A delegation of diplomats from Arab and Islamic nations is calling on the United States to demand a ceasefire in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
Officials from Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia said the United States’ continued failure to condemn Israeli war crimes was causing many nations to doubt the legitimacy of the rules-based international order.
Egyptian Foreign Affairs Minister Sameh Shoukry said that many worried the United States was shirking its commitment to human rights in Gaza.
“What is ongoing is eroding the credibility of the international rules-based order,” Mr. Shoukry said during a Dec. 8 conference at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington.
“The growing feeling in the global South is that there is a double standard being applied to this conflict in terms of acceptance of the scale of human suffering, the number of innocent casualties.”
To that end, Mr. Shoukry said the United States was “inconsistent” with its handling of Israel’s mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, whereas it had been “clear and determined” when dealing with similar issues from other nations at war.
Mr. Shoukry said that the United States, as a global leader, had not expressed “sufficient condemnation” of that fact.
“Many of our partners only seem to address the issue from a perspective of encouragement, encouraging Israel to respect [human rights] but never defining whether it does so or not,” Mr. Shoukry said.
US Could Lead Peace, or Destabilization
Hamas, which is designated a terror group by Israel and the United States, led a brutal attack on Israel on Oct. 7, during which it killed more than 1,200 Israelis, captured hundreds more, and tortured many others.Israel invaded Gaza in response, beginning the sixth armed conflict between the two powers.
Mr. Shoukry noted that the Arab League, a regional organization of nations in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, had condemned Hamas’ attacks, but said real work toward peace must begin to bring an end to the “cycle of violence and hatred and animosity.”
“We have indicated that it is unacceptable and… there must be an immediate release of hostages,” Mr. Shoukry said.
In order to bring about a “new phase of regional integration and cooperation,” however, he said a ceasefire must be implemented so that the hostilities could be resolved through the U.N. Charter.
Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister Ayman Safadi said the United States would be “indispensable” to any such peace effort, but that it would need to offer meaningful mechanisms for implementing a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine once and for all, instead of more open-ended dialogue.
“We need the U.S. to lead in a big move that would resolve this conflict once and for all,” Mr. Safadi said.
“We’re not asking you to be against Israel. We’re asking you to stand for what’s right and to stand for peace.”
Mr. Safadi also noted that the White House had not condemned any of Israel’s war crimes in the current conflict, including the cessation of food and medicine to civilians, the deliberate mass internal displacement of Palestinians, and the wide-scale targeting of primarily civilian locations.
Israeli and U.S. leadership have stated that Hamas is responsible for Israel’s targeting of civilians because the terror group intentionally hides in tunnels underneath hospitals and other vital infrastructure.
Adults under age 30 have the lowest view of the administration’s handling of the conflict, with 46 percent disapproving.
Mr. Safadi said the war is by far the worst in the history of the Israel-Hamas conflicts, and that disproportionate aggression by Israel should be condemned.
“This war has broken every record,” Mr. Safadi said. “Largest number of journalists killed. Largest number of hospitals destroyed. Largest number of medics killed. Largest number of U.N. employees killed.”
“There is a real catastrophe unfolding and, unfortunately, the positions of our colleagues in the West, including the United States, have not come to the right degree of saying enough.”
To that end, Mr. Safadi said the United States was “not rising to either the legal or the moral obligation” to prevent the mass killing of innocent civilians, which could destabilize the Middle East for an indefinite period.
“If you want to help Israel, help it, but you’re not helping it by allowing it to continue with an aggression that is going to haunt the whole region for many years to come, and that is defining generations.”
Muslim Nations Committed to Ceasefire
To date, the Biden administration has refused to request a ceasefire or to publicly denounce Israel’s use of bombardment and starvation as key pillars of its military strategy in Gaza.As such, Mr. Safadi said the Arab world valued much of the United States’ efforts to promote human rights, but that it was in a fundamental “disagreement” about the necessity of a ceasefire in this instance.
Whereas Israel and the United States have said the future management of Gaza will be discussed only once Hamas is eliminated, Mr. Safadi said the Arab world would not be party to any such agreement.
“We will not engage in any conversation about how Gaza is managed until this war stops,” Mr. Safadi said. “Because basically, if we do that, we’re saying we’re okay with Israel destroying Gaza, and we’re okay with coming to clean up after them.”
Similarly, he said the Arab world would not tolerate attempts to force Muslim nations to accept Palestinians who were forcibly displaced by Israeli military operations.
“That’s a declaration of war on us,” Mr. Safadi said.
“We will never allow the displacement of Palestinians outside of their land.”
Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, foreign affairs minister of Saudi Arabia, said that the problem of Hamas could not be eliminated by military means alone, because it was fundamentally an ideological issue. As such, he said, it could only be expunged by the creation of better ideas and better ways of life.
“Hamas… is an idea that exists, that has festered in the occupied territories and has gained sympathies in the West Bank and among Palestinians particularly because of the lack of a horizon, the lack of achievement in the creation of a Palestinian state,” Prince Faisal said.
“We are committed in the Arab world, in the Muslim world, to peace. We are committed to a two-state solution. And we are committed to working with our partners to make that happen.”
When asked whether the Arab League would ever consider lending military support to the Palestinian people against Israel, Prince Faisal answered unequivocally No.
“Among the things that we are unified in is that violence is not the answer. We are not going to get drawn into this cycle of threat and counterthreat, violence and counterviolence,” Prince Faisal said.
“The answer is a ceasefire.”
