Iran's nuclear deal could weaken U.S. efforts to end Israel-Gaza violence

May 18, 2021: -The U.S. plans to revive the Iran nuclear deal. That could undercut efforts to end the conflicts of Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza, and one analyst told CNBC on Monday.

Escalating violence in the Middle East has killed at least 188 people in the Gaza Strip and eight in Israel since tensions flared in the previous week, including Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip and rocket assaults terrorist group Hamas on Israeli cities. In the dead are 55 children in Gaza and a 5-year-old boy in Israel, reported the Associated Press.

President Joe Biden has shown minor signs he would publicly ramp up pressure on Israel to agree to an immediate ceasefire. That could partly be because he is willing to revive the Iranian nuclear deal, suggested by Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president for research at the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Coming back to the deal would result in Iran receiving billions of dollars in sanctions relief to limit its nuclear program. Tehran could use that money to fund the militants since “Iran is Hamas’ top sponsor,” explained Schanzer.

He also said that the U.S. would inadvertently find itself indirectly supporting sides of the conflicts of Israeli-Palestinian.

“That, by the way, may contribute to some extent why the U.S. has been a little more silent as Israel has been operating with impunity over the last day or so,” he added, adding that Israel has “got the upper hand in this conflict.”

He said the U.S. might remain silent for some more days, which would permit Israel to weaken the Hamas militant group in the future.

Ryan Bohl, a the Middle East and North African analyst at risk consultancy Stratfor, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” that the U.S. is the only country that might change Israeli behavior, and there are “emerging signs” that Washington will ceasefire.

The U.S. last week objected to efforts by the United Nations Security Council to issue a public statement on Israeli-Palestinian tensions, worrying that a message could hurt behind-the-scenes diplomacy, reported Reuters.

A Reuters report said U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council that “the United States has been working tirelessly through diplomatic channels to try to finish to this conflict.”