‘We All Want Peace’: Dean Phillips Defends Blinken Against ‘Shameful’ Criticism About War In Gaza

5 months ago

During a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing last week, Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) questioned Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the war in Gaza.

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00:00 The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Phillips for five minutes.

00:05 Thank you, Madam Chair. Welcome, Mr. Secretary. Let me start by defending you, the overwhelming

00:12 majority of those of us on this committee, in this entire Congress, Americans, Jews,

00:17 Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, agnostics around the world, even Israelis and Palestinians,

00:23 which is to say we're all disgusted. We all want peace. We do not want war. We want prosperity.

00:29 Not misery. And to accuse any of us, including you, of being butchers or ignorant is shameful.

00:37 And I want to remind those protesting you have that right, because this is America,

00:42 but you can't make peace with terrorists. And we probably can't make peace as long as

00:48 Benjamin Netanyahu is the prime minister of Israel. I think those two things can be true

00:52 at once. But I want to remind everybody here that we're in this business to make peace,

00:58 not war. And that's what I want to focus on, not bombs, but peace. And say, too, that one

01:04 child being murdered is too many, whether that's in a school here in the United States

01:08 because of sickening gun violence, whether it's a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv, or whether

01:13 it is a bomb in Gaza. One is too many. Mr. Secretary, where do we go from here? A lot

01:21 of the questions have been retrospective about holds and bombs and missiles and support.

01:26 Where do we go from here? 75 years of misery. You have one of the hardest jobs in the world.

01:30 I know where your heart is. What happens next? And what do we need to do to finally end this

01:36 nonsense, identify a path to peace and prosperity and mutual security?

01:41 I appreciate your comments, Congressman. And I would say that I think there is a clear

01:44 path. And the clear path goes with the following. One is there is an extraordinary opportunity

01:51 for Israel to achieve what it has sought from the day of its founding. And that is acceptance

01:55 by its neighbors to be – to have normal relations with all the countries in the region,

02:02 starting with Saudi Arabia. And we've been working intensely on that normalization process.

02:07 And we are very close to being able to complete the agreements necessary between us and Saudi

02:11 Arabia. But then it will require Israel to make decisions about Gaza and ending the conflict

02:17 there, as well as creating a credible pathway to a Palestinian state. If that happens, then

02:25 Israel will get what it has long sought, which is, again, acceptance in the region. It will

02:30 have partners who will be looking out for it, as we saw on April 13th and April 14th,

02:34 when countries in the region, because of the United States, came to its defense against

02:38 this unprecedented attack by Iran. Its number one threat, and one that we face as well,

02:44 Iran will be isolated. And of course, the resolution finally of the Palestinian problem

02:52 can be achieved in ways that guarantee Israel's security. The bottom line is you have roughly

02:58 five million Palestinians between the West Bank and Gaza, roughly seven million Jews

03:02 in Israel. Neither is going away. The Palestinians aren't going anywhere. The Jews are not

03:07 going anywhere. There has to be an accommodation. Absent that accommodation, we are in for an

03:12 endless repeat of this cycle. We will always do everything we can to make sure that Israel

03:19 can defend itself and defend Israel as necessary. But this path forward is clear, it's compelling,

03:26 and it answers Israel's most profound needs. So I hope we can move down it.

03:32 Is it fair to say that, based on your experience and the basic human condition, that when humans

03:37 have something to protect, they act defensively, not offensively? Is one of the paths to peace

03:43 that Israelis, we Americans, Palestinians, the Arab world should understand and recognize

03:48 the Gulf states, that people need something to protect?

03:51 Yes, when you have something to protect, when you have something that you take pride in,

03:56 then of course, that's what you want to do.

03:58 I'm the ranking member of the Middle East Subcommittee, of course, with my dear friend

04:01 Chairman Wilson. We traveled to the Middle East last in August. Of course, a lot has

04:05 changed since then. Been to Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel twice. A lot has changed, of

04:11 course. But my question is relative to the PA. Why is this not more of a focal point

04:17 right now? We can't make peace with Hamas. What do we need to do? What does Israel need

04:21 to do? What can we do to at least identify a potentially principled leadership group

04:28 to represent Palestinians at a table, knowing absent that, there is no path?

04:32 Well, look, I agree with that. In the category of you can't beat something with nothing,

04:38 one of the answers to durably getting rid of Hamas and making sure it can never come

04:44 back again is to have a real alternative, one that can actually advance the interests

04:49 of the Palestinian people, not destroy them as Hamas has done.

04:51 And I only have a few seconds left.

04:53 Please.

04:54 Is Abu Mazen the man, or are there other able, competent, next generation of Palestinians?

05:00 We have a new, there's a new Prime Minister, there's a new government, there's a new program

05:03 to get it reformed, to deal with corruption. We've engaged with the new Prime Minister.

05:07 He's a serious individual who's trying, but he also needs the resources necessary so that

05:12 the PA can deliver more effectively for the people it represents.

05:15 Thank you for sharing my sentiment. With that, I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

05:17 The gentleman has yielded back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee,

05:21 Mr. Burchett, for five minutes.

‘We All Want Peace’: Dean Phillips Defends Blinken Against ‘Shameful’ Criticism About War In Gaza

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