US' waning influence in Middle East exposed: China Daily editorial

After a deadly explosion at a Gaza hospital killed hundreds on Tuesday, Jordan called off US President Joe Biden's planned summit with Arab leaders in the country even before the US leader departed for the Middle East.

Biden's trip signaled that he was not satisfied with the results of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's visit to the region last week. As the White House told the media as Biden departed, Israel will now be the only stop for the US president, who had hoped to mediate the situation. That means the United States' efforts to tamp down tensions in the escalating conflict between Israel and Palestine have faced a massive setback, as the Associated Press said in a report.

Yet with the US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin saying that the US will do "everything" it can to support Israel, and the US military sending a second aircraft carrier strike group to the region as an intimidation to the Arab world, the canceling of the US-Arab summit should not come as a surprise.

The postponement of the Amman summit came after Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas withdrew from the scheduled meetings in protest against the hospital attack allegedly carried out by Israeli warplanes, according to Hamas. However, the Israeli military said it had no involvement and pinned the blame on a misfired Palestinian rocket.

Israel is the US' top ally in the region, if not around the world, but Washington does not want it to cause chaos in the Middle East, since its "self-defense" has apparently gone too far this time.

Biden met with the Israeli prime minister in New York last month, during which with regard to the ongoing tension and violence in the West Bank, Biden emphasized the need for measures to improve the security and economic situation, maintain the viability of a two-state solution, and promote a just and lasting peace between Israel and Palestine.

Yet the efforts the US has been making to broker a reconciliation between Israel and Palestine before the conflict broke out do not stem from its concern for peace and stability in the region but in countering China's growing influence in the region, even though the development of Sino-Arab ties has never targeted at the US. The US now basically regards the Middle East as an arena for its "game" with China. And the Biden administration's support for Israel is partly because of the fact that it, with an eye to the 2024 presidential election, cannot afford to ignore the Jewish people's special influences in the US' political circle.

The escalation of the situation means Washington's urgings have largely fallen on deaf ears on the Israeli side, which has also worried Biden with possible "fundamental changes to Israel's democratic system, absent the broadest possible consensus", as the White House put it. The US is not only losing its influence on the Arab world, but also on Israel.