It is not new to speculate on the extent to which leadership can influence, or even decide, the course of events during a political crisis. The outbreak of conflict in the Middle East has brought this perennial question back to the fore.
Would the Bolshevik Revolution have happened without Lenin’s secret journey in a sealed train across Europe? Would apartheid in South Africa have ended as it did but for the leadership and partnership of both Mandela and de Klerk? Would the Cold War have finished and the liberation of eastern Europe been achieved without Gorbachev’s ascent to power in Moscow? I was present when Gorbachev first met Thatcher and she declared that he was a man with whom we could do business. All at the 1984 Chequers meeting with Gorbachev realised that he was quite different from all the Soviet leaders we had met previously.
And what about the might have beens? What if Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin had not been assassinated? Would his growing relationship with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat have resulted in a long-term peace plan and a two-state solution?
The day after Rabin’s state funeral I travelled, as foreign secretary, to Gaza to see Arafat. I had met him before. On this occasion, after a half hour, he apologised and said, to my amazement, that he was travelling to Israel to see Leah Rabin, Rabin’s widow, to offer her his condolences! Such had been the burgeoning relationship between two such unlikely combatants that Arafat had also wanted to attend Rabin’s funeral, but had been persuaded that would be a bridge too far on that highly emotional day.
So leadership, and the personal qualities of leaders, have made a serious difference and have even helped shape history. Do these considerations apply to the current crisis in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas?
In asking that question I am not just referring to Benjamin Netanyahu, whose personality has dominated Israeli politics for the last 30 years. It has also been extraordinary to watch the determination of President Joe Biden to influence the outcome.
We have this 80-year-old, whose health is believed by many to be frail, travelling across the Atlantic to Israel at the very height of the crisis. His predecessors in the White House never contemplated such a journey as Biden has made after the outbreak of the Six-Day War in 1967 or, 50 years ago, the Yom Kippur War. This time, Sunak, Scholz and Macron have also made visits, all determined to show their solidarity with Israel while, doubtless, offering personal advice to exercise some degree of restraint.
The cynics might suggest that Biden’s trip was merely a public relations exercise to try to prove to the US electorate that he is up to the job of running the White House and deserving of a second term at the end of next year. But Biden has done more than shake hands and make speeches direct to camera since he arrived in Israel. Both there and since arriving back at the White House he has been conducting some very personal diplomacy.
While in Israel, he advised that while it was natural that the Israelis should feel burning rage at the Hamas atrocities, they should not be consumed by it. He went on to say that after the 9/11 terrorist attacks the US was also enraged. It sought, and got, justice, but “we also made mistakes.”
His underlying message was that the attempt to defeat terrorism through conventional military means in both Afghanistan and Iraq produced short-term benefits with the ousting of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. But the same military victories led to many years of insurgency and the birth of new terrorist organisations in the countries concerned.
As I write, the Israeli Army is waiting for the orders to cross the border, invade Gaza City and destroy Hamas. They have now been waiting for several days. There are growing indications that Netanyahu may be thinking hard as to whether an all-out invasion is the best course of action.
Hamas, with notable cunning, have also begun releasing a tiny number of hostages—but are now indicating they may be open to freeing another 50. There will be considerable pressure from ordinary Israelis not to jeopardise that prospect.
History is determined not just by major events but, inevitably, by the personal and differing reaction to such events by political leaders. Restraint is not always the wisest course of action. Chamberlain’s flight to see Hitler in 1938 delayed the Second World War but the Munich agreement has been judged by history to have been shameful and a betrayal of the Czech people.
Biden has been another elderly statesman enduring a demanding overseas journey in order to advocate caution and an avoidance of unrestrained warfare. We do not yet know whether his advice will be accepted or, if it is, whether that advice will in due course be seen as having been wise or foolish.
But it must be welcomed that, at a time when much diplomacy is conducted through online screens, by email and on television, world leaders like President Biden still recognise that there is no substitute for face-to-face meetings with allies—and sometimes with enemies. They remain as essential as they have been over the centuries.
