Top U.S., Israeli Officials Convene in Washington for Middle East Talks

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Israeli efforts to secure support from both the Biden and Trump administrations, New Zealand apologizing for exposed systemic abuse, and a deadly Chinese car crash.

Diplomacy Across the Aisle

Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer is meeting with senior U.S. officials in Washington this week to discuss Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza and Lebanon. Dermer spoke with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, as well as with White House senior officials Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk on Monday before meeting with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Tuesday. At the same time, Israeli President Isaac Herzog met with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday.

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Diplomacy Across the Aisle

Under the Biden administration, the United States has repeatedly pushed for cease-fire and hostage release talks. On Monday, Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Gideon Saar said “certain progress” had been made in truce efforts with Hezbollah in Lebanon. But on Tuesday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz ruled out a cease-fire deal, posting on X, “We will continue to hit Hezbollah with full force until the goals of the war are achieved.”

The Israeli military targeted the southern suburbs of Beirut on Tuesday in one of its heaviest daytime attacks since the conflict stretched into Lebanon on Oct. 1. There were no immediate reports of casualties. However, Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon on Monday killed more than a dozen people, according to Lebanon’s Public Health Ministry. Israeli forces accused militant groups of firing around 190 rockets from Lebanon into Israel on Monday, injuring at least five people.

Dermer and Herzog also connected with members of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s team while in Washington this week, including Rep. Elise Stefanik, Trump’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, a longtime Trump ally.

On Monday, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he will push for Israel to annex parts of the occupied West Bank once Trump takes office in 2025. The “only way to remove” the “threat” of a Palestinian state “is to apply Israeli sovereignty over the entire settlements in Judea and Samaria,” Smotrich said, referring to the biblical term for the West Bank region.

Trump campaigned on a pro-Israel platform and remains a close ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israeli annexation of the West Bank was discussed during Trump’s first term, Saar said, and could become relevant again with the new administration. Smotrich announced that he has instructed his department to “prepare the necessary infrastructure for applying sovereignty,” but Saar said no decision on annexation has been made thus far.

Israel seized the West Bank from Jordan in 1967, and Israeli settlements in the area are considered illegal under international law. European Union foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell “unequivocally” condemned Smotrich’s plans on Monday, saying, “Such rhetoric undermines international law, violates Palestinians’ rights and threatens any prospects for a 2-state solution.” On Tuesday, Trump announced former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as his nominee for U.S. ambassador to Israel. Huckabee, an evangelical Christian, is a staunch supporter of Israel and has previously expressed support for Israel annexing the West Bank.

Meanwhile, humanitarian rights groups blasted Israel on Tuesday for failing to meet a 30-day deadline, imposed by the Biden administration, to improve aid distribution efforts in Gaza or face the possible cutoff of U.S. military aid. In an assessment issued by eight aid organizations, the groups accused Israel of making little or no progress on most of the metrics that Biden outlined in a letter sent to Netanyahu’s government last month.

“Israel not only failed to meet the U.S. criteria that would indicate support to the humanitarian response, but concurrently took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in northern Gaza,” the report said.

However, the U.S. State Department said on Tuesday that despite the aid improvement deadline having passed, U.S. policy toward Israel had not changed. “We have seen some steps being taken. There need to be some additional steps that are also taken,” State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said. “There is nobody in this administration saying that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is pristine. … It continues to be a crisis.”

Today’s Most Read

What We’re Following

Formal apology. New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon issued a “formal and unreserved” apology in Parliament on Tuesday to those who were abused while in state or church care. Around 200,000 people in state, foster, and faith-based care from 1950 to 2019 faced physical, sexual, and/or psychological torture and neglect, according to a government investigation released earlier this year. New Zealand’s Indigenous Maori and Pasifika children, as well as people with disabilities, were disproportionately affected.

“For many of you, it changed the course of your life, and for that, the government must take responsibility,” Luxon said, adding that he was also apologizing for previous governments. Luxon announced that his government is working to address 28 of the inquiry panel’s 138 recommendations, including widespread financial redress that could amount to billions of dollars, stripping the names of “proven perpetrators” from public memorials, and marking the graves of those who died while in the care facilities.

Deadly crash. At least 35 people were killed and another 43 were injured when a man in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai deliberately drove his car into a crowd of people exercising at a sports center late Monday. According to local police, the 62-year-old suspect was dissatisfied with the division of property after his divorce. He was found harming himself with a knife while in his car. He is currently in custody and being treated.

In a rare public condemnation, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for the suspect to be “severely punished in accordance with the law,” and he dispatched a central government working group to the area to oversee response efforts. This was one of China’s highest death tolls for a single event in recent years and raises questions about the Chinese Communist Party’s public safety record at a time when dissatisfaction with Beijing is already on edge.

Mutual defense. North Korea has ratified a major defense treaty with Russia, North Korean state media reported on Tuesday. The agreement, first signed by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin in June, stipulates mutual military aid between the two autocratic powers. This is both countries’ biggest defense deal since the end of the Cold War.

Under the treaty, Pyongyang and Moscow must use all means available to provide immediate military assistance if either country is attacked. South Korean intelligence has accused North Korea of sending more than 13,000 troops to Russia to fight in its war against Ukraine; U.S. and Ukrainian intelligence have reported some 50,000 soldiers, including North Korean forces, are currently based in Russia’s Kursk region for an imminent counteroffensive against Ukrainian troops.

The bilateral agreement also establishes cooperation efforts in the atomic energy, space, food, and trade sectors.

Odds and Ends

Better late than never. The Early Work of Aubrey Beardsley, published in 1899, was checked out of Massachusetts’s Worcester Public Library 51 years ago, with a due date of May 22, 1973. Earlier this month, it finally returned home. A local Boston resident found the book and gave it to Cambridge Public Library, which then sent the tome to its original location in Worcester. Thank goodness the late fee was waived.

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