Shibley Telhami:
There's no question that they have affected the escalation.
I have no doubt about that. And I think — but neither side was looking for an all-out war. And I think, even now, they're not looking for all-out war, because, as Aaron said correctly, they don't see a strategic horizon. In the end, everyone is going to lose.
The Palestinians lose more always. Look at the ratio of casualties. The asymmetry of power is huge, and they lose 10-1 so far in terms of the casualties. But, in the end, there will not be a solution, a strategic solution.
So there are two things to keep in mind here. Number one, what do you do if you're trying to achieve diplomacy? First, obviously, you have to stop the fighting, undoubtedly. That's not going to be enough, but it's going to be essential. So you have to provide some kind of fig leaf to the Israelis and to the Palestinians, to Hamas, to be able to reach a cease-fire agreement as quickly as possible, but then to remind yourself that this can happen again and again.
And, as Aaron said, part of the problem here for the Israelis now is not just this continuing Palestinian-Israeli conflict with the West Bank and Gaza, but now that it's come inside Israel on a scale that I have never observed since 1948 — we have not seen this kind of confrontation in a city where people coexisted like Haifa, where you have this kind of confrontation, in a way that the went out of control of the Israeli government that has to worry them.
But, for Biden particularly, as he's moving forward, one of the disappointing things is that, as they're doing diplomacy, they have not met this moment, and particularly with regard to human rights and any international law.
So, if there is no horizon, this is not a priority issue for the administration, for sure, and it's not likely to become one. But, nonetheless, because it's not a priority issue and a political settlement is not on the horizon, what you do is, you focus on the core — the key issues of people's lives, equality, human rights, democracy, freedom for people.
You focus on those. This is an issue where there's a very clear-cut case of violation of international law. And the administration couldn't bring itself to saying Israel should not carry out the evictions, the evictions are wrong, both sides should calm down.
That's not a very good start for the administration.
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The core issues, politics behind conflict in the Middle East - PBS NewsHour
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