US has leverage to achieve ceasefire deal
As Blinken engages in another round of shuttle diplomacy, analyst Eli Clifton says a key question for the Biden administration is what new leverage the White House will use to achieve its ceasefire objectives.
“Thus far, the administration has declined to use the threat of an arms embargo, to use a Leahy designation of Israeli military units that have been engaged in human rights abuses to withhold weapons from those specific units,” Clifton, a senior adviser at the Quincy Institute of Responsible Statecraft, told Al Jazeera.
“There are a number of tools at the disposal of the Americans here, and as the largest supplier of weapons to the Israelis, that should give them a significant amount of leverage. The question is, are they willing to use that leverage?”
Leahy Law, enacted in 1997, requires the US to cut aid to a foreign military accused of credible charges of human rights violations.
Clifton said the disconnect between the US and Israel over some of the agreement’s conditions is creating a high-pressure situation for the Biden administration.
“The patience, certainly within the Democratic Party, for how the administration has handled the ceasefire negotiations, for how the administration has chosen to use or not to use American leverage over the Israelis, is potentially going to come to a boiling point this week with the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
“The key demand from a number of the protesters, from a number of Democrats, is an arms embargo, and that has actually risen in popularity within the party.”
Clifton added that if the Biden administration aimed to avoid using the “serious pieces of leverage” at their disposal to achieve a truce in Gaza and to prevent “a pretty clear and public disagreement” at the Democratic convention, a ceasefire deal must be secured “really soon.”
Mayor of Chicago calls Gaza war ‘genocidal’ ahead of DNC
Brandon Johnson, the mayor of Chicago, has referred to Israel’s war on Gaza as “genocidal” in an interview with Mother Jones magazine, ahead of the Democratic National Convention, which begins in Chicago on Monday.
“What’s happening right now is not only egregious, it is genocidal,” Johnson, a progressive Democrat, said. “We have to acknowledge and name it for what it is and have the moral courage to exercise our authority.”
US Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris is expected to face antiwar protests during the convention, including from delegates from the “uncommitted” movement.
