Was Antony Blinken bamboozled or complicit?

In the annals of cynical diplomacy, which have long dominated the profession at large, Israel's Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has earned a special, possibly unique place of distinction. Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made him an offer he likely wouldn't refuse: to dissemble sheepishly while privately laughing. Sure enough, the p.m. shook Blinken's hand, grabbed the offer and ran with it.

The at-hand issue concerned not some throwaway dispute between Israel and the world, such as the many U.N. resolutions Netanyahu's government has illegally ignored for decades, but potentially the outbreak of a major Middle East war, sucking in Iran, Syria, Lebanon and the United States.

Blinken's proffered demand, which he described as "the toughest to date," was that Israel devise a "clear plan" for minimizing civilian deaths before the Israel Defense Forces resumed their assault on Gaza. According to The Washington Post, his demand "resulted in concrete assurances that they would change how their war is waged."

What The Post neglected — Blinken too, possibly — is that the concrete will never harden. Netanyahu will persist in pouring vats of Palestinian blood into the mixture to keep the body count flowing smoothly. He knew that, of course, as he shook Blinken's hand.   

The proof of Netanyahu's betrayal was immediate. The next morning, this morning, the temporary cease-fire between Israel and Hamas unraveled; both sides blaming the other for having violated its terms. "Moments after the deadline passed," reports The NY Times, "Israeli airstrikes soon thundered again across the battered coastal strip."

Also immediate was the Gaza Health Ministry's announcement that 109 Palestinians had been killed in the strikes, and hundreds wounded. The IDF simultaneously announced to the inhabitants of one southern city in Gaza — where fleeing refugees from the north had been advised by the IDF to go, for safety — to evacuate at once, close to the Egyptian border. For the Israeli military was declaring the entire city a war zone.

No word on how much time the freshly cloistered Palestinian refugees had before the city's annihilation commenced. The war's empirical evidence would suggest that a reasonable period was far from uppermost in the Israeli government's mind. Domestic pressure to resume the war forthwith had been building alongside pressure to allow more time for hostage exchanges. Jingoism won out.   

Either Blinken was blinkered when he and Bibi shook hands on the secretary's demand for minimizing civilian deaths or he was simply playing the diplomatic game of infinite cynicism while surrounded by tens of thousands of at-risk human lives. After all, when Henry Kissinger died this week, the sitting U.S. secretary of state noted approvingly that the recently departed had "really set the standard for everyone who followed in this job."

Still, the responsibility for honoring the American-Israeli agreement was Netanyahu. He never had any such intention, as he and his military forces swiftly demonstrated. And for that, he has earned an especially prominent place in the history of cynical diplomacy.

Comments

[DSH]

Bibi has been damaged goods at least since July 4, 1976. That day his idolized older brother, Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, was the only Israeli soldier killed in the raid on Entebbe. I wonder how much of his bitter hatred for Palestinians stems from that loss.