Blinken spitting into the wind as peace talks falter

Mhammad Amin

US foreign minister Anthony Blinken emerged from talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with “a new peace deal” that he urged Hamas Monday night to accept.

Instead, Hamas Tuesday accused the two of “merely buying time for Israel to continue its genocide” and appealed to the world to pressure the genocide duo to honour the last peace deal agreed to on May 31 and approved by the UN Security Council on June 11.

Israeli prime minister Benjami Netanyahu had, as predicted, tried to introduce new terms to the deal in the latest offering Blinken has thrown on the table. Hamas said it sees no purpose in agreeing to this latest deal if Israel is not going to be forced to stand by the terms.

And, as predicted, US President Joe Biden did not stand by his promise last week to “hold Netanyahu accountable” for the deal’s failure. Instead, the US has relented and allowed Netanyahu to introduce even more “conditions”.

Netanyahu, in the latest burnt offering, wants to keep control of the Netzarim corridor that bifurcates Gaza in the middle, the Rafah border crossing and the Philadelphi Corridor that borders Egypt.

“This is a decisive moment – probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to get the [Israeli] hostages home, to get a ceasefire and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security,” Blinken said.

But only voters in the US were listening.

And the genocide continued

Meanwhile, Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi warned the risk of regional war expanding was “difficult to imagine”.

Egypt’s former foreign minister Hussein Haridy told Al Jazeera Egypt would not budge on the Philadelphi Corridor:

“Egypt has always rejected the permanent Israeli military presence in the Philadelphi Corridor as well as Israeli control over Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing,” Haridy said.

However, Middle East Eye reported on Friday Egypt was willing to allow Israel some measure of “operational control” of the corridor, on condition Palestinians kept control of the Rafah border crossing.

Of the 251 hostages taken on October 7, little over 100 remain and only 71 of them are believed to still be alive. Of the 71, 64 are Israelis.