“As I've noted in the past, our focus and our strategy here is to work through quiet, intensive diplomacy,” she said on a press gaggle aboard Air Force One. “He's been doing this long enough to know that the best way to end an international conflict is typically not to debate it in public. So we will continue to remain closely engaged behind the scenes,” Psaki added. “There's been more than 60 calls, including three calls the president had with Prime Minister Netanyahu.”
“We see it as an ongoing behind the scenes discussion with our partners in Israel, with the Palestinian leader, with leaders in the region about how we can bring an end to the conflict,” she continued. “We also fully recognize it is up to the parties involved to bring an end to the conflict. And our objective is to every statement we make; Every action we take; Everything we sign onto is going to have that objective in mind.”
She went on to say that, “sometimes, diplomacy needs to happen behind the scenes. It needs to be quiet and we don't read out every component and we don't read out every specific conversation we have with our partners.”
“We continue to believe that Israel has the right to defend itself,” Psaki added. “There've been more than 3,000 rocket attacks from Hamas, and more overnight into Israel. Civilians have lost their lives. Civilians have Palestinian civilians have also lost their lives. And our goal is to get to the end of this conflict. We're going to evaluate day by day with the right approaches.”