On Saturday, the New York Times published an interview with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken before his end of term on January 20.
In it, he spoke among other things on disagreements with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, difficulties in reaching a hostage deal in Gaza and his disappointment of the world that he said forgot what happened on October 7, 2023, too fast.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
(Photo: Haim Tzach/GPO)
When Blinken assumed office, he believed he'd mediate a historic agreement—normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. “On October 6 we were very much pursuing normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. And in fact, I was scheduled to go to Saudi Arabia and Israel on October 10. Obviously, that didn’t happen.” Blinken told the outlet.
"The purpose of that trip was to work on the Palestinian component of any normalization agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel, because we believed and the Saudis also said it was hugely important to make sure that if there was going to be normalization, there was also a pathway toward a Palestinian state.”
That trip never took place. Instead, Blinken arrived in Israel during the war's early days to support the embattled ally. "Since October 7, we’ve had some core goals in mind. I was there. I was in Israel and then in the region five days later. I saw horrors beyond anyone’s imagination inflicted on men, women and children. And we were determined to do everything we could to help ensure that October 7 would never happen again.”
Blinken noted that the U.S. aimed to prevent the war from spreading to other countries and fronts, a goal that, in retrospect, has seen limited success. " We also wanted to make sure that the war wouldn’t spread, the conflict wouldn’t spread to other fronts, to other countries, because that would mean more death and destruction.," he explained.
He added that the U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration wished to protect civilians caught in a war they didn't start and had no power to stop, ensuring they received the aid necessary to survive the terrible conflict.
Regarding the effort to prevent a recurrence of October 7, Blinken added, "I think we’re in a good place. Israel has destroyed Hamas’s military capabilities. It’s eliminated the leadership that was responsible for October 7.”
When the interviewer raised criticism of Israel's campaign against Hamas, Blinken responded, "No one needs to remind me of the suffering, because it’s something that drives me every single day. It’s exactly why we’ve done everything in our power to find a way to get an end to the conflict through getting the hostages back and getting a cease-fire.”
When asked if he believed Israel was complying with international law, Blinken noted, "We, as you know, have looked and continue to look at that in depth. And we put out our own reports on this with our own assessments."
He added, "When it comes to the actions that Israel has taken, in its just defense in trying to make sure that October 7 never happens again, we’ve said from Day 1 that how Israel does that matters.”
'An entire society that didn’t want any assistance getting to a single Palestinian in Gaza'
Blinken recounted his first visit to Israel, just five days after the massacre, and how he "convinced" Netanyahu to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza despite harsh domestic criticism.
"I spent with my team nine hours in the I.D.F.’s headquarters in Tel Aviv, six stories underground with the Israeli government, including the prime minister, including arguing for hours on end about the basic proposition that the humanitarian assistance needed to get to Palestinians in Gaza.”
He explained that the heated debate stemmed from the Israeli public being in a state of total trauma in the days following the massacre. "You had in Israel in the days after October 7 a totally traumatized society. This wasn’t just the prime minister or a given leader in Israel. This was an entire society that didn’t want any assistance getting to a single Palestinian in Gaza.," he said.
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U.S. President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
(Photo: Miriam Elster)
Blinken then shared the ultimatum he gave Netanyahu: "President Biden was planning to come to Israel a few days later. And in the course of that argument, when I was getting resistance to the proposition of humanitarian assistance getting in, I told the prime minister, I’m going to call the president and tell him not to come if you don’t allow this assistance to start flowing. And I called the president to make sure that he agreed with that, and he fully did," Blinken said.
When he was asked why the U.S. continues to supply Israel with arms that harm Palestinians, especially since Hamas no longer poses a significant threat, he said, "We have been and we remain fundamentally committed to Israel’s defense.”
“And that means that the support that the United States provides over many administrations, Republican and Democrat, over many years, that support is absolutely vital to making sure that Israel is able to defend itself, that it can deter aggression coming from many other quarters, whether it’s Hezbollah, whether it’s Iran, whether it’s the many Iranian-backed proxies, whether it’s the Houthis, you name it.”
Obstacles on the way to a hostage deal
Blinken added the fastest way to end the ongoing fighting in Gaza is through a cease-fire agreement that includes the release of hostages. “There have been two major impediments, and they both go to what drives Hamas.”
“One has been whenever there has been public daylight between the United States and Israel and the perception that pressure was growing on Israel, we’ve seen it: Hamas has pulled back from agreeing to a cease-fire and the release of hostages. And so there are times when what we say in private to Israel where we have a disagreement is one thing and what we’re doing or saying in public may be another.”
When asked whether he viewed Netanyahu as a partner — amid reports that he blocked a cease-fire deal in July that could have led to the release of hostages — Blinken responded, " No, that’s not accurate. What we’ve seen time and again is Hamas not concluding a deal that it should have concluded." He acknowledged, however, "There have been times when actions that Israel has taken have, yes, made it more difficult. But there’s been a rationale for those actions, even if they’ve sometimes made getting to a conclusion more difficult.”
Alongside his criticism of Israel’s conduct, Blinken also strongly condemned the global community for quickly forgetting what happened on October 7 and who was primarily responsible for the current situation.
“One of the things that I found a little astounding throughout is that for all of the understandable criticism of the way Israel has conducted itself in Gaza, you hear virtually nothing from anyone since October 7 about Hamas. Why there hasn’t been a unanimous chorus around the world for Hamas to put down its weapons, to give up the hostages, to surrender — I don’t know what the answer is to that.”
“Israel, on various occasions has offered safe passage to Hamas’s leadership and fighters out of Gaza. Where is the world? Where is the world, saying, Yeah, do that! End this! Stop the suffering of people that you brought on! Now, again, that doesn’t absolve Israel of its actions in conducting the war.
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“But I do have to question how it is that we haven’t seen a greater sustained condemnation and pressure on Hamas to stop what it started and to end the suffering of people that it initiated.”
Blinken added he believed the war would end under conditions outlined by Biden last year. " If we don’t have the opportunity to start to try to implement it through a hostage cease-fire agreement in the next couple of weeks, we will hand it off to the incoming Trump administration, and they can decide whether to move forward with it," he said.