In an exclusive interview with the Al-Arabiya and Al-Hadath TV channels, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday from Jeddah that Washington is studying alternatives to dealing with Hamas, adding, “Hamas has caused a great deal of suffering and death to the Palestinians.”
Blinken expressed Washington’s optimism about reaching an exchange deal between Israel and Hamas and stressed the imminence of reaching a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip. It’s just around the corner, apparently. He also said he would discuss during his current visit who should govern Gaza after the war.
The secretary revealed to the Saudi channels that the United States had submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council calling for “an immediate ceasefire linked to the release of the hostages” in the Gaza Strip.
He said: “We have already submitted a draft resolution, which is now before the Security Council, and it calls for an immediate ceasefire linked to the release of the hostages, and we very much hope that it will receive support from countries.”
Blinken believes this resolution “will send a strong message, with a strong indicator.”
And here comes the part about Washington’s “alternatives to dealing with Hamas.” I know you’ve been waiting for this part since the start of the article. So, here goes:
Regarding the Rafah operation, Blinken made it clear that Washington does not support a large-scale Israeli ground operation in Rafah. Instead, he said, “We want the war to end to devote ourselves to the future of the Gaza Strip.”
A future that will not include a dead Hamas leadership, obviously.
Can we say at this point that in choosing between supporting Israel and supporting Hamas, Tony Blinken, whose Jewish family fled to America from Hungary, is siding with the baby killers?
On Tuesday, State Dept. Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel was asked by a reporter for his response to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement that “they’re determined to complete an elimination of the Hamas battalions in Rafah; there’s no way to do that except by going in on the ground.”
Here is what Patel said: “It should come as no surprise that when it comes to this we are just squarely in a different place and have a different viewpoint than our Israeli partners. You saw National Security Advisor Sullivan speak about this a little bit yesterday, but I will also note that … President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed to have their teams meet, for them to meet soon here in Washington, to exchange views and discuss alternative approaches that would target the key elements of Hamas, help secure the Egypt-Gaza border, and do so without a major ground operation in Rafah.”
For the record, the team Netanyahu sent to Washington includes Minister Ron Dermer and NSA Tzachi Hanegbi, neither one of whom is expected to veer from the PM’s plan for Rafah. Bibi was not taking chances with, say, Minister Benny Gantz, or even DM Yoav Gallant. Dermer and Hanegbi will listen politely to their hosts’ belief that humanitarian concerns trump eliminating Hamas – a policy no American administration has ever stuck by, incidentally. America incinerates hundreds of thousands of civilians and then comes preaching to Israel to learn from their failures.
“We continue to feel quite strongly that such an operation in Rafah, where there are more than a million people seeking refuge, a region that continues to be a key conduit for the entrance of humanitarian aid, that doing something like that without a credible and clear plan is something that – without a plan that also doesn’t address for the various humanitarian pieces, would be a disaster,” Patel continued. “And we hope that through this mechanism our officials will be able to discuss some of these issues in greater detail and find a path forward.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Netanyahu released a video statement reiterating that the IDF will indeed enter Rafah to eliminate the remaining Hamas battalions hiding there among the “innocent civilians” (Netanyahu: ‘Impossible to Complete the Victory Without Entering Rafah’).
The Chinese Shield and Spear Paradox asks, “What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?” I would like to believe that in the Gaza War Israel will be able to show that when the unstoppable force is here, but the immovable object is thousands of miles away, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the force gets it.
