Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday called out other countries for not demanding Hamas surrender.
“What is striking to me is that even as, again, we hear many countries urging the end to this conflict, which we would all like to see, I hear virtually no one saying – demanding of Hamas that it stop hiding behind civilians, that it lay down its arms, that it surrender. This is over tomorrow if Hamas does that. This would have been over a month ago, six weeks ago, if Hamas had done that,” Blinken said during a press briefing at the State Department Wednesday.
“How can it be that there are no demands made of the aggressor and only demands made of the victim,” Blinken went on to say.
The strong comments from Blinken come as the United Nations Security Council continues to negotiate a resolution calling for a suspension in fighting and encouraging more humanitarian aid into the beleaguered Gaza Strip, and as the United States’ support for the resolution remains unresolved.
To analogize with another ongoing conflict: the Ukrainian war could be over tomorrow if Ukraine unconditionally surrendered to Russia, but they’re sure as fuck not going to do that, nor should they.
Also, to be clear: I am absolutely not saying that Hamas are the good guys here. They are definitely not the good guys. But addressing an incredibly complex and nuanced situation in such a reductive fashion (“Hamas should surrender unconditionally right now”) is deeply unhelpful, and ignores why Hamas came into being in the first place, and why they further developed into such a threatening force in the region.
Can you link me to the part where Ukraine fired thousands of rockets at Russian cities and started a war by raping and murdering a thousand innocent people?
You are intentionally misrepresenting what I said.
Hamas should surrender unconditionally because there is a 0% chance of them winning this war and a negligible chance of them surviving this war.
That’s when you surrender.
You don’t appear to understand how terrorist organizations work.