During a Thursday press conference at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked by Bloomberg’s Courtney McBride: “You just mentioned that US policy on Gaza will be determined by Israel’s actions in response to these concrete steps you’re seeking. Can you clarify what sort of US policy changes we might be looking at?”
Blinken answered: “With regards to our policy in Gaza, look, I’ll just say this: if we don’t see the changes that we need to see, there’ll be changes in our own policy.”
Earlier on Thursday, President Joe Biden spoke for 30 minutes with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and according to a condensed readout of the conversation issued by the White House, Biden “made clear the need for Israel to announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers.”
He also made clear that “US policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel’s immediate action on these steps.”
He “underscored that an immediate ceasefire is essential to stabilize and improve the humanitarian situation and protect innocent civilians, and urged the Prime Minister to empower his negotiators to conclude a deal without delay to bring the hostages home.” (Biden Orders Israel to Accept Immediate Ceasefire in Phone Call with Bibi)
The American pressure yielded immediate results, as, according to Axios, CIA director Bill Burns and Mossad chief David Barnea are coming to Cairo this weekend for talks with top Qatari and Egyptian officials “in an effort to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.”
HAMAS’S CONDITIONS REMAIN AS INSANE AS EVER
On Thursday, Hamas representative Osama Hamdan announced that the main conditions for releasing the hostages (over a stretch of at least six weeks) are:
1. Stopping the war completely.
2. Guarantees and commitment that Israel will not operate in Rafah even after the deal.
3. Establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
4. Returning the residents of Gaza to the north of the Gaza Strip without Israeli supervision and inspection.
There are additional conditions, if the four above are not suicidal enough. They include a complete IDF withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and improving the conditions of the Hamas prisoners who will not be released in the deal.
Secretary Blinken said on Thursday, “Our conviction remains that we need to see an immediate ceasefire to enable the release of hostages.” This represents a complete change in US policy regarding Gaza. It is no longer about a ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages, it is a ceasefire so that the hostages would eventually be released.
Stop attacking Hamas and threatening the lives of its leadership so that they would contemplate letting the hostages go – after you agree not to attack their stronghold in Rafah, give them a Palestinian State, and let the Gazans flood the northern Strip again, terrorists and all. This, folks, is today’s US policy.
DESPICABLE TONY
Blinken opened his press conference with the most revolting statement a US official has made since George Herbert Walker Bush’s Secretary of State James Baker conditioned a $10 billion loan guarantee to secure Russian Aliyah on the Shamir government agreeing to a Palestinian State.
Blinken said:
Now, of course, what happened after October 7th could have ended immediately if Hamas had stopped hiding behind civilians, released the hostages, and put down its weapons. But Israel is not Hamas. Israel is a democracy; Hamas, a terrorist organization. And democracies place the highest value on human life – every human life. As has been said, whoever saves a life, saves the entire world. That’s our strength. It’s what distinguishes us from terrorists like Hamas. If we lose that reverence for human life, we risk becoming indistinguishable from those we confront.
Remember when the American democracy incinerated millions of Vietnamese to protect freedom around the world? Remember when the US killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghani civilians to avenge Al Qaeda’s attack on the Twin Towers?
If the US had any more reverence for human life the sewers would have choked with the blood of innocents.
WE’RE NOT THERE YET
What’s coming next? The NY Times reported on Thursday that during his 30-minute call with Netanyahu, Biden, for the first time, utilized American aid as a means to shape the course of Israel’s war against Hamas.
The White House issued its most poignant statement yet on Thursday regarding Israel’s actions in the ongoing war against Hamas, highlighting the president’s escalating frustration with Netanyahu and his outrage over the recent killing of seven aid workers. Yet despite reiterating the president’s plea for a negotiated agreement leading to an “immediate cease-fire” and the release of hostages held by Hamas (not at the same time), White House officials still refrained from explicitly stating that they might curtail US arms supplies if Biden’s demands weren’t met.
The ball, unfortunately, is in Netanyahu’s court. He needs to get Hamas to agree to at least a partial hostage release, and at the moment, Hamas has no logical reason to soften its outrageous demands. And so, the only viable option for Netanyahu is to attack Rafah and put the knife to Yahya Sinwar’s neck. Nothing else would change the stalemate.
