The Blinken Mission // Advancing Middle East Peace or Coddling Palestinian Extremism?

Over the years, numerous senior US government officials have visited the Middle East, hoping to advance the cause of peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. Is there any reason to believe that the visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week has any more chance of success than those of his many predecessors?

Blinken’s visit did not get off to an auspicious start. Upon landing in Israel, the secretary of state issued a statement about the latest violence in the region—but he pointed a finger at both sides, instead of differentiating between Palestinian aggression and Israeli self-defense actions.

“It is the responsibility of everyone to take steps to calm tensions rather than inflame them,” Blinken said. “That is the only way to halt the rising tide of violence that has taken too many lives—too many Israelis, too many Palestinians.”

Former Israeli diplomat Alan Baker told Ami that the State Department has “a tradition to try to keep ‘balanced’ in order to retain their credibility as peace brokers,” but there is also a “possibility” that Blinken’s statement could be understood as implying a moral equivalency between the Israelis murdered in Neve Yaakov and Arab terrorists who have been killed while attacking Israelis.

Secretary Blinken also raised some eyebrows with his remark concerning the Palestinian Arab celebrations of the Neve Yaakov massacre. “We condemn all those who celebrate these and any other acts of terrorism that take innocent lives, no matter who the victim is or what they believe,” Blinken said. He refrained from acknowledging that the Palestinians were the ones who were celebrating or that Palestinian leaders were encouraging them.

 A senior American Jewish leader, speaking off the record, told Ami that “it is imperative to name the perpetrators in order to hold them to account.” He added: “All ‘sides’ do not celebrate loss of lives even in responses to terrorist outrages. Such celebrations not only cheapen life but encourage other would-be murderers to act. This is not martyrdom, it is barbarism.”

Ambassador Baker, who previously served as deputy director of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, agreed: “[Secretary Blinken] should have specifically mentioned the Palestinian celebrations. His political correctness, from the time of Obama, is offensive.”

Flying Flags

The news of the Neve Yaakov slaughter was greeted with mass celebrations in the streets of Palestinian Authority-controlled towns throughout Judea-Samaria and in Hamas-run Gaza. Televised scenes showed large crowds singing and dancing, young people setting off firecrackers and starting bonfires, and Arab storekeepers distributing free candies and pastries to passersby.

Many of the celebrants were waving the flags of the PLO or Hamas. Ironically, Israel’s new National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was widely criticized when he recently authorized the Israeli police to prevent the display of the PLO flag in situations where it was being used to incite support for terrorism. Amnesty International called the Israeli minister’s policy decision “a shameless attempt to legitimize racism,” and US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) placed a PLO flag in front of her office on Capitol Hill to protest what she called “Israeli apartheid.” But the appearance of PLO flags at this week’s pro-terror rallies appeared to substantiate Ben-Gvir’s concerns.

Stephen M. Flatow, a leading spokesman for American victims of Palestinian Arab terrorism, argued in a recent article that terror-supporters “have chosen to wield the PLO flag as a symbol of hatred and a means of inspiring violence.” He compared it to decisions by state and city governments in the American South to prohibit the public display of the Confederate flag.

“The weaponization of flags for incitement, whether by violent white supremacists in the American South or by violent Palestinian Arabs, is unacceptable,” argued Flatow, whose daughter, Alisa, was murdered by Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists in 1995.

Terror and Incitement

Many American news media reports about the Neve Yaakov massacre portrayed it as a response to a recent incident in which Israeli security forces were attacked by terrorists in the PA city of Jenin. The Israelis shot back, killing eight terrorists. One bystander was killed in the crossfire. Secretary Blinken’s reference to “the rising tide of violence” that has “taken too many lives—too many Israelis, too many Palestinians” seemed to be bracketing the Neve Yaakov victims and the Jenin terrorists together.

But supporters of Israel point out that the problem of Arab terrorists operating openly in PA areas, and the PA praising and financing them, has been going on since long before the recent Jenin episode. In 2022 alone, there were more than 300 Palestinian Arab shooting attacks against Israelis in Judea-Samaria. That number is separate from the more numerous firebombing and rock-throwing attacks.

In response to an upsurge of terrorist activity in early 2022, the government of then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett launched “Operation Break the Wave,” which involves sending Israeli soldiers into PA cities in pursuit of terrorists when the PA security forces fail to apprehend them.

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