Steep Dip(lomacy)
While the Biden team and other diplomats are celebrating this deal, another far more complex feat of diplomacy is, like the region where its being attempted, teetering on the edge. NYT (Gift Article): Back-to-Back Assassinations in Middle East Scramble Biden’s Hopes for Peace. “‘Conventional wisdom last week was that a hostage deal was likely and a war in the north was not,’ said Michael Koplow, chief policy officer for the Israel Policy Forum, a research and educational group that favors a two-state solution. ‘All of this just demonstrates for the umpteenth time how unpredictable events are and how quickly assessments go out the window.'”
+ It was actually back-to-back-to-back assassinations: “Israel’s military says it has confirmed that Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif was killed in an Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip last month.”
+ “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would take unilateral measures, regardless of American advice, to repay Hamas for its ghastly Oct. 7 attack on Israel. His goal isn’t making peace with Hamas, but destroying it. And most Israelis probably agree with him.” David Ignatius in WaPo: The mediators struggle to keep a lid on a blood feud.
+ Meanwhile, we’re starting to get details on just how Ismail Haniyeh was killed, and those details won’t leave many terror instigators in Iran resting easy. NYT (Gift Article): Bomb Smuggled Into Tehran Guesthouse Months Ago Killed Hamas Leader. “The bomb had been hidden approximately two months ago in the guesthouse, according to five of the Middle Eastern officials. The guesthouse is run and protected by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and is part of a large compound, known as Neshat, in an upscale neighborhood of northern Tehran.”
+ Here’s the latest from CNN.