ABU DHABI: The diplomatic adviser to the president of the UAE on Saturday said the US needs to push for a quick end to the Israel-Hamas war and that a new process must be found for the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian issue or the US would be seen as ineffective.
Anwar Gargash also said that Israel’s policy of containment, which has been the “hallmark” of the Palestinian issue for the past two decades, had failed and called for a new approach that addresses refugees, borders, and East Jerusalem.
“US involvement will be seen by when we end this war, the quicker, the better, and whether we can have another sort of process at problem-solving, at issue solving,” he said at a policy conference in Abu Dhabi.
“If this crisis continues, and especially the humanitarian side, and if this crisis brings us back full circle to the old containment policy of pre-Seventh of October, I think the American role here is not going to be, forget right and wrong, is not going to be seen as effective,” Gargash added.
His remarks came as a senior White House official said in Washington that talks were being held on a “very significant” pause in the Middle East conflict to win the release of dozens of hostages taken by Hamas.
“It is something that is under a very serious and active discussion. But there is no agreement as of yet to get this done,” the official said.
The US official said “nobody knows” the exact number of hostages, adding that it was “well over 100 and maybe over 200.”
To get that many people out “is going to require a fairly significant pause in hostilities.”
But the official warned: “There’s no guarantee a) that is going to happen or b) when it’s going to happen.”