Day: June 14, 2024

By Tyler Arnold

President Joe Biden privately met with Pope Francis early Friday evening in Apulia, Italy, at the Group of Seven (G7) Summit to discuss foreign policy and climate change.

Francis is the first pope to address the G7 summit, which is an annual meeting of government leaders from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, and Italy. The European Union also participates but is not an official member.

In a statement following the meeting, the White House said both leaders “emphasized the urgent need for an immediate cease-fire and a hostage deal” in Gaza and the need to “address the critical humanitarian crisis.”

The statement added that “Biden thanked Pope Francis for the Vatican’s work to address the humanitarian impacts of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, including his efforts to help return kidnapped Ukrainian children to their families.”

“President Biden also reaffirmed his deep appreciation for the pope’s tireless advocacy for the poor and those suffering from persecution, the effects of climate change, and conflict around the world,” according to the statement.

In the morning, prior to the meeting, a senior Biden administration official said during;a press teleconference;that Biden planned to discuss issues in the Middle East and Ukraine with the pontiff. On Ukraine, the official said “the Holy See has been actively engaged” on this issue.;

“Cardinal [Matteo] Zuppi, in particular, has been an envoy working to return Ukrainian children who have been forcibly deported across the border, separated from their families,” the official added. “Of course, it’s one of the huge tragedies of this war. And the Holy See has also been engaged in trying to promote a peace agreement.”

The official said Biden would also discuss climate change, “which is an issue that is near and dear to both leaders.”

“Of course, the president’s plan for adaptation and resilience, which was launched in November of 2021, is an important effort to deal with climate change, as is the multilateral Loss and Damage Fund to which the United States has contributed $17.5 million, an important effort to mitigate some of the effects of climate change,” the official said.

Before the scheduled meeting, Biden and other leaders briefly greeted Francis when he arrived at the summit to address officials about concerns related to artificial intelligence (AI). The pontiff, who has;called for global regulations;on AI,;expressed apprehensionsabout AI becoming a tool for war and cautioned against relying too much on AI without human input during his address. Francis has promoted global regulations to ensure AI is used to advance the common good.

The senior administration official said during the teleconference that Biden would also likely discuss AI with Francis — an issue that has been important to the pontiff over the past year.;

“I’ll just say on AI, I think we are both interested in responsible use of artificial intelligence, preserving human dignity and human rights,” the official said. “And so they’ll have a chance to get into that.”

The White House statement following the meeting, however, did not mention AI. 

Biden;previously met;with Francis in October 2021 for about 75 minutes to discuss poverty, climate change, and other issues. That was Biden’s first in-person meeting with the pontiff as president, but the two leaders;also spoke;on the phone shortly after the presidential election. Biden and Francis also;spoke on the phone;in October 2023 to discuss the conflict between Israel and Gaza. Biden had met Francis three times before becoming president.

The president claimed in 2021 after the two met in person that Francis told him he “was a good Catholic and I should keep receiving Communion.” The Vatican declined to comment on whether Francis made those comments. However, in July 2022, Francis criticized Biden for the president’s support of abortion, saying that it is an “incoherence” for a Catholic to be in favor of legal abortion.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has been at odds with the Biden administration over issues related to abortion and gender ideology. The bishops also criticized the president’s recent border security measures.

It now seems clear that on October 7 Hamas, no doubt urged on by Iran, bit off a good deal more than it could chew.

Its leaders in Gaza (Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif), together with its leaders-in-exile living in luxury in Qatar (Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Meshaal), may have been led by Iran to expect a widespread uprising of the Arab world in support of their massive killing spree in Israel. They may have envisaged their invasion advancing into the country supported by uprisings in the West Bank, an invasion by Hezbollah in the north, perhaps joined by Syrian troops up in the Golan, irregular Jordanian fighters in the east and even Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood militias from the west.; Perhaps Iran already had in mind, and promised them, a crushing blow on Israel by launching a direct aerial attack, reversing its long-standing policy of using only proxies in its anti-Israel operations.

This scenario, mouth-wateringly tempting for Hamas, simply failed to materialize.; Action of some sort did manifest itself, but on nothing like the scale or with the coordination that would have been politically or militarily meaningful.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, informed  of Hamas’s plans only half an hour before the attack began on October 7, soon dissociated himself from the assault.  All the same, since October 7 Hezbollah’s continuous skirmishes over the Israel-Lebanon border have been stepped up, and 60,000 Israelis evacuated from their homes are still unable to return.  On June 4 Reuters reported that large swaths of northern Israel were engulfed by wild fires set off by rockets launched by Hezbollah. It’s far from an invasion, but it needs to be quelled.

Immediately after October 7 the Houthi rebels, ensconced in areas of west Yemen, declared war on Israel.  This was scarcely surprising, since the Houthi flag has “Death to Israel” and “A curse on the Jews”, emblazoned across it, in addition to the statutory “Death to America”.  Then, responding to a call from Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, they initiated a program of harassing international shipping in the Red Sea.  On May 29 the official Iranian news agency confirmed that Iran has supplied the Houthis with Ghadr rockets, described as Iran’s first anti-ship ballistic missiles. 

In response American and British fighter jets and US ships have hit a wide range of underground facilities, missile launchers, command and control sites, a Houthi vessel and other facilities.; ;The; Houthis, however, have ten years of battle experience behind them, are riding high in Arab public opinion, and will likely maintain their effort against the combined US-UK forces for some time.

Meanwhile on April 13 Iran decided to ratchet up Hamas’s flagging effort by launching a first-ever direct aerial assault on Israel.; Around midnight it sent some 170 drones, over 30 cruise missiles, and more than 120 ballistic missiles the 1,000 kilometers toward Israel.; The Iranian leadership no doubt expected a massive military and propaganda triumph.; In the event ;the operation was a miserable failure.; To supplement Israel’s Iron Dome defense, America and Britain sent jet fighters to help shoot down the missiles.; At the same time, surprisingly, Jordan refused to allow Iran to use its air space for the operation, while several Gulf States, among them Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, passed on intelligence about Iran’s plans.; As a result about 99% of the aerial armada never reached Israel.;

By June 1 reality must surely have begun to dawn on both Iran and its proxies.; They were, in the time-honored phrase, on a hiding to nothing.; Like the sorcerer’s apprentice. Hamas had conjured up a situation way beyond what it had expected or could control.; All but four of its 24 battalions had been dismantled, and the four remaining operational battalions are in the southern city of Rafah, and are now in the IDF’s sights.

So the announcement by US President Joe Biden on June 1 of a ceasefire proposal that could lead to the end of the war must –  whatever the public posturings may indicate –be under serious consideration by Hamas.  The four-and-a-half page plan had been sent to Hamas for review the previous day. 

Biden said the plan encompassed three phases.  The first, which would last for six weeks, would include a “full and complete” ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from “all populated areas” of Gaza and the “release of a number of hostages including women, the elderly, the wounded in exchange for release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.”  Palestinian civilians will return to their homes, while humanitarian assistance will increase to 600 trucks carrying aid into Gaza daily.

For Hamas a guaranteed breathing space of six weeks would come as a welcome relief, especially since Israel would be withdrawing from populated areas at the same time. However also built into the first phase is the obligation for Israel and Hamas to undertake talks designed to get to the next stage of the proposal.;

The possibility of the talks stalling; has been built into the plan.

“The proposal,” said Biden, “says…the ceasefire will still continue for as long as negotiations continue,” adding that the US, Qatar and Egypt will ensure that talks continue during this period until “all agreements are reached” to start the second phase.

Of course, Hamas could decide to stick with the “temporary“ ceasefire indefinitely.  But if they did, they would forego the second phase, which would see Israeli forces withdraw completely from Gaza accompanied by the release of all remaining hostages who are alive.

In the third phase, said Biden “a major reconstruction plan for Gaza would commence,” and the remains of hostages who have been killed would be returned to their families.;;In the deal to rebuild Gaza, Arab nations and the international community will participate “without Hamas in power,” as he put it earlier.; That suits Biden as much as it does Israel, for he knows that Hamas will have no truck with the two-state solution that he espouses so fervently.;

Hamas initially said that it viewed the proposal “positively”, but by June 4 the media were reporting that Hamas was apparently stalling.; It would not enhance its public image to be seen to be grasping too eagerly at the proposal.

Doubtless the Hamas leaders have their own “day after” aspirations.; They may reconcile themselves to losing the governance of Gaza, but probably envisage basing themselves elsewhere and continuing the fight from there.; It is morally certain they have no intention of abandoning their core objective of overthrowing Israel and eliminating the Jewish presence from the Middle East.;

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