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00:00 What can we expect to see come out of Blinken's visit to the Middle East, his fifth since the
00:06 7th of October? Because it seems like the ball is now in Hamas's court whether this
00:12 truce deal goes ahead or not, doesn't it? Good afternoon. I think there are many balls
00:18 that are juggled at the moment. It's one has to deal, of course, with the war in Gaza and
00:24 bringing truce and the release of the hostages and moving to more humanitarian aid into Gaza.
00:31 But there are other balls as we speak, whether it's the attacks by the Houthis,
00:36 whether what happens with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the attack versus transnational
00:43 organization. So there's a lot of things just to reduce the tension, to prevent. We are already
00:53 in the midst of a conflict just to try to de-escalate it. And one major issue there
01:01 is to bring as quickly as possible a truce between Hamas and Israel. Whether it is achievable at
01:09 this visit or another visit, it's a good question. But the visit to Saudi Arabia,
01:13 the visit to Egypt and Qatar is to bring on board all these countries that, A, don't want to see
01:20 further escalation, B, as they influence on Hamas to speed up their consideration of what's on the
01:28 table. Yossi, yes, of course, Anthony Blinken will have to dial down the regional tensions,
01:33 given, as you said, what we've seen with the Houthis and Iran-backed militias in the past
01:38 few days. But also another factor which he may not be able to control is far-right members of
01:45 the Israeli government who could potentially torpedo this truce deal, even though it was
01:51 negotiated here in Paris by intelligence officials, including the head of Mossad.
01:58 So how can you explain that? Well, this is another complexity, a massive one, for the United States
02:06 actually to reign into this far-right in Israel. And the first sign of it came when the Biden
02:13 administration imposed sanctions on four settlers that were involved in settler terrorism in the
02:22 West Bank. And we saw the reaction from one of the banks, for instance, is immediately to comply
02:28 with that, which shows the kind of the leverage that the United States has vis-a-vis Israel,
02:33 whether it's diplomatic or economic or military, in order to reign into the far-right. And the
02:40 problem is not just the far-right. I think sometimes the far-right is becoming a distraction.
02:44 The problem is Netanyahu himself. He is the one that legitimizes the far-right. He's the one that
02:50 brought them into government. He is the one that doesn't fire them while they're actually getting
02:55 Israel no sort of problem from the Hague. So what we see the tensions with the U.S.
03:03 So it is the challenge for the Biden administration to use all the kind of
03:10 the leverage that they have in order to make this agreement possible.
03:16 Because you're right. At the end of the day, Prime Minister Netanyahu is the one who technically is
03:23 calling the shots in Israel, even though we've seen him say things that fly in the face of what
03:29 the United States wants, like things like he doesn't want to see a Palestinian state in the
03:35 aftermath of this war, even though you'll see it's been nearly four months that Israel's offensive
03:40 has continued. The army has pretty much decimated the enclave. Yet the goal of eliminating Hamas
03:51 is far from achieved. So doesn't that domestic pressure to strike a deal and do whatever it
03:57 takes to bring those hostages home weigh on the prime minister, or is it just about staying in
04:01 power? To be honest, in an ideal world, Netanyahu would not have been right now the prime minister.
04:08 He's a massive failure on October 7th. The months that led to it and the attack on the
04:15 Israeli democracy and the way he conducts the war is not fit to be a prime minister
04:21 anymore and he should be replaced. But there are constitutional arrangements in Israel and
04:25 without election or changing coalition, it's not going to happen. So something has to happen
04:31 within the Israeli political system. But no doubt in my mind, he is the bottleneck in Israel
04:38 politics and as a result of it, in the way it conducts the war in Gaza that got Israel in deep
04:43 trouble on the international arena and also bringing to an end, because he in many ways
04:50 has personal interest in prolonging it. Because if he's not prime minister anymore, then he
04:55 facing the corruption trial without the power of being in the prime minister office. And that's
05:03 again, one of the complexities here that we could see that's coming on many other issues. But that's
05:11 why the United States is so crucial in bringing this truth and putting the pressure where pressure
05:17 is needed. Speaking of pressure, one of the things Anthony Blinken will be trying to apply pressure
05:22 on is getting more aid into Gaza. I don't understand how it's been months and the U.S.
05:30 has been talking about getting more humanitarian aid into Gaza. Israel seems to be dragging its
05:35 foot on this point. They've even managed to successfully halt funding to UNRWA over these
05:41 allegations that 12 members were involved in these attacks. We obviously don't know what those
05:48 allegations really entail until those findings come out at the start of March. But how do you
05:54 explain that Israel has been able to successfully hamper aid coming into the enclave despite
06:01 pressure from the international community, despite repeated messages from the U.S. President Joe
06:06 Biden, from the U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken? I think we should put order with some
06:12 humanitarian aid. Definitely not enough is entering into Gaza as we speak. But there is a
06:19 need for much more aid to enter and not to be blocked. There is another need, which is that
06:26 Hamas won't control the aid there and the aid will end in the hands of the people that need it
06:32 desperately in Gaza. Thirdly, the attack on UNRWA. Without disputing that 12 people were involved in
06:40 that terrorist attack, let's assume that it's correct. There is no need as a result of it
06:46 to defend UNRWA that under the most difficult of circumstances still provides basic humanitarian
06:54 help to 2.3 million people, 1.37 million Gazans that are displaced. So I think that's exactly
07:02 where all this activity should move into this direction that involves truce, exchange of
07:09 hostages for prisoners and massive humanitarian aid for a prolonged time entering into Gaza.
07:16 Yossi, we're going to have to leave it there. Thank you very much for joining
07:20 us on the program today, Yossi Mechelberg, joining us there from London.