Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be traveling to Israel and Jordan beginning on Friday, Nov. 3, where he will stress U.S. support for Israel and try to prevent a wider war in Southwest Asia. “He wants to talk about preventing the conflict from spreading. He wants to talk about the ability to get hostages back,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters yesterday. Blinken “will talk directly with the Israeli government, as he has previously, as the President has previously, about our expectation that ... in conducting this military campaign, that they do it—do so in full compliance with international humanitarian law and the laws of war, and we will be very direct about that.”
“We have made quite clear to the government of Israel that we are very concerned about settler violence in the West Bank,” Miller said. Of some note, he explained: “We find it incredibly destabilizing. We find it counterproductive to Israel’s long-term security, in addition to, of course, being extremely harmful to the Palestinians living in the West Bank…. And we have sent a very clear message to them that it’s unacceptable, it needs to stop, and those responsible for it need to be held accountable.” (Since Oct. 7, over 100 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, in an increasingly lawless situation.)
