AFTER MEETING, BLINKEN HOLDS PRESS CONFERENCE.
IN ESSENCE HIS BOTTOM LINE IS THAT PALESTINIANS MUST BE PROTECTED. AND THE TSS IS THE ONLY SOLUTION
https://www.c-span.org/video/?531630-1/secretary-state-holds-news-conference-tel-aviv
Good afternoon, everyone. Days after 7th, I came to Israel followed soon thereafter by President Biden to make clear that as long as the United States stands, Israel will never stand alone today. In my fourth visit to Israel since October 7th, I reiterate that in all my discussions with Prime Minister Netanyahu President Herzog, the security cabinet, I re read it and made clear our support for Israel’s right to defend itself. Indeed, its obligation to defend itself. That includes through the additional assistance that we work with Congress and we’re working with Congress now to provide for Israel’s defense as well as for urgent humanitarian needs in Gaza.
This right to self defense. Indeed, this obligation to self defense belongs to every nation. No country could or should tolerate the slaughter of innocents. You heard me speak to some of the stories that Israelis have experienced on October 7th.
Today we saw additional images, additional footage collected by the Israeli government from video cameras, some the terrorists, some others in communities that were attacked. It remains almost beyond the human capacity to process to digest. I saw for example, a family on a keyboard it’s a father, two young boys, maybe 1011 years old, grabbing them, pulling them out of their living room, going through their very small backyard and into a shelter, followed seconds later by a terrorist who throws a grenade into that small shelter. And then as the father comes staggering out, shoots him down. And then the boys come out and they run into, into their house and the camera in the house is filming everything and they’re crying, where’s daddy? One says the other says they killed daddy. Where’s my mommy? And then the terrorist comes in and casually opens the refrigerator and starts to eat from it. That’s what we’re dealing with. And it is striking and in some ways shocking that the brutality of the slaughter has receded so quickly in the memories of so many but not in Israel and not in America.
35 Americans were murdered that day as well. And more than 200 foreign nationals from 35 countries. I returned to the region to engage in intense diplomacy with our partners to try to help ensure that an attack like October 7th never happens again. And in doing so that we forge a different future, a very different future for Israelis and Palestinians alike that out of this tragedy emerges a better tomorrow for both peoples and for the region.
There are a number of important steps that we can indeed we must take now to help make that possible first, we need to continue to prevent escalation of this conflict. It’s spread to other areas and other theaters the United States has and we will continue to respond to attacks by Iran’s proxies to defend our personnel in the region, personnel who are here in Iraq and in Syria to help prevent the resurgence of ISIS, we will do what is necessary to deter and as I said, respond to any of the attacks, partners throughout the Middle East and beyond have a critical role to play in averting escalation.
And that will be a major focus of my conversations throughout this trip.
Second, we need to do more to protect Palestinian civilians. We‘ve been clear that as Israel conducts his campaign to defeat Hamas, how it does so matters. It matters because it’s the right and lawful thing to do. It matters because failure to do so plays into the hands of Hamas and other terror groups. There will be no partners for peace if they’re consumed by humanitarian catastrophe and alienated by any perceived indifference to their plight. This is what binds us as human beings. I’ve seen images too of Palestinian Children, young boys and girls pulled from the wreckage of buildings. When I see that, when I look into their eyes through the TV screen, I see my own Children.
How can we not Hamas doesn’t care one second or one iota for the welfare for the well being of the Palestinian people. It cynically and monstrously uses them as human shields, putting its commanders in command posts, its weapons and ammunition within or beneath residential buildings, schools, mosques, hospitals, but civilians should not suffer the consequences for its inhumanity and its brutality.
We provided Israel advice that only the best of friends can offer on how to minimize civilian deaths while still achieving its objectives of finding and finishing Hamas terrorists and their infrastructure of violence.
Today I spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other senior officials about concrete steps to do that. President Biden has consistently stressed the need for Israel to operate according to international humanitarian law. I also emphasize that the protection of civilians must take place not just in Gaza but also in the West Bank where incitement and extremist violence against Palestinians must be stopped and perpetrators held accountable.
Third, we need to substantially and immediately increase the sustained flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza and getting American citizens and other foreign nationals out of Gaza since we reached agreement with Israel, Egypt and the United Nations two weeks ago on mechanisms to enable humanitarian aid to begin reaching civilians in need. We have scaled up deliveries. We’ve gone from zero to now. Over 100 trucks going into Gaza through the Rafah crossing every day. But this is still not enough. I spoke to Israeli leaders about tangible steps that can be taken to increase the sustained delivery of food, water, medicine, fuel and other essential needs while putting in place measures to prevent diversion by Hamas and other terrorist groups.
We’ve identified mechanisms to enable fuel to reach hospitals and other needs in the South Israel has raised appropriate concerns concerns that we share about hamas’ hoarding and siphoning of fuel in Northern Gaza. Again, its cynicism knows no bounds, denying fuel itself that it has to hospitals and other places that desperately need it in meetings with regional partners. I’ll continue conversations about getting assistance to flow including with help from the United Nations. Over the last several days, us citizens, foreign nationals and critically wounded Palestinian civilians have begun to transit out of Gaza. We expect more to leave over the coming days. Even as these people are able to exit Gaza, we remain relentlessly focused on securing the release of hostages including American citizens.
We discussed these ongoing efforts today. Uh Our Deputy Special Representative for hostage Affairs, Steve Gillon who came with me on my first visit a couple of weeks ago has remained here on the ground to help bring our people home and also to work with their families. We believe that each of these efforts would be facilitated by humanitarian pauses, by arrangements on the ground that increase security for civilians and permit the more effective and sustained delivery of humanitassistance. That was an important area of discussion today with Israeli leaders, how when and where these can be implemented, what work needs to happen and what understandings must be reached. Now, we recognize this would take time to prepare and coordinate as well with international partners.
A number of legitimate questions were raised in our discussions today, including how to use any period of pause to maximize the flow of humanitarian assistance, how to connect a pause to the release of hostages, how to ensure that Hamas doesn’t use these pauses or arrangements to its own advantage.
These are issues that we need to tackle urgently and we believe they can be solved. We’ve agreed to have our teams continue to discuss practical solutions. I’ve instructed our special envoy for Middle East humanitarian issues. David Satterfield, who’s been doing remarkable work here over the last couple of weeks to continue these discussions. Ultimately, we believe this can be a critical mechanism for protecting civilians while enabling Israel to achieve its objectives of defeating Hamas finally and importantly, even as we work toward progress on each of these urgent needs, we’re focused on setting the conditions for a durable and sustainable peace and security.
Needy Nazis.
“And now, a word from your friendly, local Judenradt.”
EvRe1-
I do agree with you and my recollections of reading about the early Halutzim tell some ghastly tales.
I have posted this before -many years ago.
In the early days, Arabs and Jews, to a certain extent lived together on the Land. They intermingled, often lived side by side, and worked the fields together.
I read about several cases of horror occurring then.
One particular event sticks in my mind. One day the body of a young woman was found in a crop field. She had been slaughtered, Eviscerated, with her female parts amputated and stuck in her mouth etc.
She had been working there with an Arab with whose family she had grown up. As children, they had run into and put of one anthers homes.
The two families were friends…
This is the average Arab mentality. Peaceful for years, a few words in the Friday night mosque service from a crazy Imam is like lighting a bomb fuse.
Which is why I’ve always believed that the Israeli Arabs are a huge Trojan Horse.
Rondo and Peloni-
I beg to differ. A goal of the Hamas invasion apart from their lust for slaughter was to take as many hostages as they could and I believe, with reason, they will be looked after.
Hostages, for Hamas, as we WELL know, are worth MORE than diamonds to the Arab mamzerim. The sleeping idiot Shalit was worth over 1000 freed terrorists, ioo7 I seem to recall.
They expect to collect all the Arab terrorist “heroes” presently in Israeli prisons, as well as unknown quantities of perhaps cash and good. , and much more.
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@rondo032@gmail.com
A very perceptive and important question. Another one would be
‘Where is the Red Cross?”
Where is the proof of life of the hostages?
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-war-spurs-thousands-of-haredi-israelis-to-volunteer-cook-and-serve-in-the-idf/ I find this article encouraging, reflecting a gradual increase in patriotic feeling among younger haredim.
The PM’s response is exactly as it should be: no cease fire until all hostages are released.
No TSS is possible. Israel essentially has already had a two state solution, and what Israel has been experiencing from the Palestinian people since 1948 has been continuing murders, maiming of Jewish innocents, and attempts to destroy the entire country of Israel.
Prior to October 7th, people from Gaza who were given work permits, used them to case the homes in Kibbutzim and Moshavim, and to plan their attack on these homes down to every detail.
That’s what a TSS brings. There can be no going back to that. Anyone who advocates for that is either too mentally handicapped to understand reality or is hoping to enable Jew-murderers to have their own country on Israel’s borders.
The Palestinians have been saying with every death of every Jew that they have committed, that they do not want peace with Israelis. They don’t want their own state next to Israel. They want “from the river to the sea”: they want all Israelis pushed into the Mediterranean Sea and they want the whole country for themselves without a single Jew alive.
Anyone who has not gotten that loud and clear message since 1948 is probably not capable of dealing with reality. Or else they have a very specific agenda they don’t want to acknowledge openly: they too want Israel destroyed.
Now I realize there are leftists Americans and Israelis who share the delusion of the “innocent Palestinians oppressed by Israel.” These are people that clearly do not see the Palestinian people as having any sense of agency or reason for living. That, in itself, is a prejudiced attitude.
In fact, the Palestinians have a sense of agency and a purpose for living, and their sense of agency and their purpose for living, the thing that gives their life meaning is getting rid of the Jews and having the land for themselves without Jews.
I think it is better to come to grips with reality and face the culture of the Palestinian people: they are bound together by their hatred of Jews and their desire to get rid of Jews. This is what they share in common.
As you can see from the thousands of international supporters of Hamas in various countries, these supporters agree with the Palestinians, that Hamas had a right to kill all the Jews Hamas wanted to kill. You are not going to change the minds of these people by offering them a state of their own, which they don’t want, and from which they will launch a never ending series of attacks on Israel.