Why averting a regional war in the Middle East is top priority for both US presidential candidates

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Palestinians carry a casualty at the site of an Israeli airstrike on a shelter housing displaced people in central Gaza Strip, on August 17, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 18 August 2024
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Why averting a regional war in the Middle East is top priority for both US presidential candidates

  • Republican nominee Trump has claimed ongoing crisis may set off a world war that only he can avert if he is returned to office
  • His rival Harris has expressed “serious concern” over scale of suffering in Gaza, including “far too many innocent” civilians’ deaths

LONDON: Domestic issues like the cost of living tend to dominate the minds of US voters ahead of election season. However, few can have ignored the gathering clouds of war in the Middle East and what this might mean for US allies in the region.

Indeed, events in Israel, Iran, and the Arab countries that have been dragged into their regional rivalry have already become a key feature of debate in November’s race for the White House, with the contenders setting out opposing positions.

Characteristically, Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee and former president, has said an escalating crisis in the Middle East could trigger a third world war — a catastrophe that only he could avert if he is returned to office.

During an interview on Aug. 12 with Elon Musk on the tech entrepreneur’s social media platform X, Trump said neither the war in Ukraine nor the conflict in Gaza would have happened had he occupied the White House instead of the incumbent Joe Biden.




Former US President Donald Trump. (AFP)

“If I were in office, the (Hamas-led) attack on Israel would never have happened, Russia would never have invaded Ukraine, we wouldn’t have inflation in our country, and the disaster in Afghanistan wouldn’t have occurred,” he said.

Promising he would contain the threats emanating from Tehran, he added: “All this stuff that you’re seeing now, all the horror that you look at. Israel, they’re all waiting for an attack from Iran. Iran would not be attacking, believe me.”

On the day Trump’s interview aired, the Israeli military said it was at “peak readiness” for a retaliatory attack for its killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Aug. 3 and senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut on July 30.




Lebanese residents inspect the damage to a building after an Israeli strike in the southern town of Kfour, in the Nabatiyeh district, on August 17, 2024, amid the ongoing cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters. (AFP)

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby, meanwhile, said that while “it is difficult to ascertain at this particular time, if there is an attack by Iran and or its proxies, what that could look like,” Israel and the US had to be “prepared for what could be a significant set of attacks.”

President Biden has sought out the support of his counterparts in the UK, France, Germany and Italy to help de-escalate tensions in the region and also broker a ceasefire deal between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.

The conflict in Gaza, which followed the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, has spilled over into neighboring countries, with Israeli rockets and drones striking targets across Syria and Lebanon, and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia trading fire with Israel on the Lebanese border.

In a joint statement, the European leaders called on Iran to “stand down its ongoing threats of a military attack against Israel,” and highlighted “the serious consequences for regional security should such an attack take place.”

Trump’s pledge to prevent an Iranian counterattack is couched in his full-blooded support for Israel.

During his interview with Musk, Trump accused his opponent, the Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, of being “so anti-Israel” and having chosen “an anti-Israel radical left person” as her running mate, referring to Harris’s vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz.




Israeli artillery units are positioned on the southern Israel border with the Gaza Strip, waiting to strike more targets. (AFP)

Trump’s support for Israel is widely recognized. In July, the leader of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Matt Brooks, said he believes Trump will give Israel a “blank check” to eliminate Hamas in Gaza should be return to office.

During the first presidential debate with Biden in June when he was still the Democratic Party’s nominee, Trump had called the outgoing president “a very bad Palestinian” who does not want to help Israel “finish the job” against Hamas.

“He doesn’t want to do it. He’s become like a Palestinian — but they don’t like him because he’s a very bad Palestinian, he’s a weak one,” Trump said. This came despite Biden reiterating his strong support for Israel in its war against Hamas.

INNUMBERS

$20 billion US weapons package sale to Israel approved on Aug. 13, including fighter jets and advanced air-to-air missiles.

$674 million US contribution to humanitarian aid for Palestinians since Oct. 7, 2023.

Harris was chosen to replace Biden as the Democratic nominee after his poor performance in June’s debate raised concerns about his cognitive abilities. Although she is keen to reduce tensions in the Middle East, Harris has been critical of Israel’s conduct in Gaza.

While incessantly reaffirming her “unwavering commitment” to the existence and security of Israel, she stressed in her Arizona campaign speech on Aug. 9 that “now is the time” to secure a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal, adding that she and Biden are working “around the clock every day” to achieve this.

Harris also expressed her “serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians” during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on June 25.




US Vice President Kamala Harris meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington last month. (AFP/File)

“I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there, with over 2 million people facing high levels of food insecurity and half a million people facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity,” she said following the meeting.

“What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating — the images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third, or fourth time.

“We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent.”

In addition to killing more than 40,000 people in Gaza, at least 15,000 of them children, Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza has brought health and sanitation services to their knees, wounded tens of thousands, and displaced some 1.9 million of the enclave’s 2.1 million population.




Palestinians mourn their relatives, killed in an Israeli strike, at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on August 17, 2024. (AFP)

Humanitarian aid agencies and human rights organizations have accused the Israeli government of committing war crimes against Palestinians, including the deliberate starvation of civilians in Gaza.

However, as far as the US election is concerned, debates and disagreements over the conflict appear somewhat superficial.

Ray Hanania, an award-winning former Chicago City Hall political reporter and columnist, believes “the two major party candidates are focused on addressing the politics of a potential widening regional war in the Middle East, but not in its causes.”

He told Arab News: “Both Harris and Trump are addressing the conflict in a limited way by expressing concerns for the unprecedented humanitarian crisis facing Gaza’s population, careful to only define that population in generic terms not as suffering civilians, women and children.

“Both Harris and Trump are instead more focused on the politics of the potential conflict, blaming Iran, for example, and urging Arab states to refrain from engaging in the Gaza conflict.”

The two candidates, he said, “conspicuously avoid the cause of the conflict, which is Israel’s excessive and unbridled military violence in Gaza fueled by funding from the US government, including $20 billion given to Israel’s government by Congress this week.




Palestinian children carry an empty US ammunition container in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. US President Joe Biden has been unable to carry out his threats to withhold weapons of war from Israel despite the excessive and unbridled Israeli military violence in Gaza. (AFP)

“They don’t want to anger the political constituencies that support Israel, and then lose that vote in the upcoming presidential election, but they want to appear to be sympathetic to human suffering.”

He added: “This is all about politics, preserving their voter support — not about achieving real peace.”

Lebanese economist Nadim Shehadi also believes that “everything is now linked to the campaign circus and not about allies, interests, and there is certainly no strategy,” adding that it is unlikely “anyone in the region will listen to the US” until well after the election.

“This is too far ahead now,” he told Arab News. “Whoever wins the election in November will be inaugurated in January, and it will take around six months before they have a functioning administration — and who knows how much longer to have a policy strategy to implement.”

However, in a bid to stave off a full-fledged war in the Middle East, Shehadi expects that a victorious Harris administration would “engage with Iran” while a new Trump administration would more likely “engage with the Gulf countries.”

He said: “President Biden should have gone to the Gulf states in early October for help.”

Dania Koleilat Khatib, an expert in US-Arab relations and co-founder of the Lebanon-based Research Center for Cooperation and Peace Building, believes Arab and Muslim communities in the US are “becoming more vocal and active,” thereby gaining greater influence in elections and in public affairs. “Those two factors make it imperative for both Harris and Trump to tackle the issue,” she said.




Demonstrators protest in support of the Palestinians who have died in Gaza outside of the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, on August 11, 2024. (AFP)

Addressing the Palestinian issue will require the next US president, regardless of who wins, to pressure Israel into reaching a fair solution, said Koleilat Khatib. To achieve this, they will have “no other choice” but to cooperate with regional allies like Saudi Arabia.

“First of all, the US should pressure Israel to accept a two-state solution — to accept at least an irreversible step,” she said. “So here, there will be a trade-off: regional recognition of Israel in return for a Palestinian state, which is not a new idea.

“This is what came in the Arab Peace Initiative. While this is not new, now I think the Americans will push for it and will take it more seriously — and, of course, they need to cooperate with Saudi Arabia.”

The Arab Peace Initiative was proposed by Saudi Arabia’s late King Abdullah in 2002 to end the Arab–Israeli conflict. The Arab League endorsed the plan at the Beirut Summit that same year. It was re-endorsed at the 2007 and 2017 Arab League summits.




Maps showing the changes in Israel's borders since 1947. (AFP/ File)

The peace plan offers Israel normalization with all Arab states in return for its withdrawal from all territories occupied in 1967, the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state, and a just solution for Palestinian refugees.

Koleilat Khatib believes the US will also need to cooperate with regional allies like Saudi Arabia for the reconstruction of Gaza as well as peacekeeping.

“Israel has not yet agreed to make any concession because it enjoys unconditional support from the US,” she said. “The question is whether the US will be willing to pressure Israel. So far, the pressure has been minimal and mostly rhetorical, while in reality, arms transfers have continued smoothly, and Israel has been receiving the bombs it needs.

“As we head into the election season, the question is whether we’ll see members of Congress willing to stand against Israel.”
 

 


Gaza ceasefire talks held up by Israel withdrawal plans: Palestinian sources

Updated 2 sec ago
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Gaza ceasefire talks held up by Israel withdrawal plans: Palestinian sources

  • ‘The negotiations in Doha are facing a setback and complex difficulties due to Israel’s insistence on presenting a map of withdrawal, which is actually a map of redeployment’
  • A second accused Israel of ‘stalling and obstructing the agreement in order to continue the war of extermination’
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Indirect talks between Hamas and Israel for a ceasefire in Gaza are being held up by Israel’s proposals to keep troops in the territory, two Palestinian sources with knowledge of the discussions said on Saturday.
“The negotiations in Doha are facing a setback and complex difficulties due to Israel’s insistence, as of Friday, on presenting a map of withdrawal, which is actually a map of redeployment and repositioning of the Israeli army rather than a genuine withdrawal,” one source said.
A second accused Israel of “stalling and obstructing the agreement in order to continue the war of extermination.”

‘All our crew are Muslim,’ fearful Red Sea ships tell Houthis

Updated 12 July 2025
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‘All our crew are Muslim,’ fearful Red Sea ships tell Houthis

  • Increasingly desperate messages from commercial vessels trying to avoid attack by Yemen militia

LONDON: Commercial ships sailing through the Red Sea are broadcasting increasingly desperate messages on public channels to avoid being attacked by the Houthi militia in Yemen.

One message read “All Crew Muslim,” some included references to an all-Chinese crew and management, others flagged the presence of armed guards on board, and almost all insisted the ships had no connection to Israel.

Maritime security sources said the messages were a sign of growing desperation to avoid attack, but were unlikely to make any difference. Houthi intelligence preparation was “much deeper and forward-leaning,” one source said.

Houthi attacks off Yemen’s coast began in November 2023 in what the group said was in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza war. A lull this year ended when they sank two ships last week and killed four crew. Vessels in the fleets of both ships had made calls to Israeli ports in the past year.

“Seafarers are the backbone of global trade, keeping countries supplied with food, fuel and medicine. They should not have to risk their lives to do their job,” the Seafarers' Charity.


Tunisian jailed after refusing to watch president on TV: lawyer

Updated 12 July 2025
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Tunisian jailed after refusing to watch president on TV: lawyer

  • The man had himself been deported from Italy, where he had been living without documentation

TUNIS: A Tunisian inmate was sentenced to six months in prison after he was reported to authorities for refusing to watch a TV news segment about President Kais Saied, his lawyer and an NGO said Friday.
The inmate’s lawyer, Adel Sghaier, said his client was initially prosecuted under Article 67 of the penal code, which covers crimes against the head of state, but the charge was later revised to violating public decency to avoid giving the case a “political” dimension.
The local branch of the Tunisian League for Human Rights in the central town of Gafsa said that the inmate had “expressed his refusal to watch (coverage of) presidential activities” during a news broadcast that was playing on TV in his cell.
He was reported by a cellmate, investigated and later sentenced to six months behind bars, the NGO said, condemning what it called a “policy of gagging voices that even extends to prisoners in their cells.”
Sghaier said his client had been held over an unrelated case that was ultimately dismissed, and that his family only learnt of his other sentence when he wasn’t freed as expected.
He acknowledged that his client voiced insults and demanded the channel be changed when Saied’s image appeared on TV, explaining the man blamed the president for “ruining his life” by striking a deal with Italy for the deportation of irregular Tunisian immigrants.
The man had himself been deported from Italy, where he had been living without documentation.
A spokesman for the court in Gafsa could not be reached for comment.
Saied, elected in 2019, has ruled Tunisia by decree since a 2021 power grab, with local and international organizations decrying a decline in freedoms in the country considered the cradle of the “Arab Spring.”

 


US aware of reported death of American after beating by Israeli settlers

Updated 12 July 2025
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US aware of reported death of American after beating by Israeli settlers

  • A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority ministry, Annas Abu El Ezz, told AFP that 23-year-old Saif Al-Din Kamil Abdul Karim Musalat “died after being severely beaten all over his body by settlers in the town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, this afternoon”

WASHINGTON: The US State Department said on Friday it was aware of the reported death of a US citizen in the Israeli-occupied West Bank after reports emerged of Israeli settlers fatally beating a Palestinian American.
Palestinian news agency WAFA, citing the local health ministry, said Saif Al-Din Kamel Abdul Karim Musallat, aged in his 20s, died after he was beaten by Israeli settlers on Friday evening in an attack that also injured many people in a town north of Ramallah.
Relatives of Musallat, who was from Tampa, Florida, were also quoted by the Washington Post as saying he was beaten to death by Israeli settlers.
“We are aware of reports of the death of a US citizen in the West Bank,” a State Department spokesperson said, adding the department had no further comment “out of respect for the privacy of the family and loved ones” of the reported victim.
The Israeli military said Israel was probing the incident in the town of Sinjil. It said rocks were hurled at Israelis near Sinjil and that “a violent confrontation developed in the area.”
Israel has expanded and consolidated settlements in the West Bank as part of the steady integration of these territories into the state of Israel in breach of international law, the UN human rights office said in March.
Settler violence in the West Bank, including incursions into occupied territory and raids, has intensified since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza in late 2023.
Israel’s military offensive has killed over 57,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and led to accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice and of war crimes at the International Criminal Court. Israel denies the accusations and says it is fighting in self-defense after the October 2023 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies.
Israeli killings of US citizens in the West Bank in recent years include those of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, Palestinian American teenager Omar Mohammad Rabea and Turkish American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi.
The United Nations’ highest court said last year Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and settlements there were illegal and should be withdrawn as soon as possible, 


A father mourns 2 sons killed in an Israeli strike as hunger worsens in Gaza

Updated 12 July 2025
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A father mourns 2 sons killed in an Israeli strike as hunger worsens in Gaza

  • Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in recent weeks while trying to get food, according to local health officials

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Three brothers in the Gaza Strip woke up early to run to a local clinic to get “sweets,” their word for the emergency food supplements distributed by aid groups. By the time their father woke up, two of the brothers had been fatally wounded by an Israeli strike and the third had lost an eye.
The strike outside the clinic on Thursday in the central city of Deir Al-Balah killed 14 people, including 9 children, according to a local hospital, which had initially reported 10 children killed but later said one had died in a separate incident.
The Israeli military said it targeted a militant it said had taken part in the Hamas attack that ignited the 21-month war. Security camera footage appeared to show two young men targeted as they walked past the clinic where several people were squatting outside.
Hatem Al-Nouri’s four-year-old son, Amir, was killed immediately. His eight-year-old son, Omar, was still breathing when he reached the hospital but died shortly thereafter. He said that at first he didn’t recognize his third son, two-year-old Siraj, because his eye had been torn out.
“What did these children do to deserve this?” the father said as he broke into tears. “They were dreaming of having a loaf of bread.”
Violence in the West Bank
In a separate development, Israeli settlers killed two Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. It said Seifeddin Musalat, 23, was beaten to death and Mohammed Al-Shalabi, 23, was shot in the chest in the village of Sinjil near the city of Ramallah. Both were 23.
The military said Palestinians had hurled rocks at Israelis in the area earlier on Friday, lightly wounding two people. That set off a larger confrontation that included “vandalism of Palestinian property, arson, physical clashes, and rock hurling,” the army said. It said troops had dispersed the crowds, without saying if anyone was arrested.
Palestinians and rights groups have long accused the military of ignoring settler violence, which has spiked — along with Palestinian attacks and Israeli military raids — since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.
A ‘sharp and unprecedented’ rise in malnutrition
Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in recent weeks while trying to get food, according to local health officials. Experts say hunger is widespread among the territory’s 2 million Palestinians and that Israel’s blockade and military offensive have put them at risk of famine.
The deputy director of the World Food Program said Friday that humanitarian needs and constraints on the UN’s ability to provide aid are worse than he’s ever seen, saying “starvation is spreading” and one in three people are going for days without eating.
Carl Skau told UN reporters in New York that on a visit to Gaza last week he didn’t see any markets, only small amounts of potatoes being sold on a few street corners in Gaza City. He was told that a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of flour now costs over $25.
The international aid group Doctors Without Borders said it has recorded a “sharp and unprecedented rise” in acute malnutrition at two clinics it operates in Gaza, with more than 700 pregnant and breastfeeding women, and nearly 500 children, receiving outpatient therapeutic food.
“Our neonatal intensive care unit is severely overcrowded, with four to five babies sharing a single incubator,” Dr. Joanne Perry, a physician with the group, said in a statement. “This is my third time in Gaza, and I’ve never seen anything like this. Mothers are asking me for food for their children, pregnant women who are six months along often weigh no more than 40 kilograms (88 pounds).”
The Israeli military body in charge of civilian affairs in Gaza says it is allowing enough food to enter and blames the UN and other aid groups for not promptly distributing it.
Risking their lives for food
Israel ended a ceasefire and renewed its offensive in March. It eased a 2 1/2 month blockade in May, but the UN and aid groups say they are struggling to distribute humanitarian aid because of Israeli military restrictions and a breakdown of law and order that has led to widespread looting.
A separate aid mechanism built around an American group backed by Israel has Palestinians running a deadly gantlet to reach its sites. Witnesses and health officials say hundreds have been killed by Israeli fire while heading toward the distribution points through military zones off limits to independent media.
The military has acknowledged firing warning shots at Palestinians who it says approached its forces in a suspicious manner.
The Israeli- and US-supported Gaza Humanitarian Foundation denies there has been any violence in or around its sites. But two of its contractors told The Associated Press that their colleagues have fired live ammunition and stun grenades as Palestinians scramble for food, allegations denied by the foundation.
The UN Human Rights Office said Thursday that it has recorded 798 killings near Gaza aid sites in a little over a month leading up to July 7. Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the office, said 615 were killed “in the vicinity of the GHF sites” and the remainder on convoy routes used by other aid groups.
A GHF spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with the group’s policies, rejected the “false and misleading stats,” saying most of the deaths were linked to shootings near UN convoys, which pass by Israeli army positions and have been attacked by armed gangs and unloaded by crowds.
Israel has long accused UN bodies of being biased against it.
No ceasefire after two days of Trump-Netanyahu talks
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people in their Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and abducted 251. They still hold 50 hostages, less than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry, which is under Gaza’s Hamas-run government, doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count. The UN and other international organizations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties.
US President Donald Trump has said he is closing in on another ceasefire agreement that would see more hostages released and potentially wind down the war. But there were no signs of a breakthrough this week after two days of talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.