Muscat, OCT 31
Western powers have a “moral obligation” to constrain Israel to end its offensives in the Middle East, Sayyid Badr bin Hamad al Busaidy, 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,” Sayyid Badr bin Hamad al Busaidy told the Financial Times. “There needs to be some kind of a constraint put on Israel to halt its aggression.”
Israel’s offensives 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.
Unicef says Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed at least one child per day and wounded 10 since October 4.
Israel’s genocide in Gaza has killed at least 43,204 Palestinians and wounded 101,641 since October 7, 2023. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks that day and more than 200 were taken captive.
In Lebanon, at least 2,822 people have been killed and 12,937 wounded in Israeli attacks since the war on Gaza began.
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.
The minister 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The foreign minister argued that western countries should break an “outdated, cold war habit” of unconditional support for Israel.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.
Asked about Iran’s use of proxies such as Hizbollah and its support for Hamas, Al Busaidy 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.”
Sporadic US-Iran indirect talks have faltered since the outbreak of the regional war, Sayyid Badr 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 Sayyid Badr in the interview to Financial Times. “And the world is failing to really stop that and to persuade it to stop this madness.”
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