Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken Remarks to the Press

This marks the last day of what’s now been a nine-day trip of intensive diplomacy throughout the Middle East and now here in the Indo-Pacific.

And along the way and at each stop, in different ways, we’ve sought to advance a number of critical objectives:

• minimizing harm to Palestinian civilians and maximizing the humanitarian assistance that reaches them;

  [OCS: Not only is it next to impossible to differentiate between Hamas terrorists and other Palestinian Arab civilians, many of whom are used for human shields, but it was the Palestinian Arab population that openly elected Hamas to represent and govern them and openly celebrated the October 7 terrorist atrocities inflicted on Israel. It has been long established that Hamas steals the great majority of humanitarian aid to distribute among its fighters with open disdain for the Palestinian Arab population – leaving their care and feeding to the United Nations and the “occupiers.” ]

• working to prevent the spread of the conflict;

  [OCS: The spread of any conflict is not in the hands of Hamas, a proxy of Iran, but in the hands of the Mullahs and their Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Unfortunately, both Obama and Biden continue their outrageous negotiations with Iran for little more than a photo-op and worthless piece of paper. Under Obama’s watch, Iran was allowed to move closer to a nuclear weapon, develop ICBMs (InterContinental Ballistic Missiles) capable of reaching the United States, and develop sophisticated weapons of war, which they now export to other countries hostile to the United States. Obama single-handedly rescued Iran’s faltering economy and refused to support a popular uprising that supported regime change. Likewise, President Biden pumped additional billions of dollars into the Iranian economy – full well knowing Iran was killing American citizens.]

• focusing on getting hostages home as well as getting American citizens and other foreign nationals out of Gaza; and

  [OCS: We cannot negotiate with terrorists, and as cruel and heartless as it may seem, alter our national policies to advantage our enemies based on a relatively few hostages.]

• working to set sustainable, durable conditions for genuinely lasting peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

  [OCS: Nothing short of the removal of Israel from the region and the death of all Jews will satisfy Hamas. For those who were awake, the last implicit cease-fire was broken by Hamas with the October 7 attack. And all through the preceding period, unguided rockets were hurled at Israel’s civilian areas.]

To that end, I’ve had conversations starting a week ago with the Israeli Government about steps that can be taken to advance each of these objectives. And among those steps that we talked about more than a week ago were humanitarian pauses. These can advance all of the objectives that I just mentioned. We appreciate the fact that, yesterday, Israel announced four-hour pauses with three-hour notice in specific areas, as well as two humanitarian corridors that will allow people to move more safely and freely to get out of harm’s way and also to access assistance. These steps will save lives and will enable more assistance to get to Palestinians in need.

[OCS: In warfare, there is no such thing as a scheduled “humanitarian pause.” Not only is this a time for your enemies to re-group and re-arm, but it is time for terrorists to slip the cordon to be exfiltrated with civilians.]

At the same time, much more needs to be done to protect civilians and to make sure that humanitarian assistance reaches them. Far too many Palestinians have been killed; far too many have suffered these past weeks. And we want to do everything possible to prevent harm to them and to maximize the assistance that gets to them.

[OCS: Does the clueless Blinken understand that any humanitarian aid must flow through the governing body of Gaza – and that body is Hamas?]

To that end, we’ll be continuing to discuss with Israel concrete steps that can be taken to advance these objectives. We’ll continue to focus relentlessly on getting our hostages home. We’ll continue to focus on expanding humanitarian assistance that gets into Gaza and reaches people in effective ways. And we’ll continue to focus on the steps that can be taken now to try to start to set the foundation for durable and lasting peace, which, as we’ve said repeatedly and believe, has to include two states for two peoples. <Source: The Department of State>

[OCS: No! To that end, you should leave it to Israel to manage its own affairs in the region and concentrate your time, energy, and military assets on Iran. Repelling Houthi attacks on our unarmed observation drones flying in international airspace.]