U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken landed in Israel this morning to visibly show U.S. support for Israel’s war on Gaza. Speaking to reporters before boarding a plane in Maryland at Joint Base Andrews, Blinken said he was heading to Israel with “a very simple and clear message on behalf of the President of the United States and on behalf of the American people, and that is that the United States has Israel’s back. We have the back of the Israeli people. We have their back today. We’ll have it tomorrow. We will have it every day,” Blinken said.
Reporters at Blinken’s departure pressed him on whether the Biden Administration is calling on Israel to exercise restraint in responding to the Hamas attacks. “We know that Israel will take all of the precautions that it can—just as we would,” he claimed. “That’s what separates us from Hamas and terrorist groups that engage in the most heinous kind of activities.”
The populations of several countries where the U.S. has carried out military operations recently might disagree with Blinken on how carefully the U.S. is regarding civilians.
