Oman urges more western pressure on Israel to end Middle East wars

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Western powers have a “moral obligation” to constrain Israel to end its offensives in the Middle East, the foreign minister of Oman said, as wars against Hamas and Hizbollah plunge millions into a humanitarian crisis and destabilise the region.

“It’s a moral obligation on these countries to do much more than just a policy of persuasion,” Badr Albusaidi told the Financial Times. “There needs to be some kind of a constraint put on Israel to halt its aggression.”

The minister’s words carry weight because Oman is trusted by both Iran and the US, playing an important diplomatic role in facilitating talks between the two rivals. Muscat also maintains channels to Houthi rebels, who have disrupted Red Sea shipping in what they say is support for Palestinians.

Gulf leaders are increasingly frustrated about Israel’s offensives, which show no sign of abating after a year despite its successes in killing dozens of top Hamas and Hizbollah commanders, including their leaders Yahya Sinwar in Gaza and Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon.

Senior White House officials are due in Israel on Thursday to push for a deal to wind down the conflict with Hizbollah, preparing a draft plan for an initial 60-day ceasefire they hope could lead to a permanent deal.

Albusaidi said that “the United States and many other countries have tried to persuade Israeli leadership to stop the fighting, achieve a ceasefire, go back to the political process. Unfortunately, we have not seen any effect of that.”

The foreign minister argued that western countries should break an “outdated, cold war habit” of unconditional support for Israel. “There are peaceful means of leverage that can be applied by these countries who are the closest friends to Israel,” he said, citing France and the UK’s decisions to limit weapons sales.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long argued that Iran is to blame for the region’s troubles, accusing it of endangering “every single country in the Middle East”.

Although many autocratic Gulf states abhor Iran’s use of proxy forces, and would be happy to see Hamas and Hizbollah severely degraded, they fear that spiralling confrontation between Iran and Israel could spill over into the relatively stable, oil-rich Gulf region.

They worry that radical Islamism could be inflamed by the violence and lead to young people being radicalised.

Israel last weekend launched strikes at Iran following an Iranian barrage of around 180 ballistic missiles aimed at Israel earlier in October.

Tensions in the region have rattled the Gulf states as they seek to de-escalate with Tehran. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have worked to end their war against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, but still feel vulnerable to Houthi attacks.

Asked about Iran’s use of proxies such as Hizbollah and its support for Hamas, Albusaidi insisted such groups were not the cause of the region’s instability: “We would not have had Hamas in the first place had we addressed the root cause of the crisis, the occupation [by] Israel of Palestinian land, that led to the rise of these national resistance movements everywhere that you call proxies.”

Muslim Arab countries including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the latter of which has normalised relations with Israel, are lobbying for the internationally accepted “two-state solution” to resolve the long running conflict. Riyadh has said it will not pursue a peace deal with Israel unless it takes irreversible steps towards the establishment of a Palestinian state. 

Sporadic US-Iran indirect talks have faltered since the outbreak of the regional war, but Albusaidi said he was hopeful discussions on issues such as sanctions and Iran’s nuclear programme could restart. “It’s a matter of time before we hope to resume not just indirect talks, but direct talks,” he said, adding: “Treating Iran as a hostile power is really Prime Minister Netanyahu’s agenda. And no other country needs to follow this lead.

“The only country I see now that wants to continue the war is Israel,” said Albusaidi. “And the world is failing to really stop that and to persuade it to stop this madness.”