U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrapped up a trip to Israel on Friday, having failed to convince Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and the rest of the leadership there to essentially surrender to Hamas.
Members of the Biden administration suffered embarrassment earlier in the morning after their “ceasefire” resolution went down in the flames at the UN. They are such amateurs that they can’t even throw Israel under the bus without screwing it up.
READ: Biden’s Attempt to Throw Isreal Under the Bus Suffers Embarrassing Defeat at the UN
Blinken continued to try, though, meeting with Netanyahu and lecturing him on the finer points of combating Hamas. You know, because if anyone knows about defeating terrorists, it’s the guy who helped lead the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and has more recently overseen the resurgence of the Islamic State.
Here’s a bit of what transpired behind closed doors.
Behind the scenes: Blinken told Netanyahu and the war cabinet that he came to Israel as a friend who spent the past five months defending Israel around the world.
- But he warned that on the current trajectory, without a clear plan for the day after the war, Israel will be left with a major insurgency it can’t handle.
- “You need a coherent plan, or either you’re going to be stuck in Gaza,” Blinken said, according to the source.
This is like a high-school drop-out telling a post-grad how to study. Blinken’s record is one of abject failure. Everything he has touched has turned to rubble, and his only “achievement” has been to empower Iran as a major force in the Middle East. To mouth off to Israel about having a “coherent plan” is laughable. They have a coherent plan. It’s called defeating Hamas in the physical battlespace that exists, which means going into Rafah.
What happens after that? That’s not Israel’s problem, is it? Hamas, which is supported by the vast majority of Palestinians, chose to attack on October 7th. They brought this on themselves, and Israel is not going to stop its mission simply because there’s uncertainty on the horizon. Perhaps the “international community” I’m always hearing about can handle the relief work.
Besides, the idea that Hamas should be left in place lest there be a “major insurgency” is nonsensical. Was what was in Gaza before the war somehow safer? Less violent? Less prone to carry out murderous rampages? Sometimes there is no perfect answer to every concern, and victory is the only path to pursue. If there’s an insurgency, then there’s an insurgency. That’s preferable to having an openly hostile terrorist government operating next door with impunity.
No matter, though. Blinken wants everyone to know that he believes Hamas should be defeated but that defeating Hamas isn’t the right way to do it. Wait, what?
Perhaps if Israel squints really hard and stares at Hamas long enough, they’ll just magically disappear. What is Blinken even trying to say? You can’t kill terrorists without executing a military operation to kill terrorists. Not entering Rafah means allowing Hamas to survive and rebuild. There is no other path to taking them out, which is exactly why the secretary of state doesn’t actually offer an alternative. He doesn’t have one.
Regardless, Netanyahu wasn’t buying Blinken’s “expertise.”
In the end, I think Blinken knows the Israelis aren’t going to listen to his dollar store foreign policy demands. He’s just playing for the cameras, trying to make Iran and the pro-Hamas contingent in the United States feel better. It’s gross but predictable.
