President Joe Biden will focus his energy in his meeting next week with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on securing the ceasefire and hostage deal, American National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Friday afternoon during an interview at the Aspen Security Forum (ASF).
“Several weeks ago, the president went out and said to the world that there is a blueprint, a pathway to get the hostages home, a ceasefire in place, and humanitarian assistance in Gaza,” he said. “We believe there is an opportunity to get it done. Let's use next week to try to clear through those obstacles and get a deal.”
According to Sullivan, Biden said that these are going to be difficult talks requiring a lot of give and take, and back and forth.
The national advisor added that while the initial phase is six weeks, Biden said one of the terms of this framework is that if the parties are at the table with the mediators and continue to make progress, this first phase could be extended until they reach an agreement and move into phase two.
“Most of that is understood by both Israel and Hamas. There are some technical details to be worked out about the phase one to phase two sequence,” Sullivan specified. “That’s one of the issues that we have to work through in the endgame, and it’s one of the things that President Biden and I will have the chance to talk to the prime minister about.”
The White House has not yet seen a copy of the speech that Netanyahu plans to deliver this Wednesday before Congress.
Sullivan said that Washington expects his speech to be different from the one the prime minister delivered in 2015 and should reflect today’s circumstances, which are how the US and Israel are trying to “face down the terrorist threat, to coordinate together on the regional challenges that both of our countries are facing,” and how “we’re continuing to work towards the ceasefire and hostage deal.”
He said that he expects to have “productive conversations” with the Israeli government in the days before Netanyahu’s address.
Earlier in the day, during another interview at the conference, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described the ceasefire negotiations as “inside the 10-yard line and driving toward the goal line.”
“We often know the last 10 yards are often the hardest,” he added, noting the question now is finishing negotiating some critical details.
Blinken dodged the question about reports of Netanyahu deliberately sabotaging the ceasefire talks and carefully answered how he deals with the prime minister.
“I’m not focused on personalities; I’m focused on policies,” he said, which led to some laughter from the audience. “And we want to make sure as we go forward with anyone, whether it’s our Israeli allies or anyone else, that we reach agreements on the concrete steps to be taken to move whatever it is we’re trying to move forward.”
Blinken noted that what he is hearing across Israeli society is a strong desire to “get this done” and to get a ceasefire and the hostages home.
A need for two states
When asked if the future of a two-state solution was dead, Blinken replied, “Not only is it not that, it can’t be.”
However, there are fundamental realities that cannot be avoided between Gaza and the West Bank: There are over five million Palestinians and about seven million Israeli Jews, he said.
“Neither is going anywhere,” Blinken punctuated. “Palestinians are not going anywhere. Jews are not going anywhere.”
He emphasized that there must be an accommodation that brings lasting peace and security to Israelis who so desperately want and need it and fulfills the right to self-determination of the Palestinians, too.
On Iran, Blinken remarked, “Where we are now is not a good place,” as the country is likely weeks away from developing the breakout capacity of producing fissile material for a nuclear weapon, though Iran has not developed a nuclear weapon itself.
We need to see if Tehran is serious about actually pulling back, he said, adding that the Biden administration has “been maximizing pressure on Iran across the board.”