U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken brought his frantic Middle East diplomacy push on the Israel-Hamas war to the occupied West Bank on Sunday, meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in his latest attempt to ease the suffering of civilians in the Gaza Strip and began planning a post-conflict scenario for the area.
Blinken traveled to Ramallah for his previously unannounced visit in an armored motorcade and amid tight security, just hours after Israeli warplanes attacked a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 40 people and wounding dozens, health officials said. Despite the State Department’s secrecy and refusal to confirm the trip until Blinken had physically left the West Bank, protests against his visit and US support for Israel erupted when news of his arrival leaked.
Aside from pleasantries, neither man said a word as they greeted each other in front of the cameras, and the meeting ended without any public comment. It was not immediately clear whether the lack of words suggested the meeting had gone badly.
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Husam Zomlot, Palestinian ambassador to the United Kingdom, told “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the meeting was tense “because there are differences.”
“Our president called for an immediate ceasefire in the face of Israel’s cruel, murderous attack on our civilians and people,” Zomlot said. “This is not a war against Hamas. It has been clear since the beginning that this is a war against our people, not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank.”
Zomlot said the U.S. has a chance to be a peacemaker and that the Palestinians and Israelis need “an adult in the room, and that is the U.S.”
Blinken then made an unannounced visit to Cyprus, where he was greeted by Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides and Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos, whom he invited back to the plane for a meeting.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas at Muqata in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, November 5, 2023. JONATHAN ERNST / Portal
He then traveled to Baghdad for another surprise visit, where he met Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shiaa al-Sudani. “The minister called on the prime minister to hold to account those responsible for the ongoing attacks on US personnel in Iraq,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement. They also discussed the need to prevent the spread of the Israel-Hamas conflict and the humanitarian situation in Gaza, including “the need to ensure that Palestinians are not forcibly expelled from Gaza,” Miller said.
At a news conference in Baghdad, Blinken called it a “good, productive, open meeting.”
“I have made it very clear that the attacks and threats from militias allied with Iran are completely unacceptable,” Blinken said, adding: “We do not seek conflict with Iran.”
A humanitarian pause in the fighting in Gaza could “improve the prospect of returning hostages to Israel” and also help Palestinians who are desperately in need of aid, Blinken said, noting that “we have about 100 trucks a day that arrive there. That’s good, but it’s completely inadequate.”
At the meeting with Abbas, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Blinken reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to providing life-saving humanitarian assistance and resuming essential services in Gaza and made clear that Palestinians should not be forcibly displaced.
Blinken and Abbas discussed efforts to restore calm and stability in the West Bank, including the need to stop extremist violence against Palestinians and hold those responsible accountable, Miller said, referring to violence committed by Israeli settlers.
The meeting with Abbas, whose Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority has not played a role in Gaza since Hamas’s violent takeover in 2007, came at the start of Blinken’s third day of an intensive Middle East tour – his second since a surprise Hamas attack began in the war on Israel on October 7th. Blinken visited Israel and met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday before heading to Jordan on Saturday for meetings with senior Arab officials.
At each stop, Blinken has expressed clear U.S. support for Israel’s right to self-defense, but also stressed that it must abide by the laws of war, protect civilians and increase humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza. To achieve this and ease the flow of foreigners fleeing Gaza, he argues that Israel should institute rolling humanitarian pauses in its airstrikes and ground operations, something Netanyahu has so far flatly rejected.
U.S. officials believe Netanyahu could soften his opposition if he can be persuaded that it is in Israel’s strategic interest to ease the plight of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The rapidly rising death toll sparked growing outrage around the world. Over the weekend, tens of thousands took to the streets from Washington to Berlin to demand an immediate ceasefire.
The Arab foreign ministers of Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, whom Blinken met in Amman on Saturday, also expressed the same demands.
But Blinken said the US would not push for it.
“We now believe that a ceasefire would simply leave Hamas in place and able to regroup and repeat what it did on October 7,” he said. Instead, he said temporary humanitarian pauses in fighting were critical to protecting civilians, bringing in aid and getting foreigners out, “while enabling Israel to achieve its goal of defeating Hamas.”
Arab officials said it was far too early to discuss one of Blinken’s top agenda items, Gaza’s postwar future. Ending the killing and restoring continuous humanitarian assistance are urgent and must be addressed first, they said.
“How can we even imagine what will happen next?” said Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi. “We need to get our priorities straight.”
Arab states are resisting American proposals to play a larger role in resolving the crisis. They express outrage at the civilian casualties of Israeli military operations, but believe that Gaza is largely a problem of Israel’s own making.
But U.S. officials believe that Arab support, no matter how modest, will be crucial to efforts to ease deteriorating conditions in Gaza and lay the foundation for what Hamas will become as the territory’s governing body would replace if Israel succeeds in eradicating the group.
There are still hardly any ideas about future governance in the Gaza Strip. Blinken and other U.S. officials offer a vague outline that it could be a combination of a revived Palestinian Authority, international organizations and possibly a peacekeeping force. U.S. officials admit that these ideas have been met with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.
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