On 22 September, the General Assembly will resume the High-Level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution.
For those who missed the first round back in July: this conference was mandated by Member States through two GA resolutions. France and Saudi Arabia were named co-chairs, and Member States actually seemed serious about producing an “action-oriented outcome document” to finally chart an irreversible path toward peace. For a brief moment, there was even a glimmer of hope. But Washington was never going to let that stand.
They wasted no time unleashing a full-blown counterattack, trying to sink the entire effort before it could even leave the dock accusing the UN, and by extension many of their own Western European allies, of staging nothing more than a publicity stunt. Washington somehow managed to insult both its enemies and its closest allies in one breath. Their line couldn’t have been clearer:
“The United States will not participate in this insult but will continue to lead real-world efforts to end the fighting and deliver a permanent peace. Our focus remains on serious diplomacy: not stage-managed conferences designed to manufacture the appearance of relevance.”
And these so-called “real-world efforts”? In practice, they amounted to handing Hamas a fake negotiation paper while, at the same time, green-lighting if not outright ordering Israel to bomb Qatar, the very state hosting mediation talks.
In Washington’s lexicon, this is what passes for “serious diplomacy”: classic sabotage dressed up as statecraft, deception passed off as negotiation, and the bombing of allies framed as peacemaking. A choice that says more about Washington’s contempt for peace than any statement ever could.
Meanwhile, on 29 July, a bloc of Western European allies joined by Australia, Canada, and New Zealand cycled through the usual talking points: condemn October 7, call for a ceasefire, reaffirm support for a two-State solution. But tucked at the end of their joint statement was a line that betrayed the real intent:
“Urge countries who have not done so yet to establish normal relations with Israel, and to express their willingness to enter into discussions on the regional integration of the State of Israel.”
Normal relations. Regional integration. With a state that bombs whoever it wants, whenever it wants, even Arab countries that parade themselves as allies, the same ones bending over backwards to host negotiations.
And yet their Western partners urge the world to normalize ties with Israel and, while they’re at it, to normalize being bombed and accepting life under the constant threat of imminent attacks anywhere in the world, whenever Israel decides. In essence, this is Washington asking Arab states to absorb Israeli bombs, live under the threat of more, and still line up to shake the hand that strikes them.
But Washington left the best for last.
Just days ago, as the General Assembly opened and announced the resumption of the conference on 22 September, the U.S. representative said she was “surprised and dismayed” by the process, once again denouncing the conference as “an ill-timed publicity stunt” that would “prolong the war and undermine efforts to achieve peace” but assuring the world that Washington would continue to lead “real-world efforts to end the fighting.”
And those “real-world efforts” revealed themselves almost immediately: four days later, Israel bombed Qatar with the blessing of the U.S. This is the U.S. definition of peacemaking: preach diplomacy in New York while authorizing airstrikes on allies in the Gulf.
Europe, meanwhile, should look hard in the mirror. How long will it betray the very values it claims to stand for (rule of law, human rights, justice) while dressing up capitulation as diplomacy? Urging “normal relations” with Israel as it bombs mediators and allies is nothing less than complicity.
A conscious choice for complicity.
Arab states should take note. Qatar will not be the last. Washington’s message is crystal clear: absorb the blows, keep quiet, normalize relations, and call it peace, until it is your turn under the bombs.
