than most presidents, has a history of foreign policy activity and accomplishments and I’m sure he wants to go out on a high note. But the Israel-Lebanon issue is going to make that very hard to do,” said Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who worked on Middle East issues in several administrations. “This is a crisis I’m sure the Biden team is doing everything it can to prevent, but it doesn’t look like the odds are in their favor.” Biden referred to the latest crisis, which has displaced numerous people on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border, at a meeting Monday with President Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates. “I’ve been briefed on the latest developments in Israel and Lebanon,” he said. “My team is in constant contact with their counterparts, and we’re working to de-escalate in a way that allows people to return to their home safely,” he said. Biden’s aides and fellow Democrats have also touted his China policy, particularly after his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, recently visited the country and met with President Xi Jinping. Advertisement Vice President Kamala Harris is not scheduled to attend the high-level gathering in New York but she met with the UAE leader on Monday and is slated to sit down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday, according to the White House. Much of the discussion in New York is likely to focus on what will happen if former president Donald Trump recaptures the White House, given his disruptive and unorthodox foreign policy approach, diplomats said. It’s less about trying to figure out what Kamala Harris represents, because she is the sitting vice president — everyone understands more or less there’s going to be continuity,” said Ian Bremmer, president and founder of Eurasia Group. And they know Trump can win.” Advertisement While in New York, Biden will meet with U.N. Secretary General António Guterres and host a summit of the Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats, an effort the United States launched last year, White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters last week. There’s the official agenda and then there’s what everyone’s talking about, and those two things rarely match,” said Jeffrey Feltman, a former top U.N. official and the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war. “Really, everybody is going to be talking about Gaza, the Middle East, the fear of escalation and Ukraine.” It has now been nearly a year since Hamas militants stormed through the Israel-Gaza border fence and killed about 1,200 people, many of them civilians, and took about 250 hostage. In the aftermath of that attack, Israel launched an operation in Gaza that has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and fueled an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe. Advertisement Biden’s Middle East strategy has hinged on securing a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, an agreement that senior U.S. officials acknowledge is ever more elusive. Asked on Friday whether a cease-fire deal was realistic, Biden said, “A lot of things don’t look realistic until we get them done. An Israeli operation last week detonated pagers and walkie-talkies used by the militant group, killing at least 37 people and injuring thousands. Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah vowed retaliation, and Israel on Friday launched what it said was a targeted strike in Beirut against a Hezbollah leader that killed at least 51 people as of Sunday and destroyed two buildings, according to Lebanese officials. Israeli airstrikes Monday in Lebanon killed nearly 500 people and left more than 1,600 injured, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. But the Israeli operations, coupled with the suggestion from top Israeli officials that the focus may shift to Lebanon, appeared to undermine months-long U.S. efforts to end the bloodshed in the region. Biden and his top aides have given no indication that they are looking at a change in policy or withholding weapons to Israel, frustrating Arab allies and prompting criticism from other nations, including those in the Global South. In a potential sign that U.S. officials believe there is little they can do to convince Israel to change course, some top officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, opted not to travel to Israel last week to try to calm tensions. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/09/23/biden-unga-israel-iran/