The Biden administration dispatched a top State Department diplomat to the Middle East “immediately” to try to de-escalate the deadly conflict between Israel and Hamas, Secretary …
The Biden administration dispatched a top State Department diplomat to the Middle East “immediately” to try to de-escalate the deadly conflict between Israel and Hamas, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Wednesday. President Joe Biden faces growing pressure to help stem the violence and heightened international alarm over the spiraling death toll. The United Nations’ special coordinator for the Middle East, Tor Wennesland, warned on Wednesday that the situation “is escalating toward full scale war.” The fighting has killed at least 53 Palestinians and seven Israelis, and Hamas and Israel continued their lethal exchange of rocket fire and airstrikes Wednesday. Fourteen Palestinian children and two Israeli children were among the dead. It’s the most severe outbreak of violence since 2014, and there’s no end in sight. “We are deeply engaged across the board,” from the State Department to the White House, Blinken said. But critics say that’s simply not true. “The Biden administration came into office with one overriding goal: Avoid Israel-Palestine,” Peter Beinart, editor at large of Jewish Currents, a left-leaning magazine, and a journalism professor at the City University of New York. He noted that when Barack Obama came into office, he quickly appointed a high-wattage special envoy, George Mitchell, to jumpstart the peace process. “Biden has given the Israeli-Palestinian file to a deputy assistant secretary of state,” Beinart wrote Wednesday in an essay on Substack, an online publishing platform. “The contrast with the Obama administration couldn’t have been starker.” Biden has not nominated an ambassador to Israel, and the Trump administration closed the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem, which had served as the White House’s main channel of communication to the Palestinians. White House press secretary Jen Psaki did not answer questions Wednesday about whether the administration will reopen that diplomatic facility.
