The Financial Times newspaper revealed the extent of the differences and gap between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, and the deep divisions between Israel and the United States, during the US Secretary’s recent visit to the region.
While the United States has been Israel’s strongest ally since the October 7 attack, the conclusion of Blinken’s visit to Tel Aviv clearly demonstrated the deep divisions between the two countries.
According to the newspaper, a day after the meetings between American and Israeli officials, Netanyahu and Blinken held separate press conferences, which revealed their differences on issues ranging from the next phase of the war to how to secure the release of detainees held by Hamas in Gaza.
“This trip reflects how difficult this entire diplomatic process is,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former State Department official.
He added, “It is the two belligerents who determine the arc of this crisis. While the United States played, and continues to play, an important role, I think we have to be very vigilant about assessing the degree to which Washington can fundamentally change the course of this crisis.” Financial Times.
In another sign of the gap between the two allies, US President Joe Biden later on Thursday described Israel’s military response in Gaza as “excessive”, one of his harshest criticisms of the Israeli attack to date.
“There are too many innocent people starving, too many innocent people getting into trouble and dying, and it has to stop,” Biden told reporters at the White House.
Back in Israel, the stark difference between Blinken and Netanyahu was their assessment of the latest conditions offered by Hamas for the release of nearly 130 of its detainees, not all of whom are alive.
Blinken said that while the proposal – which called for a 135-day cessation of hostilities, the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Gaza, and the release of at least 1,500 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons – contained some “firsts,” it nonetheless offered “ Space to reach an agreement.
However, Netanyahu rejected these proposals, describing them as “fake.”
Instead, Netanyahu insisted that the only way to free the prisoners was “total victory” over Hamas, adding that to achieve this, Israel would expand its military operations to include the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, where more than a million displaced Gazans live in squalid conditions.
This, in turn, contradicts the efforts made by American officials over the past few months to persuade Israel to reduce the intensity of the fighting.
Blinken reiterated his concerns about the civilian death toll in Gaza on Wednesday evening, warning bluntly that “it cannot serve as a license to dehumanize others.”
Pointing to the Biden administration’s growing frustration with Netanyahu and far-right members of his coalition, such as Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, Blinken also said he had raised “our deep concerns about actions and rhetoric, including from government officials,” fueling tensions that are undermining international support. For Israel.
