On Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered a speech at the Atlantic Council where he said Hamas has likely recruited as many fighters as it has lost in Gaza.
Before making the comments about Hamas, Blinken was disrupted by a protester who called him the “Secretary of Genocide” for his role in supporting and enabling Israel’s genocidal war.
“You will forever be known as Bloody Blinken, Secretary of Genocide, you have the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent people on your hands,” the protester yelled.
Blinken went on to criticize Israel’s strategy in Gaza despite backing it for nearly a year and a half. “We’ve long made the point to the Israeli government that Hamas cannot be defeated by a military campaign alone, that without a clear alternative, a post-conflict plan and a credible political horizon for the Palestinians, Hamas, or something just as abhorrent and dangerous, will grow back,” Blinken said.
He noted that Israel was still facing resistance in northern Gaza. “That’s exactly what’s happened in northern Gaza since October 7. Each time Israel completes its military operations and pulls back Hamas, militants regroup and reemerge because there’s nothing else to fill the void,” he said.
Blinken said the US assesses “that Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost. That is a recipe for an enduring insurgency and perpetual war.”
Back in November 2023, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the highest ranking US military officer, warned that Israel’s killing of so many civilians would create more Hamas members. Despite Brown recognizing this reality, the US continued to provide huge amounts of military aid to Israel to support the slaughter.
According to The Times of Israel, Israel assesses that it has killed 18,000 Hamas fighters, although Israeli media has revealed the IDF frequently kills unarmed civilians and counts them as “terrorists.”
Blinken’s address at the Atlantic Council came amid reports that a hostage and ceasefire deal is close. Since May 2024, Hamas has said it was ready to accept a ceasefire deal proposed by President Biden, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly sabotaged negotiations, a fact widely acknowledged by Israeli officials. But Blinken is still pushing the narrative that the lack of a ceasefire was Hamas’s fault.
“For the past several months, Hamas has played the spoiler, but over the past several weeks, our intensive efforts have brought us to the brink of a final agreement,” Blinken said.
According to Israeli media, the difference made in recent days was the pressure President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming Middle East envoy put on Netanyahu, not anything Blinken or anyone else in the Biden administration did.
