Antony Blinken returned to the Middle East on Friday with a publicly declared mission of convincing Israel to use restraint in its war in Gaza and to press for humanitarian pauses. But the US secretary of state arrived with another goal as well: to start talks on what will follow the war.
The increasingly bloody conflict, now four weeks old, has refocused Washington’s attention on reviving a diplomatic process towards a settlement of the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The United States is convinced . . . and I think we are only reinforced in that conviction since October 7 that the best path, maybe even the only path . . . is two states for two peoples,” Blinken said in Tel Aviv after meeting with Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior leaders.