RSS
The 11th Blinken Visit Was No Better Than the First 10
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Doha, Qatar, October 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Nathan Howard/Pool
He’s gone. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken went to Qatar and then to Jordan to dissect his meetings in Israel. What have we learned? What has he learned?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu politely called the talks with Blinken “friendly and productive.” Indeed, Blinken started with, “Israel has achieved important strategic objectives to ensure that October 7th can never happen again.” But he quickly moved on.
“Now is the time to end the war, get the hostages home, and chart a new path forward that enables the Palestinian people to rebuild their lives.”
According to a State Department spokesman, Blinken told Israel “to capitalize on” the killing of Hamas’ leader, Yahya Sinwar, by “ending the war.” He also demanded that the Israeli Prime Minister disavow a proposal by an IDF general for a “buffer zone” in northern Gaza. They discussed “ongoing efforts” in Lebanon to “reach a diplomatic resolution along the Blue Line that includes full implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 and allows civilians on both sides of the border to return to their homes.”
Second point first: Blinken missed the fact that Hezbollah started the war, and that all of the illegality – all of the terror and rocket attacks, the weapons-caching, the internationally outlawed activity housing military arsenals inside civilian spaces and shelling civilian homes in the Galilee – is going on north of the Blue Line. Hezbollah and Iran, by the way, reject ceasefire talks altogether.
First point: Sinwar’s death has little to do with “ending the war” at the moment. There are no ceasefire talks that might end in a release of the hostages. The New York Times helpfully justified Hamas’ reticence, reminding its readers that “it remained unclear whether Hamas was willing to re-engage in the long-stalled talks after Israel killed its leader.”
It doesn’t really matter. Hamas is still shooting at the IDF and its own civilians, and still stealing food and medical aid.
So, the war continues.
Hamas had been reestablishing itself in north Gaza, primarily in the Jabaliya refugee camp, making the Palestinian civilian population into human shields, as they were before. And when hundreds of Gazans headed toward the safe zones in the south, as instructed by the IDF, the incubi of Hamas shot at the fleeing civilians.
The IDF tended to the wounded.
In the past two weeks, the IDF has neutralized approximately 300 terrorists; hundreds more surrendered. Most are Hamas but there are also members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). The IDF believes the current operation will help ensure that Hamas a) will no longer be able to fire rockets at Israel from Gaza, and b) will no longer be able to dominate, steal, and sell humanitarian aid.
That last point should make Secretary Blinken happy – as the administration has been blaming Israel for food shortages in north Gaza.
In a letter dated October 13, the Biden administration warned that Israel must “reverse the downward humanitarian trajectory” or there would be “implications” for the future disbursement of “U.S. ordnance and financial aid.”
The State Department has designated staff to audit Israel’s delivery of aid to Gaza – though no similar audit of Hamas thievery appears to have occurred.
“We’ve had periods before where the Israelis have increased what they’re doing only to see it fall back,” said Blinken – with no comment about how Hamas behavior might conceivably impact deliveries.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, on NBC News, warned Israel to “balance its security concerns with humanitarian obligations.” He balanced his urging with a warning that the international community is watching.
The “international community” should, in fact, be watching the actual culprit: Hamas.
Yes, there are hungry people in the middle of the battle that Hamas has chosen to inflict on its people, but there is no famine, no starvation, and Israel has done an extraordinary job supplying food and medicine to the people. The UN and its friends, less so in the distribution.
After Blinken’s return to Washington, it is always worth quoting Sir Winston Churchill: “It is not the beginning of the end, but it may be the end of the beginning.”
Chair of urban warfare studies at West Point, John Spencer, was a bit more optimistic:
Hamas is clearly broken … But peace only ultimately comes if Hamas is prevented from regaining political or military power in Gaza. This could be the beginning of the end, though a lot still must happen.
Spencer concludes:
Wars are won when the enemy loses the means and will to continue fighting violently toward what are in essence political goals. There will be no cease in the cycle of violence without the full military and political defeat of Hamas.
In sum, in his 11th visit to Israel since the 10/7 Hamas pogrom, Blinken shows evidence that he learned little in the first 10.
Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of The Jewish Policy Center and Editor of inFOCUS Quarterly magazine.
The post The 11th Blinken Visit Was No Better Than the First 10 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
The post Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
The post Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
The post Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.