Spiralling Middle East crisis sidelines diplomats

An Iraqi demonstrator holds a picture of Hassan Nasrallah, late leader of the Lebanese group Hezbollah, during a protest vigil near the suspension bridge leading to Baghdad's Green Zone on September 28, 2024. [AFP]

The language of concern and restraint streaming from global foreign ministries is failing to quell the fires of conflict in the Middle East, with the death Friday of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike bringing the region still closer to war.

Israeli bombings in Lebanon and Hezbollah rocket launches have crescendoed even as world leaders gathered in New York for the UN General Assembly appealed for calm.

Fighting is also escalating just weeks before the presidential election in the United States, Israel's vital ally.

"The West is trying to guide Israel to some set of steps that will take the heat out of this. That isn't what we've seen... in the last few days," Bronwen Maddox, head of the UK-based Chatham House think tank, told AFPTV.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was on Friday still urging both Israel and Hezbollah -- which has bombarded the state at low intensity for almost a year in support of Hamas in Gaza -- to "stop firing".

"The path to diplomacy may seem difficult to see at this moment, but it is there, and in our judgement, it is necessary," he added.

Washington would "continue to work intensely with all parties" to try and reach a ceasefire, Blinken said.

President Joe Biden's administration has stopped short of taking any concrete steps to force Israel to change tack since the bloody Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, that triggered the state's devastating campaign in Gaza.

America could pressure the Israeli government by "withholding more arms", Maddox said -- although it is for now doing the reverse.

Israel said Thursday it had received a new tranche of US aid worth $8.7 billion.

Beyond arms, "the pressure is pretty strong already, diplomatically" for Israel to ease up, Maddox noted.

But "we're not in the 80s or 90s when a US administration simply had to pick up the phone and get... at least a respectful response from Israel," she added.

'Paying for decades'

With days until the fierce fighting triggered by October 7 is a year old, Benjamin Netanyahu's government appears back in the driving seat.

"Israel has been able to totally turn the terror around. They were on the ropes, traumatised, weakened, their credibility sapped. Today they instil fear again," a high-ranking European military source told AFP.

The source nevertheless added that the feat had been achieved "at an exorbitant price that (Israelis) will be paying for decades" given the scale of the destruction wrought on first Gaza and now Lebanon.

Some members of Netanyahu's coalition, especially on the far right, have definitively distanced themselves from the US.

"Traditionally, the Labour Party held as a maxim that you never get out of step with the US. (Netanyahu's party) Likud isn't built that way," said James Dorsey of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

Dorsey highlighted a "fortress mentality" among the Israeli government that is all the more resilient as the November US presidential election approaches.

"I don't think any country has the kind of grassroots support in the US that Israel has," he said, calling any tightening of the screws on Washington's ally "very unlikely" before the poll.

Region on verge of 'abyss'

Israel plans to "get the most out of the money time" until the US election, the European military source said.

"They have no more need of a pretext to act", he added, warning "anything is possible" in the coming days.

Washington is not alone in failing to sway Netanyahu, with Egyptian and Qatari involvement failing to bring home a ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas in Gaza.

And a divided Europe has been unsuccessful in bringing its diplomatic weight to bear for lack of a common position.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell acknowledged Friday that Brussels has "put all diplomatic pressure to a ceasefire, but nobody seems to be able to stop Netanyahu, neither in Gaza nor in the West Bank".

Another European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the same is true for Lebanon.

"We're trying. We're throwing our weight behind it," the diplomat said. "But it's very difficult. It's not as if Iran and Hezbollah are being very accommodating."

Fears are growing daily that Israel could send ground troops into Lebanon, with Iran's reaction and the potential consequences for the region unpredictable.

The Middle East is "at the precipice of a full-blown war", Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the UN Security Council on Friday.

His words were echoed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. "Shockwaves radiating from the unprecedented death and destruction in Gaza now threaten to push the entire region into the abyss," he said.