Mideast 'on alert': Region 'on verge' of confrontation, Israeli-Lebanese border escalation unlikely
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00:00 Well, for more analysis, we can speak now to Joe Macaron, who is a Global Fellow with
00:05 the Wilson Centre's Middle East Programme. Thank you very much indeed for joining us.
00:11 We've got this news that aid should start entering Gaza tomorrow. Would you say that's
00:16 the most significant achievement that was made during the visit to the region by the
00:20 US President Joe Biden?
00:22 I mean, I wouldn't describe it as an achievement. I mean, this is a minimal of the rules of
00:30 law somehow that allow some humanitarian aid. There's a large population in Gaza that's
00:38 not necessarily linked to directly linked to Hamas. It's been now, we are 12 days since
00:47 this round of conflict started. There's no clear roadmap of how things are going to go.
00:54 The next 24 hours looks crucial in that sense, not only in Gaza, but for the region. So,
01:00 yeah, I mean, Egypt is a key border because the other crossing point with Israel is obviously
01:07 not feasible now. So, there's a lot of medical aid needed, food, basic food. So, I think
01:14 it's the international community should be pushing towards that objective regardless
01:20 of Biden's visit.
01:22 Okay. But apart from achieving this and getting the gates of the Rafa border crossing open,
01:29 we hope tomorrow, we think tomorrow, what else did President Biden achieve by visiting
01:34 the region yesterday?
01:38 I mean, the visit itself was relatively short. I mean, he spent time on the plane on Air
01:43 Force One to get to Israel more than he spent on the ground. So, for him, it was necessary
01:50 to show this support. The preparation for the visit was in the days and the weeks before
01:58 that I think there was two achievements, quote unquote, first, that there was a little bit
02:05 of delay of ground invasion, at least for a few days. It might happen now in the next
02:10 days, but at least it was not imminent in the last period. And the second goal was for
02:16 him to achieve a little bit of the escalation of the conflict. But now he left Israel, we
02:22 are facing a new reality that an invasion might happen in the next days as Israelis
02:29 are hinting and we have new regional escalation with Iran and their allies hitting a little
02:38 bit at US targets, whether through Yemen or through Iraq. So, the objective of the visit
02:46 immediately has been casted doubt on after this. I thought he should have gone there
02:53 with a clear plan to end the violence. He just went for not very clear objective and
02:59 now we're seeing that the region is going into more escalation. So, I think there's
03:04 a need for more US efforts of deterrence and of mediation to basically calm down the tension
03:13 in the region.
03:14 Okay. I mean, if Joe Biden didn't manage to achieve that while he was there himself, which
03:18 allies in the region can the United States count on to help try to deescalate and try
03:24 to address this conflict?
03:26 When he had the plan to meet Arab leaders in Jordan, this was cancelled with mutual
03:32 agreement after what happened in the Baptist Hospital in Gaza. So, previous round of conflict
03:41 all ended in the same way. You had the Egyptian mediation somehow, you reached a ceasefire
03:48 and you exchanged prisoners. Israel is saying this is different now. We need to more destroy
03:56 the infrastructure of Hamas or somewhere go radical, wipe out Hamas or much more decision.
04:05 Americans are saying we need to give Israeli time and space to this operation. Iran is
04:10 saying no, we're not going to do this. We're going to have war with multiple fronts, so
04:14 they don't do that. So, this is where we are at this point. But inevitably, the solution
04:20 is this mediation, a ceasefire. How long it will take to get to this point? This is the
04:26 big question, I think, in the next days and weeks.
04:29 Yeah, I mean, one of the biggest dangers some analysts are talking right now is about a
04:33 miscalculation by one party or another, notably on Israel's northern border, because Hezbollah
04:42 really seemed to be testing the patience of the Israelis in that part of the country.
04:50 I mean, Hezbollah and Israel are happy with their, satisfied, to be more accurate, with
04:55 the rules of engagement they had since 2006 on the border. But now Hezbollah has been
05:01 increasingly under pressure by Hamas to basically act as a deterrence from Israel, that if you
05:07 open, if you go on the ground in Gaza, we're going to do this. But so far, it's been limited,
05:13 even cross-border, yes, but it's been limited. They didn't go into targeting civilians or
05:18 more than the border. So I think for now it's still, but if the ground invasion started,
05:25 then you will see more tensions, not only in Lebanon and somewhere else. But I think
05:30 there's no real tension directly between Israel and Hezbollah. It's all relatively linked
05:38 to what's happening in Gaza. So once Gaza went down, the Lebanese border, Israeli border
05:42 will immediately come down. But now it's tense. Everybody's on alert. The region is very tense.
05:48 It's basically on the verge of some confrontation, but I don't see a huge escalation of the Lebanese
05:58 border because both sides are not very invested in such a scenario, at least for now.
06:04 Yeah, least of all the Lebanese people who've been through enough. Thank you very much indeed,
06:09 Joe Macaron, Global Fellow with the Wilson Centre's Middle East Program. Thank you very
06:12 much for taking the time to speak to us this evening.
06:14 Thank you.
06:15 Thank you.