Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken returns to the Middle East this week with the aim of pushing Israel to curb attacks that are killing thousands of Palestinian civilians and preventing war from spreading to the region.
But previously unreported details of a clash between Mr. Blinken and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu highlight the challenges ahead.
During a private meeting in November, Mr. Blinken told Mr. Netanyahu that the Israelis needed to agree to a series of pauses in the fighting in Gaza to allow more aid to flow into the war zone and allow civilians to leave areas under attack.
Mr. Netanyahu refused, U.S. officials said on condition of anonymity, to describe the private conversation in Jerusalem. Mr. Blinken then said he would announce the Biden administration's request in a news conference, prompting Mr. Netanyahu to preempt him with a defiant statement via video. “'I told him, 'We swore, and I swore, to eliminate Hamas,'” Mr. Netanyahu said. “Nothing will stop us.”
This Nov. 3 standoff clearly illustrates the evolving relationship between the United States and its most important partner in the Middle East, a relationship that President Biden has tasked Mr. Blinken with overseeing during a worsening crisis.
Since the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7, Mr. Biden has strongly supported Israel's war in Gaza, in which the Israeli military armed with American weapons has killed more than 22,0000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
But as Mr. Blinken flies to the Middle East for the fourth time since October, Mr. Biden and his aides are increasingly battling with their Israeli counterparts over a range of critical issues, including the need to reduce civilian casualties, the risks of a major regional war and the shape of a post-conflict Gaza Strip.
Those disagreements are likely to continue as Mr. Blinken arrives in Israel amid a week-long marathon of stops: Turkey, Greece, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. He also plans to visit the Palestinian Authority headquarters in the West Bank.
“We do not expect that every conversation on this trip will be easy,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters on Thursday. “The region is obviously facing difficult problems and difficult decisions.”
For Mr. Blinken, it is a New Year's return to the intense shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East that began last fall after two years focused largely on Russia's war in Ukraine and against China. In some ways, it is the most demanding task of his term as foreign minister.
In contrast to the Biden administration's almost unambiguous support for Ukraine, Mr. Blinken is trying to balance support for Israel's war against Hamas with efforts to limit Palestinian suffering. That has led to tensions with some U.S. allies abroad and political pressure at home – even at Blinken's Virginia residence, where protesters near the driveway on Thursday sprayed fake blood on his government SUV and held signs describing him as ” “war criminals”.
State Department officials have sent Mr. Blinken at least three dissenting cables since October objecting to the administration's war policy.
Mr. Miller said Mr. Blinken's priorities in Israel would include discussing “immediate action to significantly increase humanitarian assistance to Gaza” and plans for the “Israeli military's transition to the next phase of operations,” as well as new steps to Protecting civilians and allowing them to return to their homes.
Mr. Blinken will also speak with officials across the region about the release of the 129 hostages, including about eight Americans, who Israel says are still being held in Gaza. And he wants to address the thorny issues of plans to govern Gaza and the prospects for a political solution between Israel and the Palestinians once that conflict is over.
“There will be a lot of difficult conversations,” said Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC
Mr. Elgindy was skeptical that Mr. Blinken could make much progress in achieving greater protection for civilians in Gaza or shaping Israel's post-conflict plans. “I don’t know how well this is going to go because they’ve been having the same conversation for three months and they’re not making much progress,” he said.
The issue that follows the Gaza war may be the most difficult of all. Mr. Biden and Mr. Blinken have renewed their calls for a long-term political solution in which Israel agrees to the creation of a Palestinian state. But Mr. Netanyahu told reporters last month that he was “proud” to have blocked a Palestinian state during his multiple terms as prime minister since the 1990s. “They’re just on different planets,” Mr. Elgindy said.
A major problem is the pressure Mr Netanyahu faces from the right-wing members of his ruling coalition, with whom the Biden administration has become increasingly frustrated. On Tuesday, the State Department sharply reprimanded two Israeli ministers, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, after they spoke out in favor of relocating Palestinians outside the Gaza Strip.
A statement under Mr. Miller's name said her comments were “inflammatory and irresponsible” and said the United States had “stated clearly, consistently and unequivocally that Gaza is and will remain Palestinian land and Hamas is not.” has longer control over its future and without terrorist groups that could threaten Israel.”
In a sign of the obstacles Mr. Blinken faces, Mr. Ben-Gvir, Israel's national security minister, said replied He said on social media that while he admired the United States, “with all due respect, it is not another star in the American flag.”
The Biden administration also fears that the conflict could erupt further across the region. Preventing that was an urgent priority for Mr. Blinken's first trip there, just days after the Hamas rampage in southern Israel.
The risk appeared to subside for several weeks, but has increased again. There was a recent bombing in Lebanon attributed to Israel that killed Saleh al-Arouri, Hamas' deputy political leader. increasingly deadly exchanges of fire between Yemen's Houthi militia and the U.S. military; and continued attacks by militias there on American troops in Iraq and Syria.
These groups are all supported by Iran, which US intelligence officials say does not want a major war. But regional violence could worsen if Hezbollah, a powerful Lebanese militia and Hamas ally, decides to retaliate for the attack against Mr al-Arouri, as it has threatened to do.
And beyond that, Israel has warned the Biden administration that it could attack Hezbollah more harshly if U.S. officials do not convince Hezbollah to end attacks on northern Israel and withdraw from the border.
But even as Mr. Blinken is expected to have tough talks with Mr. Netanyahu, he has continued to approve large arms shipments to Israel without conditions. He is implementing a White House policy that Mr. Biden has overseen because of what aides call the president's decades-long emotional attachment to Israel.
On December 29, the State Department authorized the shipment of $147.5 million worth of 155-millimeter artillery shells and related equipment to Israel, citing an emergency provision to bypass a congressional review process. That move by Mr. Blinken angered some Democratic lawmakers who criticized the Biden administration for its unconditional support for Israeli military operations in Gaza.
Mr. Blinken first invoked an emergency declaration on the Israel-Gaza war on December 8 to bypass Congress and deliver 13,000 rounds of tank ammunition worth more than $106 million to Israel.
As of mid-December, the U.S. government had authorized shipments of about 20,000 air-to-surface munitions since the war began on October 7, according to internal U.S. government reports described by American officials. In many attacks in densely populated Gaza, Israel has dropped 2,000-pound bombs, the largest the military typically uses.
But the State Department has yet to approve Israel's orders for 24,000 assault rifles worth $34 million. The New York Times reported in early November that while the department's office responsible for overseeing arms transfers supported the sale, some members of Congress and U.S. diplomats feared the rifles could end up in the hands of civilian militias trying to do so to expel Palestinians from land in the West Bank. Settler violence against Palestinians had already been increasing before the war and has increased sharply since October 7th.
Mr. Biden has implored the Israeli government to curb the violence, even as far-right Cabinet officials, particularly Mr. Smotrich and Mr. Ben-Gvir, encourage the expansion of West Bank settlements. Mr. Blinken is expected to raise the issue again during his visit.
Edward Wong reported from Washington and aboard the Secretary of State's plane to the Middle East, and Michael Crowley reported from Washington.