At Davos, Blinken calls pathway to Palestinian state a necessity for Israeli security amid Gaza war
- If Israel can be brought into the Mideast fold, Blinken said, the region would be coming together to isolate Iran, which he called the biggest security concern
- He said what is different now is the mindset of Arab and Muslim leaders on integrating Israel into the region and that he feels ‘a fierce urgency of now’
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated the need for a “pathway to a Palestinian state” Wednesday at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in the Swiss resort of Davos, saying that Israel would not “get genuine security absent that.”
If Israel can be brought into the fold of the Middle East, Blinken said, the region would be coming together to isolate Iran, which he called “the biggest concern in terms of security,” as well as its proxies, which include Yemen’s Houthi rebels who have been attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea.
“The problem is getting from here to there, and of course, it requires very difficult, challenging decisions. It requires a mindset that is open to that perspective,” Blinken said.
He said that what is different now is the mindset of leaders in the Arab and Muslim world on integrating Israel into the region and that he feels “a fierce urgency of now” because “we’re in the midst of what is human tragedy in so many ways in the Middle East right now – for the Israelis and Palestinians alike.”
His comments come as a key Iranian official graces the same hallways of the glitzy event in the Alpine snows of Davos: Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian is sitting down for a one-on-one chat with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria later on Wednesday.
A day earlier, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, said in a Davos panel that his country agreed “regional peace includes peace for Israel” and responded “certainly” when asked if Saudi Arabia would recognise Israel as part of a larger political agreement.
“But that can only happen through peace for the Palestinians, through a Palestinian state,” he said.
