Blinken pushes back on criticism of US support for Israel

At a year-end-press conference, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken pushed back on criticism of American support for Israel’s military operation in Gaza.

He was speaking as UN diplomats scrambled to avoid another US veto on a ceasefire resolution.

"I hear no-one demanding of Hamas that it stop hiding behind civilians, lay down its arms and surrender,” he said. “This would be over tomorrow if that happened.”

“How can it be that there are no demands made of the aggressor and only demands of the victim,” he added, stressing that the Hamas attack on 7 October started the war.

Blinken said the US had been at the forefront of getting humanitarian aid into Gaza and wanted to make sure that the UN resolution “advances that effort and…doesn’t make it more complicated.”

He repeated the administration’s position that Israel must do more to protect civilians, but that it had a right and duty to fight this war.

“Understandably everyone would like to see this conflict end as quickly as possible,” he said. “But if it ends with Hamas in place with the capacity to do 7 October (attacks) again and again, that’s not in the interests of the region or the world.”

The Hamas government media office has just announced that the number of people killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza has now exceeded 20,000.

  • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]
    ·
    7 months ago

    This would be over tomorrow if that happened

    I love this kind of room temperature IQ postulating. No kidding, tony, if the resistance stopped the resistance would stop? Blowing my mind here. What if Israel just stopped being Israel and became Palestine? I think this would be over then, too.

    • Infamousblt [any]
      ·
      7 months ago

      If those pesky Hamas rebels would just LET us genocide them, the violence would be over!

    • Adkml [he/him]
      ·
      7 months ago

      Also this is like thenone situation where even that isn't true.

      Even if every single legitimate member of hamas laid down their arms and agreed to stop fighting you know what would happen the next day.

      Isreal would bomb innocent people, drive them out of their homes, execute them and then claim they were all members of hamas.

      Wanna know how I know?

      Because that's what they were doing for decades before this "inciting incident"

  • CommunistBear [he/him]
    ·
    7 months ago

    Man, it's so convenient to lying when your whole timeline of history starts and stops whenever you want

    • InevitableSwing [none/use name]
      hexagon
      ·
      edit-2
      7 months ago

      The media takes dictation of this authority figure spewing up fountains of shit and the media is so confused why the public doesn't trust authority figures or the media. It's quite the mystery.

    • voight [he/him, any]
      ·
      7 months ago

      I realized I was on completely different pages when I was talking to someone over 50 about the genocide rn and she was like of course it's awful but do you really think the secretary of state would lie about babies being beheaded 😶

      like how many examples do you want lmfao vietnam iraq libya whole bunch of WILD examples they should know better about being older

  • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
    ·
    7 months ago

    Killing everyone in French because I haven't yet heard anyone tell the French Resistance to stop doing terrorism and lay down their arms already.

    • casskaydee [she/her]
      ·
      7 months ago

      Killing everyone in French

      Nice, I love that Talking Heads song

  • Evilphd666 [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    They did let some go...as a test and all they got was multitudes more Palestinians killed and kidnapped, along with the IOF shitting their pants and started-blasting at their own people.

    What say you blinken

    ....... blinken-pain [we continue to steadfastly support isntrael right to defend itself...)

    nazi-punching

  • ChairmanSpongebob [he/him]
    ·
    7 months ago

    yeah, wouldn't that legitimize the collective punishment of Gaza's civilians if they did that?

  • star_wraith [he/him]
    ·
    7 months ago

    Someone like Pompeo or whoever Trump would put in that role might use different words but will be operating in the same way as Blinken.

  • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    "Started the war" can't really be said 70 years late and have it mean anything, Blinkin. Imagine if we did it for other multi generational conflicts? Saying the conflict over northern Ireland started in the 1970s while the ghost of Cromwell says "am I a joke to you?"

    The selective historical memory that liberalism requires is always infuriating. Because they'll talk a big game about the 1619 project being necessary to understand racism in the 21st century and then turn around and say shit like this.