Escalation in the West Bank and Gaza.. What are Burns and Blinken proposing? Are they enough pressure on the Palestinians?

The Secretary-General of the Palestinian National Initiative Movement, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, expressed his fear that the successive visits of prominent American officials to the region aim to put pressure on the Palestinian side and on the authority that decided to stop security coordination with the occupation instead of putting pressure on the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, which is committing massacres against the Palestinians in Jenin and other areas.

CIA Director William Burns will visit Israel as part of a tour that includes talks with Israeli leaders, before moving to Ramallah to meet Palestinian political and security leaders.

The visit, which is mediated by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, is of particular importance in light of the Israeli military escalation in the West Bank and Gaza.

Barghouti said that US officials will not do anything unless their country radically changes its position, by being completely non-aligned with Israel and taking practical and specific measures against the occupation that commits massacres against the Palestinians and threatens extremist members of his government to destroy the situation in Al-Aqsa Mosque and annex the West Bank.

The guest of the episode (27/1/2023) of the “Beyond the News” program did not hide his fear that the American efforts were aimed at putting pressure on the national authority, which decided to stop security coordination with the occupation, in order for the Palestinians to stop resisting the occupation, stressing that the administration of the president American Joe Biden is continuing what former President Donald Trump did by trying to impose normalization with the Arab world at the expense of the Palestinian cause in order to marginalize it in preparation for its liquidation.

However, the Secretary-General of the National Initiative Movement stressed that the Palestinians will thwart the plans of the occupation, and will continue to resist it by relying on themselves and uniting their ranks.

Try to calm down

On the level of the American position, Joel Rubin, former deputy assistant to the Secretary of State, indicated that the successive visits of officials aim to try to calm all parties, and that the Director of Central Intelligence will clearly present "some facts" to Israel, while "violence" will be at the top of the Foreign Minister's discussions during His visit, which includes Tel Aviv, Ramallah and Cairo.

Rubin acknowledged that Burns and Blinken's visit aims to discuss the development of US relations with Israel and the Netanyahu government's vision regarding communication with the Palestinians and how it deals with the region, in addition to Tel Aviv's relationship with Ukraine.

While noting that the relationship between Washington and Tel Aviv is strong and deep and agreed upon by the Democratic and Republican parties, Rubin said that the Biden administration knows that the Netanyahu government is not committed to the issue of the two-state solution, which Washington believes is the best solution to reach peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

In response to a question about the UN Security Council session today, Friday, about developments in the region in light of the Israeli escalation in the occupied Palestinian territories, the American guest sufficed by saying, "I am sure that we will hear Washington express its concern and call for calming the two sides...".

Yesterday, the occupation forces committed a massacre in the Jenin refugee camp, in the northern West Bank, killing 9 Palestinians and wounding others.

The Gaza Strip front entered the escalation line, as Israeli fighters targeted, with a number of missiles, two sites of the Palestinian resistance in al-Maghazi refugee camp in the center of the Strip, and the vicinity of an observatory for the resistance, east of Beit Hanoun.

The Israeli raids - which were confronted by the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) - came shortly after two rockets were fired from Gaza in response to the operation carried out by the occupation army in the Jenin camp.