Blinken Meets With Palestinian Leader in Effort To Map Out Plans for Post-Hamas Gaza

Secretary of State Blinken brought his frenetic Mideast diplomatic push on the Israel-Hamas war to the West Bank on Sunday, meeting with the Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, in his latest bid to begin sketching out a post-conflict scenario for the territory.Mr. Blinken traveled to Ramallah for his previously unannounced visit in an armored motorcade and under tight security just hours after Israeli warplanes struck Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip.Aside from pleasantries, neither man spoke as they greeted each other in front of cameras and the meeting ended without any public comment. It was not immediately clear if the lack of words indicated the meeting had gone poorly.A State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, said that Mr. Blinken reaffirmed the American commitment to the delivery of humanitarian assistance and resumption of essential services in Gaza and made clear that Palestinians must not be forcibly displaced.Messrs. 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 accountable responsible, Mr. Miller said.The meeting with Mr. Abbas, whose Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority has not been a factor in Gaza since Hamas took over Gaza by force in 2007, came at the start of Mr. Blinken’s third day of an intense Middle East tour — his second since the war began with a surprise Hamas attack on Israel on October 7. Mr. Blinken visited Israel and met with Prime Minister Netanyahu on Friday before decamping to Jordan for meetings with senior Arab officials on Saturday.At each stop, Mr. Blinken has offered firm American support for Israel’s right to defend itself but also stressed that it must adhere to the laws of war, protect civilians, and increase humanitarian aid supplies to Gaza. To do that, as well as to ease the flow of foreigners fleeing Gaza, he has made the case that Israel should implement rolling humanitarian pauses to its airstrikes and ground operations, something that Mr. Netanyahu has thus far rejected.American officials believe that Mr. Netanyahu may soften his opposition if he can be convinced that it is in Israel’s strategic interests to ease the plight of Palestinian Arab civilians in Gaza. The conflict has sparked growing international anger, with tens of thousands from Washington to Berlin taking to the streets over the weekend to demand an immediate cease-fire.The Arab foreign ministers — from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates — with whom Mr. Blinken met with on Saturday at Amman issued the same demand. Yet Mr. Blinken said that America would not push for a ceasefire.“It is our view now that a cease-fire would simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on October 7,” he said. Instead he said that temporary humanitarian pauses in fighting would be critical to protecting civilians, getting aid in and getting foreign nationals out “while still enabling Israel to achieve its objective, the defeat of Hamas.”Arab officials said it was far too soon to discuss one of Mr. Blinken’s main agenda items, Gaza’s postwar future. Stopping the killing and restoring steady humanitarian aid are immediate needs that must be addressed first, they said.“How can we even entertain what will happen next?” said Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman al-Safadi. “We need to get our priorities straight.”Arab states are resisting American suggestions that they play a larger role in resolving the crisis, expressing outrage at the civilian toll that they lay to the Israeli military operations but calling Gaza a problem largely of Israel’s own making.American officials believe Arab backing, no matter how modest, will be critical to efforts to ease the worsening conditions in Gaza and lay the groundwork for what would replace Hamas as the territory’s governing authority when Israel succeeds in eradicating the group.Ideas on Gaza’s future governance are few and far between. Mr. Blinken and other American officials are offering a vague outline that it might include a combination of a revitalized Palestinian Authority along with international organizations and potentially a peacekeeping force. They acknowledged, however, that these ideas have been met with a lack of enthusiasm.

Blinken Meets With Palestinian Leader in Effort To Map Out Plans for Post-Hamas Gaza

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