Blinken to visit Mideast with ‘two-state’ agenda
WASHINGTON/GAZA CITY: US secretary of state Antony Blinken, speaking ahead of a trip to West Asia, reaffirmed on Sunday US support for a two-state solution as the only way to provide hope to Israelis and Palestinians that they can live “with equal measures of security, of peace and dignity”.
His remarks came days after Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire, halting 11 days of mutual bombardment that killed more than 200 Palestinians.
“If there isn’t positive change, and particularly if we can’t find a way to help Palestinians live with more... with more dignity and with more hope, this cycle is likely to repeat itself, and that is in no one’s interest,” Blinken said on ABC’S This Week.
Blinken’s support for a twostate solution - the vision of Israel and a Palestinian state living peacefully side by side restates a long-time US goal, though he conceded that this was not “necessarily for today”.
But his remarks about “equal measures” for Israelis and Palestinians seemed to shift the tone, at least, from former US president Donald Trump’s administration, which cut aid to the Palestinian Authority and issued a Mideast East peace plan with strong Israeli backing but no support from Palestinians.
Meanwhile, a UN official in war-hit Gaza called for a “genuine political process” to avert further bloodshed after the military conflict between Israel and Islamist group Hamas that ravaged the Palestinian enclave.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, told AFP that the reconstruction needed to go hand in hand with efforts to create “a different political environment”.