Blinken’s Follies

The State Department doesn’t know which war it is fighting

Secretary of State Blinken just finished his Mideast tour and a comparison of his statements after meeting with the democratically elected Israeli government on the one hand and the Palestinian leader who is in the second decade of his four year term on the other hand will give all US allies and enemies a preview of what it means to be – a friend or an enemy of the United States.  Worse than that – Blinken shows that he has no clue what the war is all about.

Blinken started his post-October 7 involvement with three main policy goals in mind.   The first was that Israel destroy Hamas, or at least their military capabilities in Gaza.  The second was to return all of the hostages and the third to prevent a wider regional war.   The US government still holds these as its official policy goals, but let us compare the two statements as found on the State Department website to see how these goals are communicated to the various sides in the war.   Further, lets examine what is actually going on in the region to see if any of these goals is being met or in fact, even being supported by the actual Blinken foreign policy.

Starting with the statement made in Ramallah, Blinken is very careful not to condemn or even criticize any policy or statement made by the Palestinian Authority or even mention Hamas as the cause of the conflict.

“Secretary Blinken discussed ongoing efforts to minimize civilian harm in Gaza and accelerate and increase the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians throughout Gaza.”

Vanilla enough as it goes but it avoids of course the main issue which is how to get humanitarian aide to the civilians without aiding the Hamas war effort which theoretically goes against the Blinken war aim of defeating Hamas.   The fact that it is Hamas that takes the aide and doesn’t allow it to be distributed fairly to needy Gazans is not of course mentioned.  

As for minimizing civilian harm in Gaza, again, there is no outright mention of the main reason for civilian deaths and casualties which is the fact that Hamas has militarized nearly every building in Gaza – and what is under these buildings. 

In his statement after the meeting in Israel, Blinken admits that Hamas is at fault for the high civilian casualties – he says:

“We know that facing an enemy that embeds itself among civilians – who hides in and fires from schools, from hospitals – makes this incredibly challenging.”

But then comes the “but” – “But the daily toll on civilians in Gaza, particularly on children, is far too high”.

The “but” should have been in the PA statement blaming Hamas and not there.  That this  but puts the onus on Israel and not Hamas is clear as light.

Regarding humanitarian aide to Gaza the onus is put directly on Israel – even the part about getting to the right people:

“Nonetheless, 90 percent of Gaza’s population continues to face acute food insecurity, according to the United Nations.  For children, the effects of long periods without sufficient food can have lifelong consequences. 

As I underscored in our meetings today, more food, more water, more medicine, other essential goods need to get into Gaza.  And then once they’re in Gaza, they need to get more effectively to the people who need them. 

And Israel needs to do everything it can to remove any obstacles from crossings to other parts of Gaza.  Improving deconfliction procedures to ensure that the aid can move safely and securely is a critical part of that.”

One wonders how one unilaterally improves “deconfliction procedures”  in a war zone – especially one fought for the first time in history underground.   

But the coup de grace in the humanitarian aide part of the statement is this:

“The United Nations is playing an indispensable role in addressing the immense humanitarian needs in Gaza.  There is simply no alternative.

UN personnel and other aid workers in Gaza are demonstrating extraordinary courage by continuing to provide lifesaving services in what are extremely challenging conditions.”

The UN in Gaza is mostly if not exclusively, UNRWA. UNRWA has taken responsibility for education, health and welfare of a vast majority of Gazans.  According to the UNRWA website they operate 183 schools in Gaza, serving 291,000 students and employ nearly 9,500 personnel.   Nearly all of these “schools” are, first and foremost military bases.  Each of the “Schools” damaged or destroyed during this war have had tunnels underneath them – connected to the vast command and control tunnel network that Hamas has built.   Many are over the strategic north-south tunnels that are key to providing military supplies to Hamas.  Each and every one has large arms caches either in classrooms or in tunnel entrances in these classrooms.  Most of them have rooms setup  as machine gun nests, centers for mortar or anti-tank fire.  Yards and playgrounds serve the same “educational” services.

Further, UN Watch has uncovered an UNRWA teachers Telegram group in which some 3,000 teachers approve and celebrate the rape and massacres of October 7.  The terrorists are praised as “heroes” and they glorify the “education the terrorists received, gleefully sharing photos of dead or captured Israelis and urging the execution of hostages”.  One teacher is quoted as urging Gazans “not to heed warnings to move out of harm’s way”.

There is simply no alternative?  How does the US Secretary of State states that without at least condemning the UN for the horrendous job they have done in Gaza?  How does he state that and ignore the clear connection between UNRWA and Hamas?  One has to wonder what “extraordinary courage” the UN workers are demonstrating when it has been fully documented that the moment the aide trucks enter Gaza they are commandeered by Hamas – even shooting and killing civilians who are trying to get food for their families?

But, Blinken continues that he has spoke with Sigrid Kaag, the new UN Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza whom he knows and praises from her  previous work in Syria.  One has to wonder if the families of the 300,000 dead Syrian civilians or the 5 million refugees to foreign countries and the 6 million internally displaced Syrians (out of a pre-war population of 22 million) has similar praises for her work there.

Further, he has indicated that the UN will “carry out an assessment mission” that will “determine what needs to be done to allow displaced Palestinians to return safely to homes in the north”. 

The UN, funded mostly by US taxpayers is an active supporter of Hamas in Gaza and neither UNRWA nor the UN itself have demands made upon them by the US government to correct the crimes they have committed there.   Sorry boys … there is no alternative.

All the demands are made on Israel and none on the Palestinian Authority or the UN even though both groups supported Hamas on October 7 and both groups continue to condemn Israel and the US. 

In any event,  how are Blinken’s war goals going?

The first war goal was the destruction of Hamas – or at least its military capabilities.   The IDF is doing a good albeit slow job of literally rooting out Hamas from the ground of Gaza.  It is doing so despite the encouragement given by Blinken and Co. as it publicly pressures and castigates Israel for fulfilling its own and a US policy goal of destroying Hamas.

The second goal is the full return of the hostages.   Rather than pressuring Qatar, who provides homes for the Senior Hamas operatives to release the hostages quickly it has pressured Israel at every step of the way to appease Hamas by being less violent in its treatment of the terrorist organization.  Politico is even quoting US intelligence sources (On Hamas, what did Qatar know and when did it know it?)  as saying that the Qataris knew a lot more about October 7 than they let on.  However, Qatar is one of those countries he has visited and spoken to who are “committed to using their influence, using the ties that they have to prevent it from escalating, to deter new fronts from opening”.  Nice to be able to play both sides. 

The third goal was to prevent a regional war.   Well… we have a regional war and have had it from the start.  Over the last three months, aside from fighting Iranian supplied Hamas in Gaza, Israel has been at war daily with Iranian supplied Hamas and Islamic Jihad as well as Abu Mazen’s Fatah in the West Bank:  With Iranian funded and armed Hezbollah in Lebanon: With Iranian backed Shiite militias in Syria and with Iranian armed Houthis in Yemen.   Jordan has been fighting Iranian backed Shiite militias on its border with Syria.   US bases are under near daily attack by Iranian backed Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria.   Cargo ships in the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea experience constant attacks from Houthis in Yemen.  Iran itself has attacked ships off the coast of India.

Do we need to repeat the common denominator here?   Iran has started and continues the regional war on multiple fronts and Israel is the country that needs to make “difficult decisions”. 

We can expand the region just a bit and speak of Iranian terror in Pakistan, its border dispute with Afghanistan.   We haven’t even spoken of the horrific war being fought in the Sudan or with that is going on in Libya where the Russians and Iranians are also involved.  And then there is Africa

The regional war is upon us and only the Blinken State Department refuses to accept it.

All Blinken can say is:

“If Israel wants its Arab neighbors to make the tough decisions necessary to help ensure its lasting security, Israeli leaders will have to make hard decisions themselves”.

Yet – this war is not Israel vs the Arabs, it is Israel and the rest of the West vs Iran.  It is just part of the Axis vs the West.

Pretending it isn’t so, doesn’t make it not so.