From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Blinken: Israelis must abandon myth that they can carry out de facto annexation without cost
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken pans both the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority for some of their policies over the past several years.
“Israelis must abandon the myth that they can carry out de facto annexation without cost and consequence to Israel’s democracy, to its standing and to its security,” Blinken says in a speech at the Atlantic Council reviewing his Mideast policy.
“Israel is expanding official settlements and nationalizing land at a faster clip than any time in the last decade, while turning a blind eye to unprecedented growth in illegal outposts. Violent attacks by extremist settlers against Palestinian civilians have reached record levels,” he laments.
Blinken says Israel’s refusal to allow the Palestinian Authority to gain a foothold in Gaza and to accept a time-bound, conditions-based approach for Palestinian statehood has prevented other international actors from accepting Israel’s call to help rebuild Gaza.
He acknowledges that some in Israel argue that heeding those requests would amount to a reward for Hamas. However, Blinken argues that Hamas is opposed to the two-state solution for which the international community has advocated and sought to quash with the October 7 onslaught.
“Israel’s government has systematically undermined the capacity and legitimacy of the only viable alternative to Hamas — the Palestinian Authority,” Blinken says, pointing to Israel’s withholding of hundreds of millions of dollars in Palestinian tax revenues that belong to the PA.
“Israelis must decide what relationship they want with the Palestinians. That cannot be the illusion that Palestinians will accept being a non-people without national rights. Seven million Israeli Jews and some 5 million Palestinians are rooted in the same land. Neither is going anywhere,” he says.
As for the PA, Blinken says it “repeatedly failed to undertake long-overdue reforms,” including ones to rein in corruption, decrease bloated bureaucracy and alter its welfare program to cease payments to security prisoners based on the severity of their attack against Israelis.
He also blasts the PA for refusing to consistently and unequivocally condemn Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, saying it “only entrenched doubts among Israelis that the two communities can ever live side by side in peace.”
