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Israel-Palestine War from an American perspective
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RabzonKhan
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RabzonKhan
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RabzonKhan
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Blinken pushes Israel to ease fighting, consider postwar vision for Gaza
Story by Steve Hendrix, John Hudson • 9h
Blinken pushes Israel to ease fighting, consider postwar vision for Gaza© Evelyn Hockstein/AFP/Getty Images
JERUSALEM — Secretary of State Antony Blinken pushed top Israeli leaders in back-to-back meetings Tuesday to limit civilian casualties in Gaza, avoid all-out war with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and get serious about planning for what comes after the fighting finally ends, said U.S. officials.
Blinken, the top diplomat of Israel’s most vital ally, is presenting a plan for Gaza’s future to Israeli leaders based on his meetings with leaders in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan, Greece and Turkey before arriving in Israel.
In meetings with Israel’s president, prime minister, defense minister and emergency war cabinet, Blinken is pressing Israel to reduce the scale of civilian casualties in the Gaza war — already one of the century’s most destructive conflicts — where about 23,000 people have been killed to date, according to Gaza health officials.
But the gaps between the Israelis and Arab leaders remain vast as far-right members of the Netanyahu government call for the mass displacement of civilians from Gaza and have dismissed American calls for a “revamped and revitalized” Palestinian Authority to play a role in postwar Gaza.
“I’ve just come from a number of countries in the region,” Blinken told Israeli President Isaac Herzog ahead of their meeting at a Tel Aviv hotel. “I want to share some of what I’ve heard from those leaders with the president as well as with the prime minister and the Cabinet later today.”
While wide gaps remain among players in the region, the secretary is pushing governments to see the crisis as a potential inflection point in the decades-long conflict. He told Israeli officials Monday that ending the war would give it a chance to improve ties with Arab neighbors, relations that were notably warming before the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. And he has touted postwar rebuilding, with non-Hamas Palestinians at the center, as a possible pathway to a future Palestinian state.
Blinken, however, has not offered details on how the United States would overcome the sticking points that have bedeviled every previous U.S. administration in forging a path to a Palestinian state.
The two-day diplomatic blitz, capping Blinken’s fourth Middle East swing in three months, comes amid mixed signals from Israel about the pace of easing the fight in Gaza
Military officials have announced troop drawdowns in the northern part of the enclave, allowing some residents to venture back to their ravaged neighborhoods. Israel said it will turn to more targeted raids in that part of Gaza.
“Operations will continue in the north, but with a different scale,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman, told reporters late Monday. “The war will continue in 2024 but in a different way. Reservists will be released. We will act in different ways according to the needs of the operational space.”
A senior U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters, confirmed that Israel has already withdrawn several thousand troops from Gaza in “a significant drawdown” in the north. And residents in the north said the level of intense fighting has dropped.
“We hear booms, shootings and some airstrikes,” Gaza City resident Ramadan Amriti, 56, told The Washington Post. “It’s not completely safe or calm but better than before, with no doubt.”
But fighting continues to rage in southern and central Gaza, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials have said there will be no end to hostilities for months.
Almost 250 Gazans were killed in the 24 hours before Blinken’s arrival, according to Palestinian health authorities. Nearby Israeli attacks Monday forced refugees to flee the last functioning hospital in central Gaza, a region packed with tens of thousands of displaced civilians.
Displaced residents flee last hospital in central Gaza as fighting nears
Israelis have told Washington that they intend to scale back operations significantly in the next phase of the military campaign in Gaza, according to U.S. officials, and will rely on fewer troops and reduce the kind of massive air bombardments that have destroyed high rises and leveled city blocks. Instead, the Israelis say they will deploy special forces to eliminate Hamas leaders and destroy its tunnels and military infrastructure.
But U.S. officials conceded that several previous such assurances did not materialize. Their hope is that the actual start of troop reductions — the first since ground operations began — signal that Israeli officials are finally bending to U.S. lobbying, in addition to the economic strain of diverting tens of thousands of reservists from the workforce.
“I think there is a desire here to respond to pressure from the Americans, who demand to reduce the harm of innocents in Gaza,” said Michael Milshtein, a former head of the Palestinian department in Israeli military intelligence. “But the needs of the Israeli economy cannot be ignored as well, and perhaps also the northern front,” referring to Hezbollah troops massing along Israel’s border with Lebanon.
Blinken was pushing his Israeli counterparts to reduce the intensity of the fighting in Gaza as quickly as possible, officials said, while he also urges caution in its response to the presence of Hezbollah forces.
Hezbollah and Israeli troops have exchanged fire almost daily over the last three months, forcing thousands of civilians on both sides to evacuate the frontier. Last week, a drone strike conducted by Israel, according to U.S. officials, killed an exiled Hamas leader in his Beirut office, sparking fears of a wider conflagration. A Hezbollah commander was also killed on Monday.
“It’s clearly not in the interest of anyone — Israel, Lebanon, Hezbollah for that matter — to see this escalate and to see an actual conflict,” Blinken said Monday.
Though Israelis have expressed a preference for a diplomatic solution, they have also warned they cannot tolerate the tit-for-tat violence on the border with Lebanon for long. “We prefer the path of an agreed-upon diplomatic settlement,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Friday, “but we are getting close to the point where the hourglass will turn over.”
During his visits in the Arab world, Blinken touted progress in coordinating the region’s Arab states on a plan for Gaza reconstruction and governance. Arab leaders had been loath to discuss their involvement amid daily scenes of carnage in the enclave and no guarantee that investments in rebuilding wouldn’t be quickly undone by another war.
The Biden administration considers the financial support from Saudi Arabia and other energy-rich Gulf countries for reconstruction as essential to any long term solution in Gaza. Blinken, before leaving Saudi Arabia, said he’s seen a willingness on the part of Gulf partners but a nonnegotiable condition was that the West Bank and Gaza “should be united under Palestinian-led governance.”
While raising objections to such a prospect, Israel officials have also given few signs they are close to wrapping up the war on Hamas, which Netanyahu vowed to “destroy” following its surprise attack on Oct. 7 that killed around 1,200 Israelis.
Neither Israel nor the Biden administration supports a general cease-fire, saying it would give Hamas an opportunity to regroup and fulfill its pledge to launch additional attacks inside Israel. Officials have said Hamas must release more than 100 remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza before Israel will pull back.
In a meeting with Foreign Minister Israel Katz, Blinken said he will meet with hostage families while in Israel and discuss Washington’s “relentless efforts to bring people home, to bring people back.”
The Biden administration, led by CIA Director William J. Burns, has been trying to broker a new hostage release for the 107 hostages who are believed to be in Gaza, some of them American citizens.
Dozens of protesters held signs and chanted outside Blinken’s hotel in Tel Aviv calling for the Biden administration to push the Netanyahu government to broker another hostage deal.
Ahead of Blinken’s visit, Galant presented his own proposal for postwar Gaza to the war cabinet, the first public outline for such planning by a top official. The proposal included some things that U.S. officials favor, such as keeping Palestinians in Gaza. However, it also includes nonstarters for the United States, such as the exclusion of any role for the Palestinian Authority, which runs parts of the West Bank.
Restoring order in Gaza is also a top concern among U.S. and Israeli officials. In private discussions, Israeli officials have proposed relying on local leaders to provide security and distribute humanitarian aid in the strip.
Currently, the chronic shortages in food have resulted in U.N. aid trucks being pillaged as they move from southern Gaza to the north, where residents have largely been denied access to aid since fighting resumed after a week-long pause more than a month ago.
U.N. officials explained the problem to Blinken during his recent visit to a World Food Program warehouse in Jordan, and he said that expanding access to aid was a top priority of his visit.
In his meeting with Netanyahu and Israel’s War Cabinet, Blinken advocated for the United Nations’ work and praised the new appointment of a U.N. coordinator for reconstruction in Gaza, said Blinken’s spokesman.
Hudson reported from Tel Aviv. Hazem Balousha in Amman, Jordan, and Itay Stern in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.
RabzonKhan
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HEATED Israel vs Palestine Debate w/ Bassem Youssef
3:25 - Bassem discusses when he decided to leave medicine and become a comedian12:28 - How Bassem became the Jon Stewart of Egypt.
15:29 - Bassem explains why he was forced to flee Egypt over his criticism of the Egyptian government.
26:38 - Bassem explains why he won't perform in Israel.
38:22 - Adam and Bassem argue about the death toll in Gaza following the October 6th attack on Israel.
48:46 - Did the Israeli government know about the October 6th Hamas attack in advance?
51:56 - How to move forward in Israel following the October 6th attack.
56:07 - Are the tensions in the Middle East a social or economic issue?
1:06:50 - How the United States government uses economic hitmen to bankrupt and run other countries.
1:15:01 - Why there were no wars that broke out under Trump's administration.
1:26:40 - How the Military Industrial Complex continues to feed the U.S war machine.
1:32:31 - Why Israel was established and if the region can ever see peace?
1:46:42 - Stats on the genocide of Palestinians at the hands of Israel.
1:51:20 - What is the solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine?
"Israel-Palestine War from an American perspective" would be an interesting topic, but probably not for the membership of this forum, if the Gaza-Israel War thread is anything to go by. I appreciate your thought in opening this thread but it may need to be closed at some point, for reason I am sure you will understand, if and when that closure happens.
RabzonKhan
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Netanyahu Draws Red Line for Ending War in Gaza
Story by Nick Mordowanec • 1hIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly informed the White House that he opposes a post-war Palestinian state.
On October 7, the Palestinian militant group Hamas carried out a surprise attack in the south of Israel, killing roughly 1,200 people and taking hostages. The subsequent Israeli military response in Gaza has killed more than 24,000 Palestinians, according to the Associated Press, with around 85 percent of the Gaza Strip's 2.3 million people displaced.
The conflict has escalated to other countries, with the United States and its allies carrying out attacks on Houthi bases in Yemen after the Houthis targeted shipping in the Red Sea in response to the war.
On Thursday, Netanyahu said during a nationally televised news conference that he told the U.S. that he not only rejected Palestinian statehood but also vowed to continue the military offensive until Israel "realizes a decisive victory over Hamas."
"In any future arrangement...Israel needs security control over all territory west of the Jordan," Netanyahu said in a nationally broadcast news conference, the AP reported. "This collides with the idea of sovereignty. What can you do?"
"The prime minister needs to be capable of saying no to our friends," Netanyahu added.
Newsweek reached out to Netanyahu's office and the U.S. State Department via email for comment.
Netanyahu's newest remarks spark strong contrast to the recently iterated views of the White House.
On Tuesday, while speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the Biden administration's post-war strategy in Gaza was for "normalization [between Israel and Saudi Arabia] tied to a political horizon for the Palestinians."
Sullivan said a four-pronged approach would encompass that strategy: Gaza would never be used for terror attacks on Israel, peace between Israel and the Arab countries in the region, a state for the Palestinians, and security assurances for Israel.
"I know it is hard to imagine right now, but this is the only path that provides peace and security to all. It can be done," Sullivan said. "The pieces are there to put together. Not years down the road but in the nearer term if all of us pull together and make bold decisions."
After Netanyahu told U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week that he couldn't commit to the establishment of a Palestinian state, Blinken reportedly said that Hamas cannot only be extinguished militarily and that Israeli leaders are exercising failure by repeating history, according to NBC News.
This is a developing story and will be updated when more information is available.
RabzonKhan
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Netanyahu told Biden in private phone call he was not foreclosing the possibility of a Palestinian state in any form
By Kevin Liptak and MJ Lee, CNNFri January 19, 2024
WashingtonCNN —
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained to President Joe Biden in a phone call Friday that the public comments he made a day earlier — in which he appeared to reject the idea of creating a Palestinian state — were not meant to foreclose that outcome in any form, a person familiar with the conversation told CNN.
Biden and Netanyahu discussed the possible attributes of a future Palestinian state that would ultimately need to be negotiated, the person added, describing the conversation as “serious” and “detailed.”
Biden administration officials have recently been engaged in discussions about a future demilitarized Palestinian state, an idea the president finds “intriguing,” the person said.
Biden is certainly familiar with the ideas of a demilitarized Palestinian state or one with a significantly limited military force that have been discussed over the years, one administration official said. And those are among the schools of thought that inform the president’s thinking as he pushes for a two-state solution with a security guarantee for Israel, the official added.
CNN has reached out to the Prime Minister’s Office for comment.
Hours after getting off the phone with Netanyahu, Biden made reference to that possibility when speaking to reporters at the White House, saying he believed “there are a number of types of two-state solutions.”
“There’s a number of countries that are members of the UN that … don’t have their own military; a number of states that have limitations, and so I think there’s ways in which this can work,” Biden said.
He was less clear exactly how he would achieve it.
“I’ll let you know when I get him to agree,” Biden told reporters.
The lack of certainty only underscored the challenge Biden faces as he tries to apply pressure on Netanyahu to adopt a new battlefield approach and plan for a future in Gaza, only to be met with open resistance and disagreement.
Biden and Netanyahu remain publicly at odds over the fundamental question of what will happen to Gaza once the Israel-Hamas war concludes, despite intense American efforts over the past several months to engage officials in Israel and the wider region on a plan they hope can finally resolve the decades-long conflict.
Biden and his top officials — including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who visited Israel and the region last week — have said the creation of a Palestinian state with guarantees for Israel’s security is the only way to finally bring peace and stability to the Middle East.
Netanyahu said during a news conference Thursday that he had rejected those calls, arguing such a step would clash with the security of Israel.
“In any future arrangement … Israel needs security control all territory west of Jordan. This clashes with the idea of (Palestinian) sovereignty. What can you do?” he told a news conference in Tel Aviv when asked about reports that he told American officials he opposes the idea of Palestinian sovereignty.
How the two leaders bridge that gap remains a question, one Biden’s aides recognize won’t be quickly resolved. According to Biden, however, the prospect of a demilitarized Palestinian state is an opening.
One Arab leader who has recently discussed the idea of a demilitarized Palestinian state in public is Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
“We said that we are ready for this state to be demilitarized, and there can also be guarantees of forces, whether NATO forces, United Nations forces, or Arab or American forces, until we achieve security for both states, the nascent Palestinian state and the Israeli state,” Sisi said at a news conference in November.
Biden also told reporters on Friday that “given the right one,” he believed his Israeli counterpart would ultimately agree to a two-state solution.
Biden’s phone call with Netanyahu on Friday was their first in nearly a month and stretched around 40 minutes. It did not yield any new agreements about the future of Gaza or the trajectory of the conflict there, according to White House readouts.
In the telephone call, Biden “reiterated his strong conviction in the viability of a two-state solution — understanding of course, that we’re not going to get there tomorrow,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said following the call.
Biden and Netanyahu, who have known each other for more than four decades, have found themselves frequently at odds, both before the October 7 Hamas attacks and after. Biden has bemoaned Netanyahu’s far-right governing coalition and told donors last month that his counterpart’s political predicament was making it difficult for the prime minister to alter his approach to Gaza.
Privately, American officials said they regarded Netanyahu’s latest statement as similarly politically motivated, as he finds himself under intense pressure inside Israel over the October 7 attacks, the inability to secure the release of additional hostages held by Hamas and an uncertain strategy in Gaza.
Rifts within Israeli society and even among Netanyahu’s own war cabinet were emerging Friday over the prime minister’s strategy, adding pressure to Netanyahu’s government. Family members of hostages and their supporters blocked a highway in Tel Aviv on Friday calling on the Israeli government and the international community to do more to help secure the release of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
And in a television interview, Israeli war cabinet minister Gadi Eisenkot urged the country’s leaders to better define the trajectory of the war in Gaza and said a longer ceasefire was the only way to secure the release of additional hostages. He said Israel needs fresh elections amid eroding public trust in Netanyahu’s leadership.
“We need to go to the polls and have an election in the next few months, in order to renew the trust as currently there is no trust,” Eisenkot told Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 during an interview on Thursday evening. “The state of Israel is a democracy and needs to ask itself, after such a serious event, how do we go forward with a leadership that is responsible for such an absolute failure?”
Israel’s current politics have long frustrated Biden, who has name-checked the most right-wing members of Netanyahu’s government as standing in the way of a two-state solution.
Still, White House officials have said the president remains adamant that any differences with his counterpart are best aired behind the scenes rather than in public. Biden offered his Israeli counterpart and the people of Israel his unwavering support in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attack, even flying to the warzone to show what he said was his and the United States’ unequivocal support for their ally.
But that fulsome support has grown increasingly controversial and less tenable as Israel’s massive airstrikes campaign – followed by a ground incursion – resulted in tens of thousands of civilian casualties in Gaza.
Even as public sentiment began to shift under Biden’s feet, with polls showing his support among younger voters and Arab Americans eroding, senior US officials insisted they would stick to the strategy of quietly counseling – and sometimes, criticizing – Israel on the war. The administration simply did not believe that publicly shaming Netanyahu and his government, and their war decisions, would be constructive.
Netanyahu’s most recent comments appeared to stand in contrast with that approach, allowing US-Israel rifts to spill into public view.
On Friday, senior administration officials sought to downplay Netanyahu’s most recent rejection of the idea of a Palestinian state, insisting he had said as much publicly in the past. Kirby said Biden was hardly “Pollyannish” about the prospects of reaching a two-state solution.
“He understands how hard it is,” he said, adding later: “We’re not going to agree on everything. We’ve said that, and good friends and allies can have those kinds of candid, forthright discussions, and we do.”
This headline and story have been updated with additional reporting.
FuturePAF
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Shatanyahu is planning on stringing Biden along this entire year. If Biden had the cojones, he needs to get a Palestinian state done this year if he wants any chance of getting the votes to win re-election (or redemption for his tacit support of a genocide from God).
RabzonKhan
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Nearly all Senate Democrats sign onto Palestinian statehood measure
Story by Andrew Solender • 2dAll but two Senate Democrats are supporting a measure endorsing the creation of a Palestinian state as part of a national security package that includes military aid to Israel.
Why it matters: It's a clear rebuke of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent comments rejecting the notion of Palestinian statehood, which have inflamed tensions with congressional Democrats.
Driving the news: 49 of the 51 Democrats in the Senate signed onto the two-page amendment, led by Jewish Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), which will be introduced as an amendment to the national security supplemental.
- The measure reiterates that it is U.S. policy to "support a negotiated comprehensive solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resulting in two states with Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace."
- It comes after Netanyahu, despite pressure from President Biden to support a Palestinian state after the Israel-Hamas war, said Israel "needs security control" in Gaza and the West Bank as part of any peace deal.
- Just two Democrats did not sign on: centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), a one-time progressive who has rebranded himself as a firmly pro-Israel moderate since the Oct. 7 attack.
- Fetterman "strongly supports a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine, and always has," his spokesperson told Axios. "He also strongly believes that this resolution should include language stipulating the destruction of Hamas as a precondition to peace."
- "What this does is tell people that there is hope for a peaceful and prosperous and healthy future," he said. "It's a message to Israel, but it's also a message to Palestinians ... it's a message to the world that the only path forward is a two-state solution."
- "The prime minister's words are obviously very relevant here, but it's not the final word on the question of the future of Israel and Palestine," he added.
- "The supplemental will be hard enough to land, and I'm not in the business of increasing the degree of difficulty," he said.
- Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has cobbled together support from 17 Democratic colleagues for an amendment ensuring U.S. military aid is being used in compliance with international law and doesn't go to countries that restrict humanitarian aid.
- Sanders told Axios he is "working on a variety" of amendments related to human rights in Gaza.
RabzonKhan
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I agree with you on Netanyahu. But let’s be serious, buddy. This is not a war between Maula Jatt and Noori Nath. It is a very complex and long-standing issue that has no easy or quick solution. It is unlikely that the conflict can be solved before November 5, 2024 (general election).
This is a dangerous conflict, and it involves contentious issues such as borders, Jerusalem, security, settlements, right of return for Palestinian refugees and water rights.
Biden's best course of action in these circumstances would be to put an end to the hostilities in Gaza and compel Israelis and Palestinians to engage in negotiations. It appears that he is heading in that direction.
BTW, do you know how Trump undermined two-state solution?
please don’t call the issue complex. People were very upset at me for saying that in that thread.
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