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Israel-Hamas war: Hostage release doesn't mean the end is near
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take to kick off your week. And yes, we are back to the Israel-Gaza war and it is at least a little bit of good news with some hostages finally being released over a month and a half from when they were originally taken. That has gotten us some Palestinian prisoners released, some humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza and a ceasefire for a few days. And indeed, looks like it will now plausibly be extended for another day or two as more hostages are being let go.
Got to give Qatar a lot of credit here for playing a role in negotiating between Israel and Hamas. Not an easy thing to do. Qatar, an ally of the United States, the biggest military base on the ground, but also a government that has allowed the political leadership of Hamas to live inside their territory in peace and security as they have Taliban leadership for years. And that proves to be useful for both the Americans and the Israelis, more on that later. But is this potentially the beginning of the end of the war? And on that front, I think we have to say absolutely not for a few reasons.
First of all, because there are still well over 100 hostages and they're going to be much harder to get released because here you're not talking about women and children. You're talking about men of fighting age, and in some cases you're talking about soldiers. And Hamas is going to demand a lot more in return. And the Israelis are going to be very reluctant to provide it. So first, I don't expect that's going to happen. And as long as there are hostages on the ground, there's still going to be an awful lot of fighting from the Israeli side.
Secondly, we still have a Hamas leadership, a military leadership active in the north of Gaza. Their ability to continue to fire rockets and their ability to continue to have command and control infrastructure, that's not been destroyed. And the Israeli military saying that it's probably another two months of fighting that they need in the war. By the way, this is about a month after they told the Americans privately that there would be 4 to 6 weeks required.
Now, part of that is, hey, just say the absolute minimum so you get support from the US. You can always extend it later. It's a tactic, but also because it's proving to be more challenging on the ground than the Israeli Defense Forces had anticipated. Not to mention the fact they haven't started fighting in the south, where they told all the Palestinian civilians to evacuate to, but there are also Hamas militants operating in the south. And so Israel intends to try to take them out as well. In other words, we're still talking about weeks, maybe months of active fighting.
The other thing I will say, though, is that the level of pressure on Israel internationally to stop that fighting is going to grow a lot. You've seen the Chinese, the Gulf states, the Egyptians, the Jordanians and Europeans, many Europeans, though not all, and increasingly many inside the United States as well, now actively calling for a ceasefire. And Biden even saying, President Biden, something he had been saying privately, but is now saying publicly that he might be willing to condition further military and financial support to Israel on the basis of Israeli behavior on the ground in the war. And he's very concerned, certainly as everyone is, about the level of civilian casualties that we've all seen in Gaza. Now, does that mean that Israel is no longer America's top ally? No. Under no circumstances can I see that. And Biden would not move in that direction, not personally and not politically. But I could see, for example, some high tech offensive weaponry being held back by the Americans for example, becoming more controversial.
And I also see that happening from Democrats in the House and in the Senate. Again, this is no longer a matter of just a small number of hard-line progressives on the squad in the House. This is much broader. I think we are at the point where Israel has probably lost some degree of support from the United States permanently. The demographics in the United States and how they feel about Israel and what that means politically for the country longer term has shifted. And certainly you can now see things in mainstream media that never would have been printed sort of even three months ago, never mind ten years ago, about their feeling of how Israel does and doesn't run a democracy, nature of the occupation in the West Bank, nature of detentions of those that are accused of, but not yet convicted of crimes, and on and on and on. That level of attention, which only grows, that level of scrutiny that only grows, the longer this war goes on. And of course, the longer we see massive civilian casualties on the ground, that's going to be more challenging for Israel.
There also remains what is the plausible long-term impact of all of this. And for now, it just looks like misery and it's very hard to imagine how the Palestinians could ever come to peace in the region until they have an option that looks attractive. And right now, if you're a Palestinian in Gaza, the option is run away and find someplace to not get blown up. And they're not going to leave Gaza and they're not allowed to leave Gaza, even if they did want to leave Gaza and they don't want to. And then you have Palestinians in the West Bank who are living on smaller and smaller pieces of territory and their lives have become more and more challenging. So, I mean, clearly, at some point, the Israeli government, with a lot of international support and pressure, are going to need to provide meaningful opportunities for the Palestinian people.
And we are not close to that. We are still talking about more war, not less, and less opportunities for building peace, not more. I hope that that will turn in the coming weeks and months. Certainly the international pressure is turning, but not yet the situation on the ground. From that perspective, we're still going to be talking about this quite a bit.
That's it for me. I'll talk to you all real soon.
- Israel-Hamas war: "Just bring them back," says brother of 9-year-old Israeli hostage ›
- Why Israel’s war aims may “break Israeli society”: a conversation with Israeli hostage negotiator Gershon Baskin ›
- Third hostage and prisoner exchange goes ahead, but will there be ... ›
- Dealing with Hamas: What a former hostage negotiator learned ›
- The debate over a “cease-fire” for Gaza ›
Why the Israel-Hamas war is so divisive
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take to kick off your week. And more from the Middle East, the story that continues to dominate the headlines.The story that continues to dominate the headlines. And right now, foreign ministers from across the Middle East and the Muslim world, including the Palestinian foreign minister in Beijing and soon to be in Moscow and soon after that, to be in London and Paris to talk about efforts to contain and end the war in the Middle East. The Chinese foreign minister calling for an immediate ceasefire, also calling for a two-state solution, agreeing with the Americans on the latter, not agreeing with the Americans on the former. This is an environment where pretty much everybody involved is trying to get an end to the fighting except the United States, which is the most important ally, the critical ally of Israel.
And the Israelis intend to continue their military strikes until they feel like they have destroyed Hamas on the ground. And that means not just in Gaza City, but also it means in the south of Gaza. This is causing difficulties inside the United States with stronger opposition inside the Democratic Party, especially among young people where Biden is under water wanting a much more balanced, much less pro-Israel policy. And Republicans who on balance think that Biden has been too soft in his support for Israel. This means that Biden's at 40% approval right now, the lowest of his administration to date. And it's hard to see this getting any better any time soon. I think that the Israelis are clearly having military successes on the ground in Gaza. And when you talk to the generals, they feel like they're on the timeline they want to be. They are finding the tunnels, finding the militant leaders, able to go after with impunity, those that are there. Of course, the very fact that Hamas is fighting inside a civilian area, that they have tunnels underneath schools and hospitals, and that's where they're putting the hostages. And we've seen those videos now that are confirmed and where they're putting their military equipment makes Hamas responsible for a lot of the civilians that are getting killed, but also makes the Israelis responsible in the global environment for not being able to take out Hamas unless they put massive numbers of civilians at risk.
And so what you have is the Israelis winning, at least tactically, the military battles on the ground, whether one can destroy Hamas or extremist militarism against Israel through bombing and a ground war is another longer question. But losing the information war where around the world and including in the United States, there is just a lot more sympathy increasingly for the Palestinians. Only six weeks after the worst terrorist attacks, the worst violence against Jews anywhere in the world since the Holocaust. That is the reality.
And, you know, it's very different in this regard than covering the Russia-Ukraine invasion, where, first of all, the Ukrainians were winning the information war and also it was very clearly a black versus white struggle. I mean, these were, you know, not that the Ukrainians are Democrats and didn't have problems with corruption, but they were minding their own business. They wanted to join NATO. True. That's a decision that is made by a sovereign country. But they weren't threatening Russia. They weren't invading Russia. They were doing nothing to Russians in the Federation. And that was even true despite years of annexation illegally by the Russians of Ukrainian territory. So it was very clear when the Russians invaded Ukraine that the Russians were at fault and that the question is how can you respond to that? It was black and white.
In the case of Israel and Palestine, it is very clear that Hamas is responsible for October 7th. That's clear. But it's also clear that the Israelis have engaged in a lot of illegal actions in taking Palestinian territory on the ground in the West Bank and continue to occupy territory that is not theirs that nobody thinks is theirs and not prepared to do anything about it. It's also clear that the Israeli government had been supporting Hamas in undermining the Palestinian Authority and in refuse thing to consider a two-state solution under Netanyahu and his far right coalition. So, I mean, it's not black and white. There are different shades of gray. There are you know, it's very easy to say that Hamas is a terrorist organization and that means they should be destroyed and Netanyahu is a bad leader and that means he should be voted out. But there's no equivalence between these two leaders. But saying there's no equivalence doesn't mean that one is good and the other's bad. Here we are talking about different shades of illegal activity and we're also talking about different shades of behavior that is causing immense amounts of responsibility for human suffering.
And you can't simply say that Hamas is only responsible for all the people that are getting killed. You can't say that. You can say they're mostly responsible because they're the ones that have the hostages. They're the ones targeting the civilians. They're the ones putting civilians in harm's way. But certainly the Israeli Defense Forces deserve some culpability for their willingness to, you know, have a siege and not allow in humanitarian aid. And their willingness to engage in attacks that are going to take out some militants, but are going to risk the lives of far more civilians. And, you know, how do you balance that? Is it 90:10 Hamas responsible? Is it 70:30? Is it 80:20? I'm not sure I care, you know, doing a percentage as I am in recognizing that we have to describe the nuance. We have to be reasonable in not trying to play one side off as purely responsible and guilty and bad, that the only way this is going to lead to peace is if Hamas is removed, if they are destroyed as a terrorist organization. Number one. If there are prospects for peace for Palestinians to have livelihoods in Gaza and the West Bank going forward, and if Netanyahu and his far right coalition are removed from office, those things are all necessary antecedent conditions before we can have stability in the region.
That's where we are. So it's not an easy conversation. It's a nuanced conversation. It's one that makes almost nobody satisfied and happy in a way that on Russia and Ukraine, it was very easy to be on team Ukraine, even though they frequently lied about stuff in terms of propaganda and support of the war. And their government wasn't 100% clean and isn't 100% clean. But it's still very easy to say the Ukrainians deserve their territory back. It's much harder in this environment on Israel-Palestine to put your thumb on one side of the scale, you have to have a broader conversation if you want to be accurate and if you want to have peace. And that's where we are, and that's part of the reason why it's been so damn difficult to get peace in the Middle East for decades and decades, why the Americans, like many others, have kind of given up on it in favor of just trying to create stability with everybody else. And that worked to a degree. But now we see it wasn't enough. And so we're going to have to go back yet again in one of the most challenging geopolitical missions that we face in the world today.
So that's it for me, but I'm sure we'll be back to this real soon.
- The debate over a “cease-fire” for Gaza ›
- US compared to Russia after tanking UN resolution on Gaza ›
- Biden seeks urgent aid package for Israel, Ukraine ›
- Israel-Hamas war: Biden's second foreign policy crisis ›
- How Netanyahu used Hamas to avoid talks of a two-state solution ›
- Is an Israel-Palestine two-state solution possible? ›
Israel’s geopolitical missteps in Gaza
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Back to the Middle East. We are now over a month of war between Israel and Hamas following the October 7th terror attacks. And frankly, it is not going all that well. What I mean by that is, it's an awful lot of carnage. It's an awful lot of political division around the world. And Israel, with the exception of a strong relationship with the United States, feels increasingly isolated. That's certainly in the message I was hearing from the Europeans over the last week, getting more and more uncomfortable as this war goes on. The Americans privately saying that to the Israelis, though publicly, certainly standing very, very strongly with them. And members of the Israeli cabinet increasingly believing that the pressure on them is going to grow significantly over the next few weeks as the war continues.
So is there anything else they could have done, right? Because I mean, if you're saying, well, this is really challenging, the fight and it's leading to enormous backlash and, you know, from the region and from the Global South and even from countries that are quite friendly and well-disposed to Israel, then what might you have suggested they do instead?
And here my view is, when you have enormous support from the West in particular, but also sympathies more broadly, following these horrible terrorist attacks on October 7th. And let's remember, I mean, this was civilians that were targeted, that were brutally murdered. This was not Israeli settlers who were fighting on the right. It certainly wasn't the military, was actually progressives on the left. It was the people that were most oriented to peace, were the ones that were gunned down and tortured and taken hostage by Hamas in Gaza. So if there was ever a time that the Israelis were going to have sympathy, it would be right after this. And my view is use that in the same way the United States did after 9/11. And they built a coalition of the willing with dozens of countries that were prepared to support them to go into Afghanistan, and specifically to take out Al-Qaeda. You build that coalition. There were countries, of course, NATO's allies, no surprise, the UK and France and Canada. But I mean, countries like Georgia were involved in sending people to UAE.
And this, I think, is an opportunity that the Israelis really did have. When French President Macron traveled to Israel, he said that they were prepared to join the fight against Hamas, join the fight on terror with the Israelis. The Americans, of course, immediately sending, you know, sort of troops to the region, as well as troops on the ground to act as advisors, a lot of intelligence support. I think you would have gotten significant support from the Germans in this environment, from the UK, in this environment. And the point here is that in the immediate weeks after the attacks, instead of massive bombing attacks and then a ground war instead, work first and foremost on a coalition, build multilateral support, heck, work with the Saudis. The Gulf states are strongly interested in working with Israel. They hate Hamas. They want the end of Hamas. They find, you know, this would be a dangerous movement that's much more aligned with their enemies. The Iranians. So Israel had a very strong geopolitical position and the ability to use it if their initial response was, “we're going to be stronger, we're going to build on all of this sympathy to have not just us fighting against Hamas, but everybody.”
Now, would that have constrained what Israel would have done? Would it have meant that they would have been more pinpoint in their bombing? It would have taken longer, that there wouldn't have been a ground war? Maybe so. But having said all of that, Israel is massively more capable militarily than Hamas is, and they have vastly better border security and they have incredible missile defense and they would have gotten more technological and military support from allies and friends all over the world following these attacks. I don't believe that there is an existential risk to Israel from Hamas. I don't believe there's an existential risk from anybody in the region in terms of military capabilities.
I remember when I was with Netanyahu once at a conference in Herzliya in Israel, and he came and spoke to some of us, a small group, I think it was 30 or 40 folks. And there were some investors in the room and he was talking. The first half of the meeting was all about how Israel was the best possible place to invest. And of course, had, you know, very high ratings in terms of credit and transparency and rule of law. And as a democracy in the region, all of these things. And, you know, everyone's nodding along. And then the second half of the meeting is how the Iranians need to be contained and how they represent an existential threat to Israel. And I mean, both of these things cannot be true at the same time, right? I mean, if you're saying that it's a fantastic place to invest, then it probably isn't really a place that other people can take out.
Israel, of course, has, though, unstated, a serious nuclear force, and they have massive military capabilities and incredibly well-trained Israeli Defense Force. Now, the point here is that, you know, Netanyahu took his eye off the ball, stopped paying attention to border security, undermined the Israeli defense Force's capacities as they were focused on the West Bank, took his eye off the ball on intelligence. But after October 7th, that was never going to happen again. The entire people, the entire country, with a massive additional number of troops being sent precisely to defend Israel. So I don't think it's credible to say that, if the Israelis didn't strike back massively within days and then engage in a massive ground war, that they were suddenly facing an existential further risk from Hamas. No, the risk came because the Israelis, who have every right to defend their borders, weren't doing so before October 7th and needed to do so after October 7th. There's no question that no one should expect Israel to be living next to a territory that is governed by Hamas. And they were going to need to take that leadership at a very least out and have vastly better security capabilities.
But that could be done at a time of Israel's choosing when they had built up much more multilateral support and when they were engaging not by themselves, but with others. And that was absolutely possible, certainly more possible than what we have today. The fact that the French government is saying that they're calling for a ceasefire, they certainly weren't doing that even a week ago. The Americans are privately, increasingly telling the Israelis that you're going to need to stop this relatively soon or the US will limit the military support that's being provided to Israel, three plus billion dollars a year. The fact that, you know, the Gulf states are having summits in the region, Israel's not a part of it. They're not being invited. They're working together. They're not condemning Hamas directly. This is a problem. And I think that, you know, at the end of the day, as much as everyone out there should have sympathy for the brutality that Israel was experiencing on October 7th and the 200 plus hostages that Hamas is still holding today. I mean, any human being has to have sympathy for Israel and for the Jewish people on the back of that.
It is a horrible, horrible thing. But the steps that they have taken geopolitically, the military steps they've taken on the ground, frankly, in my view, is weak in their position. The only thing that is going to ultimately cause an existential risk to Israel and to the Jewish people in Israel, is if they continue to fall into the trap that Hamas has played for them, has placed for them. And so far that appears to be, unfortunately, where they're going. So anyway, that's my view on all of this. I'm sure that nobody agrees with it 100%. But, you know, I promise to always give you my best sense and tell you what I think can be authentic with everybody. And I certainly hope that this doesn't continue to explode and that at the very least, we can keep the fighting itself contained to Gaza and that the humanitarian damage and devastation that we're seeing on the ground gets more limited going forward as opposed to continuing to expand.
I'm not hopeful. I don't expect it. I expect more violence from the settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank. And I even think that the northern front with Lebanon and Hezbollah appears to be opening up a little bit more. But that is certainly what none of us want. And we will see where we go from there.
That's it for me. I'll talk to you all real soon.
Biden's 2024 election vulnerabilities and strengths
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here. And a Quick Take to kick off your week on a Monday here in New York City. And yeah, everyone, everyone talking about those polls, New York Times and Siena showing that Biden is behind Trump, not just in overall popularity, but also specifically in how voters in key swing states will vote. And, of course, that's the Electoral College. That's how you actually get elected president of United States. So, yeah, Biden supporters very concerned about that. But we are a year away, so it is early.
Having said that, a few things that I think are worth paying attention to. Number one, 71% of Americans say Biden, 80-year-old Biden is too old to run for president. Look, very few people actually work regularly with an 80-year-old. So I get it. And in a year's time, I'm fairly confident he's going to be a year older. So this is not something that Biden can do much of anything about. And there is material downside. Having said that, Biden is more obviously aging physically where intellectually, you know, one one-on-one in small meetings, he's still actually able to hold down meetings reasonably well.
Trump, on the other hand, at least if you've watched him recently and I've seen a couple of his rallies, is very physically robust, intellectually seems to be losing a lot more of the zip on his fastball. And I suspect that once he gets the nomination, which is virtually certain at this point, he's going to get a lot more real time coverage, more people are going to see that. So it plays definitely against Biden. But I don't think it's quite as dramatic a gap as we presently see.
Other issues out there I think are harder to address. Illegal immigration, for example, which is now not just about border red states, but it's about blue sanctuary cities that were happy being sanctuary cities when they have many illegal immigrants coming in. But you suddenly bring them in. They say, wait a second, we were fine with sanctuary city in theory, but in practice, this isn't going to work. And you see this happening in New York. You see it happening in San Francisco, in Chicago, in a bunch of cities around the country, and also hard to address because you had very limited immigration. While the pandemic was on, people weren't moving. Two and a half years of pent up demand. Now they are. And the willingness of Biden to play hardball, specifically with the Mexican government and the southern Mexican border, which is where the people are coming up through so far, has not been what it needs to be. Hard to imagine that issue gets much better.
The one that can get better for Biden is the economy, where increasingly the US economy is significantly outperforming those of other advanced industrial democracies post-Pandemic. And while inflation is high, it is coming down, though from a high base. And rates, no one expects they're going to continue to be raised by the Fed. In fact, indeed, they may well come down a little bit next year and that soft landing will likely help soften Biden's numbers on that side. Having said all of that, foreign policy is now becoming a vulnerability for Biden in a way that it really hasn't been over the last year or so. And few Americans actually vote on foreign policy. But when you talk about a huge issue, like 100 billion US dollars going to support Ukraine for a war that increasingly looks like a stalemate, where the counter offensive talked about for many months looks like a failure, and where it was a bipartisan issue of support for Ukraine, it's now become a partisan issue of Democrats strongly supporting more money for the Ukrainians. Republicans saying that's been too much money for the Ukrainians. And when Trump gets the nomination, the Republican Party presently voting more with the Dems likely to shift away from that support. And so I can easily see an environment where Ukraine feels like it's getting partitioned, which no one will accept and therefore is an unacceptable reality when Biden is running for reelection. That's been a signature foreign policy of his and he will be vulnerable to the Republicans.
The other issue, of course, is the Middle East. Now, if you can contain the Middle East war to Gaza and Israel, probably won't have much impact come next November. But if it expands, the impact on oil prices as well as the likelihood that US forces in the region are directly involved in some of the fighting with Iranian Shia proxies across the region, Yemen and Syria and Iraq and Lebanon and maybe even with Iran itself. That's a vulnerability too. Not to mention the fact that right now Biden's getting only just above 20% support from Arab American voters in the United States who are really important in places like Michigan, where they're 5% of the voting population, or Pennsylvania, where they're over 2%, both of which are larger than Biden's actual victory in those states back in 2020 elections.
So he has vulnerabilities there. And increasingly, the Biden administration is worried that, you know, this is going to be a challenge and there's not a lot of things they can do to ensure outcomes that are better. So in an environment where domestic policy looks okay, but people aren't focused as much on it, they're not as happy as they want to be on a couple of core issues. And suddenly foreign policy is a vulnerability, that to me feels challenging. Now against all of that, you have the fact that Biden is the president and incumbent presidents always historically do better in the United States, even unpopular ones. They get a bump because they can drive the agenda and they can drive the media coverage. That continues to be true for Biden. It's one of the strongest arguments for him to actually run a second time.
Beyond that, you've got the abortion issue, which continues to play strongly for Biden, very badly for Republicans. It was a conservative Supreme Court with key Supreme Court justices appointed by Trump that rid the country of Roe versus Wade, which ended up which was a quite popular decision by the Supreme Court for the majority of red and blue voters across the country. And there's a backlash that you see there. It's also one of the reasons why Kamala Harris is no longer seen as much of a drag on the Biden administration. In fact, in many ways, Biden is seen as much of a drag as Kamala is, especially in this last vote. And that's because she's been given not just immigration, which is a loser issue, but she's also been given abortion, which has been a winner issue. And as she's talked around the country, she's done better on that front.
Final point, of course, is Trump's unfitness. And while this is all played in 91 indictments, some of which are very real cases, some of which are politicized, but this is going to become a bigger turnoff for independent votes as people spend more time focusing not on Democrat versus Republican, but Biden versus Trump once the nominations happen. That's a vulnerability, too. So a long electoral cycle that no one wants to deal with, with two candidates that most people are very unexcited about. I guess we're going to have to talk about it more. But that's where we stand right now.
That's it for me. I'll talk to you all real soon.
Israel-Hamas war set to expand & directly involve US
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: It is, of course, an expansion of the war in the Middle East. Israeli troops and tanks now inside Gaza. The ground invasion, the second phase, as they've said, is well underway. Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, his advisor saying that payback has begun.
It is, of course, retribution for Hamas terrorist attacks, killing 1400 Israelis, mostly civilians, on October 7th. And since then, the number keeps going up. Over 250, it looks like total hostages having been taken and still mostly being held by Hamas in Gaza. This is a horrible tragedy on every count and the deaths that we will see, both the ability of the Israeli Defense Forces to take out Hamas military leadership and also the Palestinian civilians who are caught up in this fight.
Those numbers, those death numbers are going to go way, way up over the coming weeks. And I now believe we can no longer contain this war in Gaza. That was perhaps mostly possible in the past couple of weeks. It is so no longer, I think, the level of radicalization and violence that you will see on the West Bank from the Palestinians and in return from the IDF and the settlers, also from Hezbollah in the north and from Iranian proxies like the Houthis in Yemen and elsewhere, Iraq, Syria. That is going to be a reality in very short order.
And the United States will be involved in that war. In that regard, very different from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which almost two years in now, and a massive amount of military support and expense from the United States and allies to support the Ukrainians. But no fighting, no direct fighting of American soldiers. Already, we have over 20 US servicemen and women that have been casualties of Shia-Iranian proxy strikes in the region. Those numbers expected to go way, way up. Also, anti-Semitism attacks across the region. Terrorism against the United States in the region and more broadly. I expect that we're going to see so much more of that in the coming weeks and months. And that means that this is not just Israel's war against Hamas. It is also a US war in the Middle East.
And the Americans will resist saying that. But increasingly that will be a reality. And in that regard, I do think that Biden has some vulnerabilities here in 2024. Trump is going to say no new war started under him. And now you've got two wars, Russia invading Ukraine and now you've got this Middle East crisis under Biden. And most Americans, even though they support Israel, though certainly not all, and a majority of Gen Z in the US does not, but a majority overall do. A majority in the US does not want to be involved in a new war in the Middle East, and that I think especially a war the Americans have sort of like found themselves engaged in, as opposed to, actively said, we're fighting and here's why. That I think, is going to go over badly for Biden in 2024.
Still a very, very close race, of course, and you see that. But for the near term, we're focused on the impact in the region, the reality that relations in the Gulf for Israel have been, at best, frozen for the foreseeable future and at worst degraded substantially. Turkey in particular, you saw President Erdogan using the 100th Republic Day as an opportunity to bring out massive numbers of supporters for Palestine. And those were the statements he was making, referred to Hamas as a liberation movement, refused to condemn them, condemned Israel, and the Israelis withdrew their diplomats. We're going to see a lot a lot more of that kind of behavior going forward as well. I wish we had good news here. War in the Middle East rarely brings it, and I fear that escalation is about to get much, much worse.
That's it for me. And I'll talk to you all real soon.
- As crisis deepens in Israel-Hamas conflict, cracks emerge for Biden and Trudeau ›
- Is Biden's embrace of Israel a political liability for him? ›
- Israel-Hamas War: Can the US count on its Arab allies? ›
- Podcast: What's the US role in the Israel-Hamas war? Views from Sen. Chris Murphy & Rep. Mike Waltz ›
- America's tightrope walk with the Israel-Hamas war ›
Israel-Hamas war: Biden's second foreign policy crisis
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: We are now two weeks into an Israel war in Gaza against Hamas. I guess if there's good news that it hasn't expanded beyond that, But aside from that, not very much good news to take away. Maybe the big picture for me is that this is the second serious global foreign policy crisis that we have seen during the Biden administration. And there are some very interesting comparisons and contrasts with them.
I mean, maybe the first thing to say is it's, you know, the last what is it been, almost 20 months? This is the first time that the Russia Ukraine crisis has been completely kicked off the headlines. No one asking me about Russia, Ukraine, over the last couple of weeks, even though that war continues apace. Plenty of civilians continue to get killed by Russian rockets and drones and lots of fighting on the front lines between the two militaries. But that is not the focus. The focus, of course, is what's happening in Gaza and just how much worse this can all get.
I guess one interesting comparison is that in both cases, President Biden is providing an enormous amount of public support and alignment with a leader that he does not really like or trust. In the case of Ukraine, not an ally, though a country that the United States has been aligned with, hasn't paid a lot of attention to it. And Zelensky himself, someone that Biden really did not feel had experienced to run the country, was presumptuous about, you know, sort of his need to be in to NATO and the Americans not doing enough for him and not listening to US intelligence in the run up to the war. Suddenly the Russians invade and Biden feels no choice, along with American allies, to be out there publicly and strongly supporting him, supporting democracy against an illegal and unprecedented Russian invasion.
In the case of Netanyahu, this is of course, the most important ally of the United States in the Middle East, has been for a very long time. But Biden does not support or like Netanyahu personally much at all. The farthest right wing coalition that Israel has had since independence, expanding their illegal settlements in the West Bank. Biden didn't want to even meet with him in person for a while. It was challenging to get a meeting set up on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly for example. Even though Biden wants to have a very strong, committed relationship with Israel, very different from the present government.
A big difference is, of course, in the case of Israel, it is the ally that the Americans are both actively supporting, but also trying to contain and constrain, as opposed to, in the case of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was trying to stop the Russians, the adversary, from a broad invasion into Ukraine. A very big difference, of course, is once the Russians invaded Ukraine, the United States did everything it could to support the Ukrainians. But absolutely wanted to stay out of the war no matter what. And so did American allies. And the US was very aligned with pretty much all of NATO in doing everything they could to stay out of the war, to avoid any possible escalation that could get the Americans fighting directly against the Russians. Hence, no no-fly zone. Hence, you know, concerns about what kind of significant offensive, advanced military equipment that would be provided to the Ukrainians, especially in the early months of the war. This was going to be a proxy fight, not a direct fight.
In the case of the Israel invasion of Gaza, there is a very strong feeling that the Americans will get involved in the war if the war expands. In other words, sending carrier groups directly to the Eastern Med, telling Iran, putting them on notice that if there's an expansive fight involving Hezbollah, involving Iranian proxies around the region, that the Americans will directly fire back. And so the likelihood that this war, if it expands, is going to involve the Americans directly is actually very high. That's one of the reasons why Biden has been so concerned about the potential of significant escalation. Now, there are clearly very strong efforts by Biden and by the Europeans to try to convince Netanyahu not to go ahead with a ground assault. And at least delay one significantly.
Lots of reasons for that. One is because you don't have sufficient humanitarian aid in place. And so where are those that million plus of Palestinians living in northern Gaza, the densely populated urban area that has more infrastructure? Where do they go? They go to the south. What if there's no food and supplies for them? There are no tent encampments set up. Where are they supposed to live? All of those are questions that have not yet been resolved, but can be resolved if you take more time. Can you get more citizens, civilians out of that areas of consequence, limit the civilian casualties? There's also the matter of 220 civilians that are still being held hostage, most of whom are still believed to be alive. You start a ground war, you're probably not getting many, if any, of them out alive. You wait, you can possibly get a lot more of them. Secure them if you had already had worked with the Qataris to get two American citizens that have been released by Hamas over the weekend. And finally, the widespread belief on the part of pretty much everyone in NATO that if Israel engages in a ground war, it's going to be very long, very bloody, and will lead to more radicalization of Palestinians, not just in Gaza but across the region in the West Bank.
Also, all those places where there are large numbers of refugees like Lebanon, like Syria, and on and on. So that is very different from where the Israelis are right now. And this is not just Netanyahu. It's not just his very far right-wing government. It's also the war cabinet. It's also experienced Israelis across the political spectrum. A majority of Israeli citizens support a ground offensive. About half of them think it should be a long lasting, very substantial one, but half think it should be shorter and sharper. And we'll see where that goes. But certainly I don't have any confidence that they're going to be able to forestall the Americans and allies this invasion for much longer. Couple more points here. Unlike in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where the United States was aligned with everyone among the advanced industrial democracies to support the Ukrainians, and those policies were formulated together, here the Americans are basically by themselves.
The Europeans are all over the map in terms of how they feel about Israel, how they feel about the Palestinians, what should be next, no military support in the region, how do you feel about humanitarian support. It's a mess. And so as this war continues and likely expands, the Americans will be acting much more unilaterally, which is challenging both because it's a distraction from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and likely means that the United States will provide less support for the Ukrainians, undermining the strong trans-Atlantic ties that have been increasingly built over the last 20 months, but also because America's role in supporting Israel and supporting the Netanyahu government will be seen as misaligned with that policy of many of the core Europeans. So for both of those reasons, this really does play out more broadly. Anyway. An awful lot to think about. A very fast moving and very tragic set of events all set off on October 7th and all only getting worse over the last couple of weeks.
That's it for me and I'll talk to you all real soon.
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Israel-Hamas War: The race to avert escalation in the Middle East
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:A Quick Take to kick off what is going to be a very challenging week.
I mean, broad picture, everyone's attention now, of course, is on Israel, Palestine and the Middle East and trying to figure out how this war can be prevented from escalating, escalating badly in terms of deaths and humanitarian catastrophe for Gaza, almost certainly not possible right now. Also, in terms of limiting conflict to Gaza and not having it expand into the West Bank, into Lebanon and more broadly in the Middle East, hopefully plausible for now. Interesting point is that no one in the last ten days has asked me a thing about Ukraine or Russia the first time that that's happened in 20 months. And that's significant because in some ways this is one of the biggest implications of this fight, is that the United States is now all in for its principal ally in the Middle East, Israel. And the importance of Ukraine has become a fairly distant, still substantial but still fairly distant.
Number two, as a consequence of that, that's great news for Putin in Russia. Of course, it also comes as the Americans have become much more polarized on the issue of providing additional support to Ukraine. What does that mean? Well, briefly, it means that Ukraine is increasingly going to have the capacity to fight a defensive war. But not a counteroffensive war against Russia. And that means much harder to take any additional territory back.
Certainly the way this is going to play out over the next 6, 12 months will be harder for the Europeans and harder to maintain a strong and cohesive, unified NATO policy. Back to the Middle East. What we are looking at is, of course, a conflict that affects every Israel citizen in ways that are almost unimaginable for those of us commenting on it outside of the country, less than 10 million people, well over 1300 civilians, mostly civilians dead, but also 360,000 Israelis called up reservists, called to fight. In other words, about 4% of the entire Israel population is going to be directly engaged in this war. Almost unimaginable, the impact that's going to have on literally every single Israeli citizens. So, yes, you have now a unified emergency war cabinet. You also have the entire country laser focused on doing everything possible to ensure national security and to respond as strongly as possible against Hamas.
The level of support from the United States for that is close to 100%. Indeed, so much so that there is very little focus on trying to push the Israelis to limit humanitarian costs as a consequence. The US is doing a lot to try to help on the humanitarian side with the Egyptians, with Gulf states, trying to get humanitarian aid in, trying to ensure that there is an open safe passage for that aid at the border between Gaza and Egypt.
That's very different from anything that's going to limit the level of Israeli response against Hamas and therefore against the civilians in Gaza. Over the course of this week, that is, of course, going to be the story that will get the most attention. The fact is that you have 2.3 million civilians in Gaza. About a million of them are already displaced.
This was not a wealthy territory before the war started. It was abysmal and inhumane. We're talking about 50% of the population that doesn't have access to appropriate food. 90% doesn't have clean water. That was before ten days of bombing. And now you're going to have a ground occupation. I don't know exactly when that's going to start, but certainly it is coming relatively soon and it is unavoidable. The impact of that on Palestinian civilians is going to be immense, not least because Hamas itself wants to put those civilians at risk. Hamas operating in civilian areas, roadblocks preventing Palestinian civilians from fleeing, even as the attacks from Israel are going to be imminent. In other words, you've got 199 hostages that are presently being held by Hamas from Israel and other countries. You've got millions of Palestinian civilians that are being held hostage by Hamas, and those civilians are at risk and many of them will be injured. Many of them will die. That is a reality, an incredibly tragic reality of this situation in the coming weeks. Certainly, the fact that the Americans are as engaged as they are diplomatically, I think will help to ensure that more humanitarian aid comes and comes quickly, will also help behind the scenes in maybe reducing some of the civilian damage that comes from Israeli military attacks. After all, that did get the water reopened to the south from Israel and has helped to slow the timeline after a 24-hour announcement from Israel that ground operations were imminent. But ultimately, given the role that Hamas is playing as a terrorist organization, putting their population intentionally at risk, there is only so much that the United States, Europe or anyone else is going to be able to do.
That's where we stand right now. I have there's very little positive news to talk about coming from this region. Perhaps the only thing positive to say that is significant is that the likelihood that Iran gets directly involved in this war seems to me very, very low indeed, at least in the near term. Why? Because they weren't involved in orchestrating the attacks, because they do not want to be a part of the war directly. And every statement I've seen that's meaningful from Iranian leadership points in that direction, also because the Americans and more importantly, the Israelis believe that the Iranians were not involved in orchestrating attacks and they do not want the Iranians directly involved either.
Doesn't mean it can't happen. If you open the Hezbollah front, if the attacks that we've already seen and deaths on both side of the border there start increasing, the potential this becomes a broader proxy war in the region Iran gets involved is real, but near-term it won't. The reason that's critically important right now, everyone in the world is focused on this issue. But unlike the Russia-Ukraine war, which had massive economic impact on the world because of the supply chain disruptions, the higher cost for fuel, the significantly higher costs for food and for fertilizer. Here, if Iran is involved in the war, it's $150 oil. It's a global recession. It's very likely Trump becomes president in 2025. Short of that, the economic implications for the rest of the world, least the direct implications, are actually very low. And the knock on diplomatic implications, the geopolitical implications, those are more significant and long lasting. Those are the ones we're going to be dealing with for a much longer time.
That's it for me for now. And I'll talk to you all real soon.
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Hamas attacks in Israel ignite war
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
War, as I think you all know, is back in the Middle East, massive attacks by Hamas leadership into Israel. So far, over 100 deaths and 1,000 casualties among Israeli civilians that we know of, this in a country of less than 10 million. So, think of that in the context of a United States with several hundred million. This is no less than Israel's 9/11.
Now, big changes have been afoot for a long time in the Middle East. Israel actually is in its strongest geopolitical position that we've seen in decades, and that is relevant here. The Abraham Accords, for example, under the Trump administration, opening diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE, and Bahrain, and Morocco. In the Obama administration, you had people, including the secretary of state saying, "that you could never get peace in the Middle East unless you first solved the Palestinian issue," gave them a two-state solution. That didn't happen. The Palestinians were marginalized, and Israel was able to develop and open and engage in stronger relations across the Middle East and North Africa.
A Saudi deal with Israel about to happen, also diplomatic engagement, which has been at the high level, informally very close to being announced publicly. And if you are the leadership of Hamas, refusing to accept Israel's right to exist, and not changing anything about your political positions, your corrupt governance on the ground and the rest, while watching the politics of the region turn against you, while watching your conflict, your priorities becoming irrelevant, while watching in Israel, nobody really pushing for engagement anymore, settlements expanding, well, certainly that is part of the reason why Hamas would've decided to engage in this level of unprecedented strikes against Israel, against the Israeli civilian population today.
But also, Israel has been in crisis domestically. The judicial reform, as it's called, that Netanyahu has been pushing, leading to unprecedented demonstrations across Israel, peaceful demonstrations, but involving much of the country for months and months now, and that has clearly distracted Israeli intelligence. It's also distracted the Israeli military, many of whom have said that they weren't willing to serve in the military if the judicial reform proceeded. Also, the fact that Netanyahu was focusing on expanding with his far-right coalition, Israeli settlements on the ground in the West Bank, and there was a lot of violent backlash from Palestinians as a consequence and from Israeli settlers against Palestinians, well, that meant that a lot of Israeli's defense forces were focused on the West Bank, were focused on the occupied territories and border security there, and they took away a lot of the troops in the focus from the Israeli South and from Gaza. So, clearly the Israelis took their eye off the ball.
This is a massive intelligence and defense failure for Israel and specifically for Netanyahu. They were seen as the gold standard on surveillance, on human intelligence collection, on border security, especially when we talk about the Palestinian populations. And now this, watching armed Palestinians gunning down civilians in Israeli cities and taking hostages back into Gaza, taking Israeli defense force soldiers, and even a leader, it seems, hostage overrunning a couple of military bases, small, but still, this is unimaginable for an Israeli citizen.
What happens next? A few things. First of all, war, war in the region. Netanyahu has declared that Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza, and Netanyahu has to take them out. This action was suicidal for Hamas leadership. It feels to me like what happened when Prigozhin and his Wagner leadership decided to go against Putin. They can say whatever they want for the first few weeks, but they will be gone. They are now dead-enders. They will be removed; they will be killed. There are already airstrikes beginning across Gaza in that direction. There will be ground warfare. There will probably be long-term occupation from Israel, an effort to disarm Hamas militias, a desire from the Israelis to paralyze and root out the threat against Israel.
We will see, of course, massive civilian casualties, more from Israel, but far more from the Palestinians in the response, the retaliation to these attacks. Now, right now around the world, what we have is mostly support for Israel and sympathy, in part because the Palestinian issue has become more marginalized, in part because of the nature of the terrorism, the extent the atrocities that have been committed in the past hours against the Israelis. Over time, that will of course shift as we see the massive human rights and failings and deprivation that occurs for Palestinian citizens getting caught in the crossfire. As always, the Palestinians on the ground are going to suffer the most, they're the most powerless.
Other consequences, the Israeli-Saudi deal, which was close to getting done, is now over. If anything was accomplished that Hamas wanted, that would be the single biggest thing. The Saudi government immediately came out, they did not support the attacks, but they said that Israel was responsible for them because of the deprivation against the Palestinians. There's no capacity to support the Palestinians from Israel in this environment that would facilitate a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, no capacity for Netanyahu to make nice after that statement.
The big ongoing question is does the war expand? Certainly, if it is found that Iran helped to plan these attacks by Hamas, that would be a game changer and would probably lead to Israeli strikes against Iranian military, Islamic defense forces, revolutionary guard forces, this sort of thing. But the broader question is whether or not we see ongoing military cooperation, collaboration for Hamas, from Iran, from Syria, beyond just statements of support and solidarity, that could of course lead to an expansion of the war.
Also, I do want to say that I've seen online, and I've seen on television over the last few hours, a lot of people saying that Netanyahu benefits from this, that it's good for him, even some saying that are relatively respected forces, "Well, maybe this was planned in some way by the Israelis." That's insane, and I want everyone to just put this in the context of saying that about President Bush in the hours after 9/11, when I was in New York and watched our two towers go down and the thousands of people die in the horror that the civilians in the country faced. Yes, Bush's political stature went up, but it was a disaster for the country, and I have no doubt in my mind that President Bush would trade his presidency if he could have 9/11 never have happened.
And also, we need to recognize that the response from the United States, the war on terror was intemperate and did massive damage, massive damage to America's standing around the world, massive damage to the lives of millions and millions of people around the world, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, that we are still feeling in 2023. And I hope that if anything possible good can come from this human tragedy, it's that Bibi Netanyahu and the world has learned a little something about America's failures after 9/11.
This is something that is intolerable and needs to be responded against in the harshest possible manner against those that are responsible for it, but 8 billion people on this planet have to find a way to learn to live together, and today we're a little farther from that than we were yesterday.
That's it for me. I'm sure I'll be covering this quite a bit going forward. I hope you're all doing well, and I'll talk to you soon.
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