A year ago, after the October 7 attacks and the start of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, Joe Biden became the first US president to visit Israel at a time of war. I watched him fix his gaze at the TV cameras after meeting Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the war cabinet in Tel Aviv, and tell the country: “You are not alone”. But he also urged its leadership not to repeat the mistakes an “enraged” America made after 9/11.
In September this year at the United Nations in New York, President Biden led a global roll call of leaders urging restraint between Israel and Hezbollah. Netanyahu gave his response. The long arm of Israel, he said, could reach anywhere in the region.
Ninety minutes later, Israeli pilots fired American-supplied “bunker buster” bombs at buildings in southern Beirut. The strike killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. It marked one of the most significant turning points in the year since Hamas unleashed its attack on Israel on 7 October.
Biden’s diplomacy was being buried in the ruins of an Israeli airstrike using American-supplied bombs.
I’ve spent the best part of a year watching US diplomacy close up, travelling in the press pool with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on trips back to the Middle East, where I worked for seven years up until last December.
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The single greatest goal for diplomacy as stated by the Biden administration has been to get a ceasefire for hostage release deal in Gaza. The stakes could barely be higher. A year on from Hamas smashing its way through the militarised perimeter fence into southern Israel where they killed more than 1,200 people and kidnapped 250, scores of hostages – including seven US citizens – remain in captivity, with a significant number believed to be dead. In Gaza, Israel’s massive retaliatory offensive has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians, according to figures from the Hamas-run health ministry, while the territory has been reduced to a moonscape of destruction, displacement and hunger.
Thousands more Palestinians are missing. The UN says record numbers of aid workers have been killed in Israeli strikes, while humanitarian groups have repeatedly accused Israel of blocking shipments – something its government has consistently denied. Meanwhile, the war has spread to the occupied West Bank and to Lebanon. Iran last week fired 180 missiles at Israel in retaliation for the killing of Nasrallah, leader of the Iran-backed Hezbollah group. The conflict threatens to deepen and envelop the region.
Wins and losses
Covering the US State Department, I have watched the Biden administration attempt to simultaneously support and restrain Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. But its goal of defusing the conflict and brokering a ceasefire has eluded the administration at every turn.
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Biden officials claim US pressure changed the “shape of their military operations“, a likely reference to a belief within the administration that Israel’s invasion of Rafah in Gaza’s south was more limited than it otherwise would have been, even with much of the city now lying in ruins.
Before the Rafah invasion, Biden suspended a single consignment of 2,000lb and 500lb bombs as he tried to dissuade the Israelis from an all-out assault. But the president immediately faced a backlash from Republicans in Washington and from Netanyahu himself who appeared to compare it to an “arms embargo”. Biden has since partially lifted the suspension and never repeated it.
The State Department asserts that its pressure did get more aid flowing, despite the UN reporting famine-like conditions in Gaza earlier this year. “It’s through the intervention and the involvement and the hard work of the United States that we’ve been able to get humanitarian assistance into those in Gaza, which is not to say that this is… mission accomplished. It is very much not. It is an ongoing process,” says department spokesman Matthew Miller.
In the region, much of Biden’s work has been undertaken by his chief diplomat, Anthony Blinken. He has made ten trips to the Middle East since October in breakneck rounds of diplomacy, the visible side of an effort alongside the secretive work of the CIA at trying to close a Gaza ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
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But I have watched multiple attempts to close the deal being spiked. On Blinken’s ninth visit, in August, as we flew in a C-17 US military transporter on a trip across the region, the Americans became increasingly exasperated. A visit that started with optimism that a deal could be within reach, ended with us arriving in Doha where Blinken was told that the Emir of Qatar – whose delegation is critical in communicating with Hamas – was ill and couldn’t see him.
A snub? We never knew for sure (officials say they later spoke by phone), but the trip felt like it was falling apart after Netanyahu claimed he had “convinced” Blinken of the need to keep Israeli troops along Gaza’s border with Egypt as part of the agreement. This was a deal breaker for Hamas and the Egyptians. A US official accused Netanyahu of effectively trying to sabotage the agreement. Blinken flew out of Doha without having got any further than the airport. The deal was going nowhere. We were going back to Washington.
On his tenth trip to the region last month, Blinken did not visit Israel.
Superficial diplomacy?
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For critics, including some former officials, the US call for an end to the war while supplying Israel with at least $3.8bn (£2.9bn) of arms per year, plus granting supplemental requests since 7 October, has amounted either to a failure to apply leverage or an outright contradiction. They argue the current expansion of the war in fact marks a demonstration, rather than a failure, of US diplomatic policy.
“To say [the administration] conducted diplomacy is true in the most superficial sense in that they conducted a lot of meetings. But they never made any reasonable effort to change behaviour of one of the main actors – Israel,” says former intelligence officer Harrison J. Mann, a career US Army Major who worked in the Middle East and Africa section of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the time of the October 7th attacks. Mr Mann resigned earlier this year in protest at US support for Israel’s assault in Gaza and the number of civilians being killed using American weapons.
Allies of Biden flat-out reject the criticism. They point, for example, to the fact that diplomacy with Egypt and Qatar mediating with Hamas resulted in last November’s truce which saw more than 100 hostages released in Gaza in exchange for around 300 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. US officials also say the administration dissuaded the Israeli leadership from invading Lebanon much earlier in the Gaza conflict, despite cross border rocket fire between Hezbollah and Israel.
Senator Chris Coons, a Biden loyalist who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and who travelled to Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia late last year, says it’s critical to weigh Biden’s diplomacy against the context of the last year.
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“I think there’s responsibility on both sides for a refusal to close the distance, but we cannot ignore or forget that Hamas launched these attacks,” he says.
“He has been successful in preventing an escalation – despite repeated and aggressive provocation by the Houthis, by Hezbollah, by the Shia militias in Iraq – and has brought in a number of our regional partners,” he says.
Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert says Biden’s diplomacy has amounted to an unprecedented level of support, pointing to the huge US military deployment, including aircraft carrier strike groups and a nuclear power submarine, he ordered in the wake of October 7.
But he believes Biden has been unable to overcome the resistance of Netanyahu.
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“Every time he came close to it, Netanyahu somehow found a reason not to comply, so the main reason for the failure of this diplomacy was the consistent opposition of Netanyahu,” says Olmert.
Olmert says a stumbling block for a ceasefire deal has been Netanyahu’s reliance on the “messianic” ultranationalists in his cabinet who prop up his government. They are agitating for an even stronger military response in Gaza and Lebanon. Two far-right ministers this summer threatened to withdraw support for Netanyahu’s government if he signed a ceasefire deal.
“Ending the war as part of an agreement for the release of hostages means a major threat to Netanyahu and he’s not prepared to accept it, so he’s violating it, he’s screwing it all the time,” he says.
The Israeli prime minister has repeatedly rejected claims he blocked the deal, insisting he was in favour of the American-backed plans and sought only “clarifications”, while Hamas continually changed its demands.
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A question of leverage
But whatever the shuttle diplomacy, much has turned on the relationship between the US president and Netanyahu. The men have known each other for decades, the dynamics have been often bitter, dysfunctional even, but Biden’s positions predate even his relationship with the Israeli prime minister.
Passionately pro-Israel, he often speaks of visiting the country as a young Senator in the early 1970s. Supporters and critics alike point to Biden’s unerring support for the Jewish state – some citing it as a liability, others as an asset.
Ultimately, for President Biden’s critics, his biggest failure to use leverage over Israel has been over the scale of bloodshed in Gaza. In the final year of his only term, thousands of protesters, many of them Democrats, have taken to American streets and university campuses denouncing his policies, holding “Genocide Joe” banners.
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Biden’s mindset, which underpins the administration’s position, was shaped at a time when the nascent Israeli state was seen as being in immediate existential peril, says Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor Emeritus of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University in New York.
“American diplomacy has basically been, ‘whatever Israel’s war demands and requires we will give them to fight it’,” says Prof Khalidi.
“That means, given that this [Israeli] government wants an apparently unending war, because they’ve set war aims that are unattainable – [including] destroying Hamas – the United States is a cart attached to an Israeli horse,” he says.
He argues Biden’s approach to the current conflict was shaped by an outdated conception of the balance of state forces in the region and neglects the experience of stateless Palestinians.
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“I think that Biden is stuck in a much longer-term time warp. He just cannot see things such as… 57 years of occupation, the slaughter in Gaza, except through an Israeli lens,” he says.
Today, says Prof Khalidi, a generation of young Americans has witnessed scenes from Gaza on social media and many have a radically different outlook. “They know what the people putting stuff on Instagram and TikTok in Gaza have shown them,” he says.
Kamala Harris, 59, Biden’s successor as Democratic candidate in next month’s presidential election against Donald Trump, 78, doesn’t come with the same generational baggage.
However, neither Harris nor Trump has set out any specific plans beyond what is already in process for how they would reach a deal. The election may yet prove the next turning point in this sharply escalating crisis, but quite how is not yet apparent.
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Lead image credit: Getty
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Boeing has withdrawn its pay offer to striking machinists as negotiations between the aircraft maker and union members stall and the company’s debt teeters on the edge of a junk rating.
“Our team bargained in good faith,” Stephanie Pope, chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, wrote to employees in a letter released late on Tuesday. “Unfortunately, the union did not seriously consider our proposals.”
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The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 751 said in an update on its website that Boeing was “hell-bent” on sticking to its now-rescinded offer made on September 23.
On Tuesday, S&P Global Ratings put the company’s triple B minus credit and senior unsecured debt ratings on a negative credit watch. Anything below triple B minus is considered a junk credit rating.
“The CreditWatch listing reflects the increased likelihood of a downgrade if the strike persists toward the end of the year,” S&P said.
Boeing’s September 23 offer sparked fury among the 33,000 IAM members employed by the plane maker who have been on strike since September 13. The union said the 30 per cent pay increase offered by the company circumvented normal bargaining by taking the offer directly to workers.
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“When we surveyed our members on that offer, the response was overwhelming — those who participated said it was not good enough,” IAM said on Tuesday.
The union added that Boeing, in its most recent negotiations, “refused to propose any wage increases, vacation/sick leave accrual, progression, ratification bonus [and] also would not reinstate the defined benefit pension”.
Pope, in withdrawing Boeing’s pay offer, said IAM “made non-negotiable demands far in excess of what can be accepted if we are to remain competitive as a business”.
IAM’s original demand was for a 40 per cent pay rise, as well as improved conditions. The machinists’ pay has risen 4 per cent over the past eight years.
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Boeing is struggling to improve its finances and operations after five punishing years that included two fatal crashes, a pandemic that curtailed travel demand and, most recently, an incident in which a door panel blew off one of its aircraft mid-flight.
The company has used billions of dollars in cash this year as it has slowed production to try to improve its manufacturing and quality processes. Analysts have said the company is also considering issuing equity of about $10bn to shore up its cash position.
Shares of Boeing are down about 5 per cent since the strike began on September 13.
In addition to the personnel losses, Ukrainian defenders have inflicted substantial damage on Russia’s military equipment.
Over the past day alone, four enemy tanks and eleven armored fighting vehicles were destroyed, bringing the totals to 8,944 tanks and 17,751 armored vehicles lost since the invasion began.
Other key figures include:
Artillery systems: 19,222 (+19)
Multiple rocket launchers: 1,223
Aircraft: 369
Helicopters: 328
Operational-tactical UAVs: 16,718 (+31)
Cruise missiles: 2,618
Vehicles and fuel tankers: 26,240 (+55)
The General Staff also noted that recent intelligence updates have led to some adjustments in the reported totals, particularly for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and aircraft.
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Despite the large number of losses, Ukraine continues to push back against Russian forces, with Ukrainian defenders recently destroying 180 Russian drones over the past week alone.
It sounds grisly, but for the engineers on the Somerset coast building Britain’s first nuclear power station in a generation, it’s an urgent question.
And for conservationists and local villagers on the banks of the River Severn in Gloucestershire, it has become such an urgent question they filled a village hall to debate it.
Proposals for the sea-water cooling system at Hinkley Point C will see 44 tonnes of fish ingested and killed every year, according to EDF, the company building it.
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“This scheme will decimate fish stocks,” said Dave Seal, a wildlife campaigner.
“We already have lost 80% of our salmon, and half of the salmon that get into Hinkley’s cooling system will be destroyed.”
But Andrew Cockroft, from Hinkley Point C, insisted there will be a “very very small impact on fish populations”.
Why so much water?
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At the heart of this row is a simple truth of physics – nuclear power plants, by design, get hot.
The steam drives enormous turbines which whizz around and generate electricity.
At Hinkley Point in Somerset, they’re about to install the nuclear reactor which will create all the heat in the first place. It’s still at least seven years before it will be switched on.
But first, they need to think about the fish.
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To keep the whole reactor cool, huge tunnels – five miles long – have been dug out underneath the Bristol Channel.
When the plant is up and running, 132,000 litres of seawater a second will be sucked in to a system that works like a huge car radiator.
The superheated steam that drives the turbines will pass along pipes surrounded by cold seawater, to cool it down.
The seawater will never get near the nuclear reactor, so is safe to pass back out into the sea.
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But with the huge amount of water will come millions of fish.
The Bristol Channel is home to salmon, eels, herring, sprats, and dozens of protected marine species.
And nobody wants them to die just so we can turn our lights on and cook dinner.
Can they stop the fish?
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Engineers have done plenty of things to save the fish, including fitting a complex concrete ‘head’ to the pipes on the sea-bed, where the water comes in.
Narrow side vents allow water in, with grills to keep larger creatures out. Unlike previous power stations, it’s not just an open pipe sucking in seawater.
But they accept some fish will get through the grills.
In fact, they have estimated about 44 tonnes of fish will be ingested every year.
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Is that a lot?
For comparison, fishing vessels at Newlyn, in Cornwall, landed 1,700 tonnes in the month of July alone.
So in a year, the nuclear plant will “eat” about a day’s catch.
“In proportion, it’s a very very small number of fish,” said Andrew Cockroft, from Hinkley Point C.
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Nonetheless, the Environment Agency wants EDF, who are building the plant, to do something to help marine life.
How to compensate?
EDF planners are now trying to find 340 hectares (840 acres) of land on the banks of the River Severn they can flood to create new saltmarsh habitats.
There salmon, eels, and countless marine species will be able to breed.
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Mr Cockroft, who runs the public engagement programme for Hinkley Point, said saltmarshes are a “natural” compensation for the nuclear plant’s impact.
He said: “Saltmarsh reduces flooding. It provides shelter and breeding grounds for fish, it’s an amazing place for birds, and can be great for people too.”
The question now is, whose fields should be flooded?
The village of Arlingham lies on a bend of the Severn, with fertile low-lying farmland around it.
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Proposals to breach the banks to create the new marshland have gone down very badly.
A public meeting held in the village hall to hear the plans from EDF’s team on Monday was packed out.
“We have fertile farmland, we have rare wildlife,” said one woman. “Hares, bats, hedgehogs. Why would you choose Arlingham?”
Another man told EDF representatives: “Arlingham is a unique part of the country, and I see no reason for you ruining that just to solve your problem with dead fish”.
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EDF’s team told the meeting they were hear “to listen, to collaborate”.
They had to find somewhere to create the new 340 hectares of saltmarsh, and Arlingham was one of four sites that fit the bill, they said.
But locals insist there is another, better, way.
Why have plans changed?
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The original plan for Hinkley Point approved by the government included a so-called ‘Acoustic Fish Deterrent’.
As the name suggests, a system of loudspeakers near the inlet pipes would simply scare fish away.
EDF says it no longer thinks that will work. Some fish cannot hear. Others, like dolphins and whales who use sonar for navigation, will be deafened.
Furthermore, EDF says the speakers would need to be maintained by divers working in the dark, at depth, in a risky location.
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Campaigners are unconvinced, and think the acoustic deterrent is far better than flooding 850 acres of land.
“You agreed the acoustic fish deterrent,” said Godfrey Bragg.
“And now you want to wriggle out of it and inconvenience all these people. It just gets you off the hook with your problem killing fish.”
Dave Seal, a local wildlife campaigner, told the meeting that deterring fish was far better than allowing them to be ingested and killed.
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“Imagine a windfarm was killing 184 million birds a year, that would be a wholly unacceptable situation. So why is it ok to kill all these fish?” he said.
But in 2023 the Environment Agency agreed with EDF, and removed the requirement to install an acoustic deterrent from Hinkley’s licence to build.
So now they have to find someone happy to have their land flooded, without upsetting the neighbours.
Since 2016 I have watched engineers and builders work on Europe’s largest construction site, creating an extraordinarily complex power plant.
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They’ve had the biggest land-based crane in the world, nicknamed Big Carl.
It winched in a 245-tonne dome to cap the reactor building, itself the size of St Paul’s Cathedral roof.
But creating a new breeding ground for the River Severn’s salmon and eel populations may be one of the trickiest problems they have yet faced.
And until they have solved it, they cannot switch on the nuclear power station.
In this episode of In Conversation With…, Kimberley Dondo talks with William Marshall, CIO and Head of Wealth Investment at Hymans Robertson Investment Services. They dive into key topics like sequencing risk, debunking longevity myths, and how Hymans Robertson’s holistic approach supports clients in retirement. William also addresses how the Consumer Duty has shaped the focus on value for money, the balance between passive and active investing, and the role of factor investing in portfolio design. Tune in now:
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