Offering a pathway to a Palestinian state is the best way to stabilise the wider region and isolate Iran and its proxies, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday. He made his comment as he ended his latest frenetic regional tour in Cairo.
Shuttling between Israel and Arab states, Blinken has been pushing for a way forward from the bloodshed in Gaza, even as the conflict threatens to spread further to Lebanon, Iraq and Red Sea shipping lanes.
Speaking to reporters after meeting Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, Blinken said that the region faced two paths, the first of which would see “Israel integrated, with security assurances and commitments from regional countries and as well from the United States; and a Palestinian state, at least a pathway to get to that state. The other path is to continue to see the terrorism, the nihilism, the destruction by Hamas, by the Houthis, by Hezbollah, all backed by Iran.”
He said that if the first path is pursued, “That’s the single best way to isolate, to marginalise Iran and the proxies that are making so much trouble for us and for pretty much everyone else in the region.”
Critics pointed out that the top US diplomat is basically placing all the blame for the current “trouble” on everyone but the apartheid state of Israel. “Blinken is effectively ignoring 75 years of Zionist terrorism and military occupation in the region,” said one.
Blinken’s visit came a day after Egypt and Jordan warned that Israel’s military campaign, which has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians according to Gaza’s health ministry, must not displace the Strip’s 2.3 million people or end in a physical Israeli occupation.
Israel and its US backers have insisted that this is not Israel’s plan. However, Egypt has grown alarmed as more Palestinians in Gaza are driven towards its border with the enclave.
READ: Jordan summit warns against Israel’s reoccupation of Gaza Strip