As the Biden administration makes a final diplomatic push in the Middle East before next week’s U.S. presidential election, little is expected to be achieved before the result is known, officials and analysts in the region said on Monday.
Envoys from Israel, Egypt, the United States and Qatar renewed talks in Doha, the Qatari capital, on Monday over a cease-fire in Gaza. American mediators were also expected this week to continue to try to reach a truce between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
But few expect a conclusive result from either effort before the election next Tuesday, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel waiting to see who will succeed President Biden before committing to a diplomatic trajectory, according to four officials briefed on Israel’s internal thinking. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive diplomacy.
A senior official from Hamas has also already rejected the premise of a 48-hour cease-fire in Gaza, an idea proposed by Egypt over the weekend, during which Hamas would release a handful of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel. Osama Hamdan, a Hamas leader, said on Sunday that the group would only agree to a permanent cessation of hostilities, dashing hopes that Israel’s recent killing of the group’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, would bring about a swift change in its negotiating position.
By contrast, Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly said that he can only agree to a temporary arrangement that would allow Israeli forces to resume fighting. The prime minister’s coalition depends on several far-right lawmakers and ministers who have threatened to bring down the government if it allows Hamas to remain in power in Gaza.
While Mr. Netanyahu could still compromise he is likely waiting to see whether Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald J. Trump will lead the United States for the next four years, in order to assess how much leeway he will have from Israel’s main benefactor and ally, officials and analysts said.
“I don’t see any huge deal that is going to end the war in the next week,” said Nadav Shtrauchler, a political analyst and former strategist for Mr. Netanyahu.
“The perception is that Trump will do more for Netanyahu,” Mr. Shtrauchler added. “So I don’t see Netanyahu making major moves when in a week he will know more about where the U.S. is going.”
Mr. Trump favored Israel when previously in office, moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, legitimizing Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and recognizing Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights, a territory that Israel captured from Syria during the Arab-Israeli war of 1967.
If re-elected, some analysts say, Mr. Trump would be likelier than Kamala Harris to accept long-term Israeli control of parts of Gaza, as well as bigger Israeli military operations in Lebanon and Iran.
While Mr. Trump is unpredictable and can confound expectations, he would also likely “lean in favor of Israel leading more military strikes inside Tehran,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, a Middle East expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a Berlin-based research group. “This would further corner Iran, and embolden Bibi, making it much harder to calm the Gaza and Lebanon wars,” she added, using a nickname for Mr. Netanyahu.
If Ms. Harris is elected, the United States is unlikely to reduce its longstanding financial and military support for Israel, a policy that has strong bipartisan support in Washington. But she would probably continue Mr. Biden’s efforts to urge Israel to cease-fires in Gaza and Lebanon and keep the conflict with Iran from becoming a full-blown war, analysts said.
“Harris is likely to pursue continuity — pushing for de-escalation deals across the region aimed at cooling tensions and refocusing U.S. resources elsewhere,” Ms. Geranmayeh said.
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